I've got these friends, a bunch of retired 'older' gentlemen like myself, who meet for breakfast every week to keep in touch and have a good time catching up. It's a strage bunch, and we've not been life long friends, but rather met each other at the shop of one William Moran, known as Bill to his friends. Bill was the catalyst for bringing together a strange brew of people, who liked to hang out at his shop for a wide variety of reasons. Bill was a very widely read man, and was interested in a great number of subjects, both for collecting and just research for the mental exersise of it. But of course, knives were the prime ingreadient of what brought us together in the first place.
Now Bill was a very traditinal person. He very often spoke of regret in being born in the 20th century, and his love of all things old timey was legion. Old guns, old knives, old pocket watches, you get the idea. His hunting rifle was an 1843 Purdey .75 caliber rifle. Loaded with a nice big round ball from the muzzle, he got a deer on a friends farm with one shot right through the neck at 90 yards. He shot it in the neck, because it was standing behind a bush, and the head and neck was the only part in clear sight. Bill could make that old Purdey talk.
But Bill really loved old style pocket knives. Even though he made knives that collectors would fight to the death over, he was always on the hunt for an interesting old knife. Or old style knife. Carbon steel and some kind of traditional handle material. I think I must have seen him with at least a half a dozen different style knives over the years I knew him. For a very long time, he carried a stag handle old Hen and Rooster made back when the Bertram cousins were still running the show. Bill, ever the showman for his knives, always had a small sheath knife of his own making hanging on his hip, but when he had to cut something, he'd use the knife in his pocket. Never did really figure that out. But the one thing Bill had to have, was apointy blade. Bill was insistant
that a pocket knife have a fine point. Another knife Bill had that he liked a lot, was an ld Case whittler. Bill also played with Opinel's and made some with his trademark silver wire inlay on them.
After Bill passed away from colon cancer, the people who had come to know each other from hanging out at the shop, made a vow that we'd still keep in touch and get together each week for breakfast. Sometimes we have a weekday trip out for the boys, like going over to the N.R.A. firearms museum, or a guys move like a western or war movie like Letters From Iwo Jima. But each week at breakfast, we show off any new pocket knives or guns, or whatever collectables we may have picked up. I've noticed that our taste in guns and knives would be common place in the 1800's.
One fella, Jack, is definately a misplaced cowboy. His favorite rifle is a Sharps 45-70 set up like a Quigly rifle. Jack does go out hunting in Colorado and Wyoming, and has bagged game with his Sharpes. I noticed at breakfast one morning, while trying to open the little packet of jelly for his toast, and finally loosing patience when the tab tore off, he fished out a nice Boker trapper with the imitation tortise shell scales. Somehow that seemed like a good symetry with the single shot sharps.
Then there's Chet. Chet like all things from the old days, and even gave me a bit of instruction in flint knapping. The single stone flake is getting really back to basics. Chet has shown up with some traditional pocket knives by Rough Rider, and I have to admit, they don't look half bad. Red bone in the most part, athough I've seen Chet show up with an occasional stag handle on something that a working cowpoke from the 1880's would recognize. A barlow, a large single blade jack, and a red bone sodbuster has shown up at the breakfast table, along with whatever flint or obsidian small neck knife that may be hanging off Chet. He likes neck knives, and his would be recognized by Otsi the iceman. His flaking is equisite, and the beautiful scalloped edges are razor sharp. Traditional 5'000 years ago.
Hoppy is the oldest member of our breakfast club. He claims to be an old aircraft mechanic from when they still used Avenger torpedo planes like former Pressident Bush was shot down in. Frankly, we don't believe him, we think that when Hoppy was in the navy, they still had sails on the ships. When we tell him that he tells us some very rude things. All in jest I trust. But Hoppy is the perfect example of the old guy with the skinny bladed pen knife. He's got this old Case pen knife, the one with the single back spring and a blade at each end. Or what used to be blades at each end. It does have some very worn smooth old brownish bone handles with the jigging a mere trace of what used to be there. At each end is a very sharp steel toothpick. I think they were once blades, but that may well have been when Hoppy was on the Constitution fighting the British.
Hoppy is a pipe smoker like me, and that in fact was the basis of his friendship with Bill Moran. Bill and I would go to pipe shows in the Washinton D.C. area and Richmond Virginia, and when Hoppy came into Bill's shop for the first time, he was smoking a nice old Boswell pipe. We got to talking, and soon Hoppy was part of our pipe club. Hoppy has a pipe tool he carries, but sometimes it gets forgotten, so the old penknife stands in. Hoppy will poke around and loosen up the old ashes to dump, and one of us will inevitably poke fun at his sharpened toothpick. He admitted that he has a couple of brand new pocket knives at home, but this one is still usable for a while longer. Hoppy is one of those depression era guys who tells us 'kids' at the breakfast table that we didn't have to live through the depression. He tells us how he had to walk 10 miles in the Michigan winters to a job that barely paid enough for a can of beans a loaf of bread and it was all uphill, both ways. I don't think Hoppy will ever get rid of that of two bladed toothpick.
Don is a fixed blade guy. As long as I've known him, he always has an old Case little finn or some other old sheath knife on his left hip. He has a good reason to go with a modern one hand knife, as his right arm ends a few inches above his right elbow. Don says the last time he saw his right hand, it was by the side of a rice paddy. A bullet from an AK hit him just above the elbow and bone exploded like a bomb. The medic got him pumped full of morphine, and cut away the few shreds of mussle and tissue still there and got him on a medivac. So Don carries a nice sheath knife everywhere he goes. Only one time he got hastled, a security type saw him from his left side, and came over and started to give him a hard time. Don turned and faced the guy, and when the security type saw the stump in the shirt sleeve, he apoligized all over the place. Don is amazing to watch, as his skill in manouvering things with one hand is awe inspiring. But sometimes he just needs a sharp edge, and the little finn works for him. Don also has a few small custom made sheath knives, and a Buck Hartsook he uses.
Another member of our breakfast club is a guy named Bill. He has, as long as I've known him to carry a muskrat. He likes the versitlity of having a long blade at each end of the knife. Simpe yet very servicable. His knife of choice is an old Buck that has seen a couple decades of use, but is still going. I think Bill is one of those guys who will use a knife untill theres nothing left of it.
Once in a while another Bill joins us, and thats the Bill thats a proffesional trapper and hunting guide. I wrote about him in a past post, and nobody has ever seen him with anything other than a Case yellow sodbuster junior. Bill is so wedded to the pattern, that when his old soddie was getting very worn, he went out and bought another little yellow sodbuster and now carried the two of them. Bill is a two sodbuster man. They seem to work for him.
A bunch of old farts and thier pocket knives at a breakfast table.
Now Bill was a very traditinal person. He very often spoke of regret in being born in the 20th century, and his love of all things old timey was legion. Old guns, old knives, old pocket watches, you get the idea. His hunting rifle was an 1843 Purdey .75 caliber rifle. Loaded with a nice big round ball from the muzzle, he got a deer on a friends farm with one shot right through the neck at 90 yards. He shot it in the neck, because it was standing behind a bush, and the head and neck was the only part in clear sight. Bill could make that old Purdey talk.
But Bill really loved old style pocket knives. Even though he made knives that collectors would fight to the death over, he was always on the hunt for an interesting old knife. Or old style knife. Carbon steel and some kind of traditional handle material. I think I must have seen him with at least a half a dozen different style knives over the years I knew him. For a very long time, he carried a stag handle old Hen and Rooster made back when the Bertram cousins were still running the show. Bill, ever the showman for his knives, always had a small sheath knife of his own making hanging on his hip, but when he had to cut something, he'd use the knife in his pocket. Never did really figure that out. But the one thing Bill had to have, was apointy blade. Bill was insistant
that a pocket knife have a fine point. Another knife Bill had that he liked a lot, was an ld Case whittler. Bill also played with Opinel's and made some with his trademark silver wire inlay on them.
After Bill passed away from colon cancer, the people who had come to know each other from hanging out at the shop, made a vow that we'd still keep in touch and get together each week for breakfast. Sometimes we have a weekday trip out for the boys, like going over to the N.R.A. firearms museum, or a guys move like a western or war movie like Letters From Iwo Jima. But each week at breakfast, we show off any new pocket knives or guns, or whatever collectables we may have picked up. I've noticed that our taste in guns and knives would be common place in the 1800's.
One fella, Jack, is definately a misplaced cowboy. His favorite rifle is a Sharps 45-70 set up like a Quigly rifle. Jack does go out hunting in Colorado and Wyoming, and has bagged game with his Sharpes. I noticed at breakfast one morning, while trying to open the little packet of jelly for his toast, and finally loosing patience when the tab tore off, he fished out a nice Boker trapper with the imitation tortise shell scales. Somehow that seemed like a good symetry with the single shot sharps.
Then there's Chet. Chet like all things from the old days, and even gave me a bit of instruction in flint knapping. The single stone flake is getting really back to basics. Chet has shown up with some traditional pocket knives by Rough Rider, and I have to admit, they don't look half bad. Red bone in the most part, athough I've seen Chet show up with an occasional stag handle on something that a working cowpoke from the 1880's would recognize. A barlow, a large single blade jack, and a red bone sodbuster has shown up at the breakfast table, along with whatever flint or obsidian small neck knife that may be hanging off Chet. He likes neck knives, and his would be recognized by Otsi the iceman. His flaking is equisite, and the beautiful scalloped edges are razor sharp. Traditional 5'000 years ago.
Hoppy is the oldest member of our breakfast club. He claims to be an old aircraft mechanic from when they still used Avenger torpedo planes like former Pressident Bush was shot down in. Frankly, we don't believe him, we think that when Hoppy was in the navy, they still had sails on the ships. When we tell him that he tells us some very rude things. All in jest I trust. But Hoppy is the perfect example of the old guy with the skinny bladed pen knife. He's got this old Case pen knife, the one with the single back spring and a blade at each end. Or what used to be blades at each end. It does have some very worn smooth old brownish bone handles with the jigging a mere trace of what used to be there. At each end is a very sharp steel toothpick. I think they were once blades, but that may well have been when Hoppy was on the Constitution fighting the British.
Hoppy is a pipe smoker like me, and that in fact was the basis of his friendship with Bill Moran. Bill and I would go to pipe shows in the Washinton D.C. area and Richmond Virginia, and when Hoppy came into Bill's shop for the first time, he was smoking a nice old Boswell pipe. We got to talking, and soon Hoppy was part of our pipe club. Hoppy has a pipe tool he carries, but sometimes it gets forgotten, so the old penknife stands in. Hoppy will poke around and loosen up the old ashes to dump, and one of us will inevitably poke fun at his sharpened toothpick. He admitted that he has a couple of brand new pocket knives at home, but this one is still usable for a while longer. Hoppy is one of those depression era guys who tells us 'kids' at the breakfast table that we didn't have to live through the depression. He tells us how he had to walk 10 miles in the Michigan winters to a job that barely paid enough for a can of beans a loaf of bread and it was all uphill, both ways. I don't think Hoppy will ever get rid of that of two bladed toothpick.
Don is a fixed blade guy. As long as I've known him, he always has an old Case little finn or some other old sheath knife on his left hip. He has a good reason to go with a modern one hand knife, as his right arm ends a few inches above his right elbow. Don says the last time he saw his right hand, it was by the side of a rice paddy. A bullet from an AK hit him just above the elbow and bone exploded like a bomb. The medic got him pumped full of morphine, and cut away the few shreds of mussle and tissue still there and got him on a medivac. So Don carries a nice sheath knife everywhere he goes. Only one time he got hastled, a security type saw him from his left side, and came over and started to give him a hard time. Don turned and faced the guy, and when the security type saw the stump in the shirt sleeve, he apoligized all over the place. Don is amazing to watch, as his skill in manouvering things with one hand is awe inspiring. But sometimes he just needs a sharp edge, and the little finn works for him. Don also has a few small custom made sheath knives, and a Buck Hartsook he uses.
Another member of our breakfast club is a guy named Bill. He has, as long as I've known him to carry a muskrat. He likes the versitlity of having a long blade at each end of the knife. Simpe yet very servicable. His knife of choice is an old Buck that has seen a couple decades of use, but is still going. I think Bill is one of those guys who will use a knife untill theres nothing left of it.
Once in a while another Bill joins us, and thats the Bill thats a proffesional trapper and hunting guide. I wrote about him in a past post, and nobody has ever seen him with anything other than a Case yellow sodbuster junior. Bill is so wedded to the pattern, that when his old soddie was getting very worn, he went out and bought another little yellow sodbuster and now carried the two of them. Bill is a two sodbuster man. They seem to work for him.
A bunch of old farts and thier pocket knives at a breakfast table.
Always a good read. Thanks.
