In many cases, me included in that, it is a emotional connection. A connection to a simpler time where the gray area was much much more narrow and the black and white areas were much much broader. There was right and wrong and people were held to a higher standard. To me, the simple slip joint represents a time where people did amazing things like survive a Great Depression and fight a world war, then come home and become delivery truck drivers, store managers, construction workers, office personal, and even teachers. They didn't make a big deal out of things, and just went about life no matter if it was good or bad.
I've watched the birth and growth of the 'new' modern one hand wonder knives and the tactical gun thing with a very jaundiced eye. I admit to being prejudiced against a lot of the 'new and improved moue traps' that have been brought out. I see them much as fishing lures that have nothing to do with catching fish, as much as catching the dollar bills out of the Fishermans pocket.
Maybe growing up around men like my Uncle Charlie who waded ashore at Normandy, or my Uncle Mike who got a PT boat shot out from under him in the English Channel had an influence on me. Uncle Charles carried his old Camillus TL-29 his whole life. My Uncle Mike carried his navy issued Camillus stockman until all three blades were worn down to pointy toothpicks. These men were the hero to me, and they had a huge influence on what I did and what I used.
Yeah, I guess when I look at an old jack or pen, or Barlow, I think of a time past that seemed better in many ways than now. An emotional trigger.
Jackknife I've always enjoyed your musings. I'm 'only' 45 and despite growing up in a culture (the UK) which is quite different to the US there are many things you say that resonate with me and my childhood.
Maybe because my parents were quite old when they had me, but I grew up surrounded by people who were old enough to me my grandparents. I also spent a lot of time on my grandads farm and my dad was farmer until I was about 6. You were never bored, there was always a 'job' to be done and you were expected to get on with it. If not, you just got turfed out into the fields so you didn't annoy grandad.
I agree with what you say about 'the greatest generation'. My own mother grew up in Liverpool in WWII. Despite all the alternate history rubbish bandied about these days many children were not evacuated from British cities during WWII, so she lived right through the 'Blitz' of Liverpool. Whole neighbourhoods were wiped from the map. Then next morning they got up, my mum went to school and her mum went to pack parachutes. Life carried on I guess.
It's interesting to read about all the old poachers and hunters who lived real hard lives. My grandad's farmhouse kitchen was just like it. A constant stream of chaps who led ordinary lives but who had done extraordinary things. Len Pfeiffer was the landlord of the pub next door, but had served as one of Orde Wingate's Chindits in Burma in 1942/43. Harry Baxter, a real gentleman, three insertions into northern France with SOE, and then parachuted into Normandy before D-Day as a member of one of the Jedburgh teams. Wilf Taylor, sniper at Monte Cristo in Italy. My own grandad (actually my mum's step-dad) flew Lancaster and Blenheim bombers in Europe, Italy and the Far East. And then there was a chap called Syd Taylor who'd spent ?2 years on the Railroad of Death in Burma as a POW.
So maybe it's all the above, but I certainly understand and completely agree with what you say about modern society. How it just doesn't compare with what came before; where standing on the shoulders of giants. My best mate thinks I was born 40 years to late, but it's just because we had wildly different upbringings. I was bought up by people who'd flown bombing runs over Berlin (and contrary to what some have said on here talked openly about it), he was bought up by the free-love generation.
This is my dad's pocket knife. He did own other knives but they lived in a draw; it was this one Richard's camp knife that saw him through 39 years of farming, living with the Bedouin for 6 months in the Egyptian desert, evading Syrian border guards who were trying to kill him, one marriage, four kids two houses. All without a single complaint.
Finally I like what you say about the modern mousetrap. There is a belief in modern society that because we have the internet, smartphones and 50inch tv's that somehow were better. An improvement on what's come before. But that's not true is it. All these 'modern' conveniences we've all been conned into thinking are vital to modern existence have actually made ours lives more complex. I think of automobiles, computers, automated call centres, internet banking, chip n pin cards.....
So I was surprised to learn that someone has quantified this. I'd never heard of it but I always wondered if there was actual name for it.
Hutber's Law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutber's_law
Buncha wusses. 