Sat down with a tactical knife friend yesterday and was listening to him put down the little peanut, said it was too small, not strong enough and so forth.
I used to think like that when I was a younger man, a very long time ago. I used to look at my dad's knife and think it was just a little thing, only suited for an office pen knife for a suit wearing guy. I liked bigger, stronger knives.
Now I know different. Like Scott said, a knife is a cutting tool first and formost. In the course of a normal day, what do we cut that needs much more than a 2 inch blade? Aside from attacks by zombi's, dropping in enemy territory, or surviving in a hostile environment, a small sharp cutting tool can do most things if one is careful. It took me a long time of watching dad get by with that little pint size knife, but as I aged, I came to realize a peanut is like alot of things that get underestimated because of it's size.
Maybe it's the little knife that can. After all, how long is the blade on a Stanley utility knife?
When I think back on all the things I've done with a knife, I think a peanut would have handled about 95% of it all. The other percent, I'd have needed alot more, or another type of tool altogether. Like a hatchet or machete.
I know that in today's world, things have to be bigger and better. The family car has been replaced by 4000 pound plus SUV's, personel protection guns have to be some wonder auto with at least a dozen rounds on tap or a fire belching magnum. Yet our grandfathers got by with a .22 rifle and a single shot 16 gauge. If they had a handgun, it was some run of the mill low tech .38 revolver.
I've read some interesting autobiographys and biographys. Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WW2 had a hardscrable dirt poor childhood. His father ran out on the family when he was just a little kid, and at age 12, young Audie was hunting with a.22 rifle to help feed hs family durring the black depression years. He talked how he'd take anything up to a deer with that old .22. Then field dress it with his small pocket knife.
Chuck Yeager was another hero of mine. In his book "Yeager" he makes mention of the little pen knife he carried during the war. When he was shot down over occupied France, and the the Resistance got him aimed toward the Spanish border, he lugged along a young crewmen from a B-17. The young airmen had suffered a massive wound to his leg, and while fleeing up one side of the Pyreness mountians he amputated what was left of the mans leg with his "pen knife". In his later book, "Press On." a look at all his hunting and fishing expliots with his best friend, especially his 2 week backpacking expeditions inot the Sierra Nevada mountains, he mentions his Victorinox executive as his only knife. Now this is a West Virginia mountain boy used to huntin up in the hills.
This past winter, Karen and I went down to the Smithsonian museum in Washington, where they had an exhibit of exact relica's of the Icemans gear. You know, the frozen guy from 5000 years ago they found preserved in a glacer on the Austria-Italy border. His cutting tools were a copper hatchet and a flint knife. The flint knife was a small 2 inch bladed little thing with a ash handle secured by a sinew wrap. I'll bet he skinned all kinds of game with that little 2 inch blade.
What does this have to do with a 'nut?
The peanut, for it's size gives one alot of blade for such a small tool. If one is careful, it will do most of what you have to do. If the afor mentioned men got by with a "pen knife" and they were alot more experianced outdoorsmen that most keyboard comando's, I guess I can muddle by with one. I've heard the not big enough, not strong enough comments. Yes, it's too small to be a good ham carver, bread knife, or survival knife if survival included lumber operations like chopping down trees and batoning 8 inch logs. But then, how often do we do that on a day to day basis.
I think a peanut, like the little trapper, tiny toothpick, Eisenhour pen, or butterbean, is for a man who is making a fair judgement of what he's really going to do in the course of his day. It fills a nitch for a compact pocket cutting tool that doesn't loose sight of just that; a compact cutting tool. If you just like a bigger knife, well that fine. Knives are like ice cream; some like rocky road, other like chocolate chip, while some like plain vanilla. Likes. We all have different ones. Some will like a 4 1/4 inch large stockman, other will go for a 3 3/8 barlow. Some of us just like a smaller little knife that disappears in the pocket, but still will get the job done. Peanuts aren't for anyone. But they do work well for most things.
still I am interested because Im not getting younger and I believe this to be the perfect pattern for an old fart.
