What about Ed?

Rick Baum

Rick Baum

Joined
Mar 14, 2000
Messages
509
O.K., I just got my latest edition of Blade Magazine, and as usual, I found myself searching the index for Ed Fowler's Knife Talk. Of course, I turned the pages and began reading until I had read the whole article. It doesn't seem to matter if the phone is ringing or the baby is crying because my wife is home and she knows that I have something very important to do. (It's nice to have such an understanding wife) Is it just me or do other people do the same thing? Maybe I have a loose screw (or two), my wife would probably confirm this to be true.

I often wonder, how anybody that lives in such a cold place in the winter could have enough thawed out brain cells to write such good articles. Of course, some articles are better than others. I suspect that the better ones were written in the summer months.

;)

Where did Ed learn to write like that. What is Ed's background. Has he always lived on a ranch in Wyoming. Ed, are you out there? Fill us in.

Ed, if you're reading this... Thanks for all of your contributions to our entertainment as well as our knowledge of the forged blade.

Rick
 
Ive been an "Ed Fowler" fan for years too. He cracks me up with his true humorous stories. I even have an autographed copy of Knife Talk.
 
Ed was raised in Idaho Springs Colorado. he attended collage and worked for the police department in several of the smaller towns inthat area of the state. Meanwhile his folks bought the Willow bow ranch in Riverton Wyoming. When his father got sick He quit his cop job and moved to wyoming to care for his ailing father and has been there ever since. Most of Eds stories are born of real life experience. This is just a rough overview. Ed may expand on this if he likes.

Bill
 
Hello Rick; Thanks for the kind words.
Most of my stories come to me, I don't have to search for them. I have been very privelidged to live an exciting life, my interests have always been varied and I am blessed with the ability to see and hear special messages from events.

I hated english classes, loved to debate and write. My english teachers and I never got along, I could not tell you the difference from an adverb or adjective. I have a hard time spelling and the only way I passed college english was by weeding a acre tulip patch that was the teachers playgound. The assignment was to write a story, I wrote it several times, each version comming back whith enough red ink to paint the school and a big F.
I asked him what I had to do to pass. He said, you keep trying, I have to give you credit for that, drew me a map to his garden and we worked all Saturday and Sunday. He gave me a D which was good enough to get out of my last english class.

I have always been an avid reader, started out with the Tarzan books. Then to Thoreau and Robert Henri, and many others, they teach me how to see and hear what is important in life. My Friends were usually much older than me, what we call senior citizens + and shared their experiences with me. I found that the memories that shined were about honest simple experiences. Last weekend a friend Glen McPhearson and I sat on the Willow Bow and counted crows flying south. We extimated 5,000, then quit counting and simply watched. A simple event, but important when shared and remembered as a good time.

We think only big stuff is important, but there is more learned by simply sharing time with a single blade of grass for several hours. Very few artists realize that every leaf on a tree is a different color, there in lies the secret of hearing a tree.

I find that if we watch, listen and put some thought into what comes to us there is a lot of experience just waiting to be heard.

I had a great Grandmother and Grandfather who were very much in tune with life, they provided a lot of the basics, important stuff that doesn't result in good grades but a good life.

These are the first thougths to come to me in considering your question. I guess it comes down to couriousity about nature, the ability to select what I read and not being aftaid to share thougths that come to many but are rarely spoken.
 
I forgot to mention, I have lots of time on my hands to explore my interests as I absolutely, completely and totally detest the cancer that slowly kills humanity, television. The general programing is for the simple minded, the news filled with tragedy and slanted to the goals of old time propaganda telling the audience how to think. When I enter a room with the TV on, it is all I can do to keep from putting a ball bearing right through the picture tube.

Man who can spend time with himself one on one with nature, the past masters written word or creating with his own hands or mind knows true adventure.
 
I have to put my 2 cents in here...Ed is BLESSED that he has the life he has...he answers to no time clocks, to no person, and has the mundane things of life taken care of for him. This is the reality check.
He is a genius, make no mistake about that, but he is also blessed that he has the time to develope that genius---maybe we all have a little genius in us, but paying bills, keeping books, punching time clocks pushes that genius into the backround!!!
I still feel there is something great to be said to the folks that do not have an exciting and extraordinary life by most standards---and keep going all the time. My hat is off to you!!!
angie fowler
 
Ed, you should write a book. :D

Angie knows I have the cover already done. ;)

Rick, I'm the same way, right to Ed's Knife Talk article.
 
Phil and Bill,

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one! I spent an hour an a half last night re-reading parts of Ed's book Knife Talk trying to figure out what is so captivating for me. I'd like to say that it's the entertainment value and the knowledge that I gleen from each installment, but that's not the whole of it. I think another part of it is that Ed is so down to earth, something that is severely lacking in most of today's society. Do you remember the old commercials "I wanna be like Mike", well, I wanna be like Ed. I wish that I could download all that he has learned in regards to the high performance blade. I would actually like to live in the Lander Wyoming area some day. It's beautiful up there. I visit the area once a year to go backpacking with my dad and brothers. My wife wishes that we could live on a working ranch, she loves and trains horses, and would love to get into cutting cattle and the whole roundup thing.

Ed, You really seem to have it all. Thanks to you and Angie for your responses. I agree with you that TV is a cancer, especially for young impressionable minds. I was speaking with a co-worker the other day about her 4 year old son that has been using a lot of colorful words lately. She attributed it to TV either directly or indirectly through his friends. It's really kind of sad what our society is becomming. Everybody want's at least a million dollars if anything bad happpens to them. Craziness!

One last question if you're still out there... Do you ever teach at the ABS school in Washington? I'm getting set to attend this next year hopefully by April. I didn't see your name on the list of instructors. What a shame. I think that the ABS ought to have a special course in regards to all that you have done with 52100. Maybe a hammer-in at the Willow Bow? :D Please count me in if you ever decide to host one.

Thanks again,
Rick
 
Ed does a pretty good job of puttin' pen to paper don't he. There have been rumors that he can bang out a fair knife too.
Greg
 
Hi Rick:
thanks for the nice thoughts!! Please email us, as there are a few things I'd like to tell you!!!
angie fowler
 
Baumer: Thank youi for your kind thoughts. We are planning a new shop for the Willow Bow in the near future. Along with it will be some hammer ins devoted to the deveopment of the high performance knife. Hopefully we will work with both stock removal as well as forged blades. Men who have gone before us like Richtig and one man who worked in the shop of Michael Price have left us some thoughts to work with. There are many others who sought the high performance blade and the more who seek to dance with her the more information that has been learned before will surface again. There is only one rule, enjoy the voyage.
 
Just an aside, I have to respond to you folks who go looking for Knife Talk immediately when Blade arrives... I know exactly what you're talking about but I get there a different way.

Me, I look at the pictures first :D then read the captions, then read the history pieces, then start looking at ads... Somewhere in there Knife Talk finds me, sets me down, shakes me awake, gives me what I need. It is awesome, calm, wise and true, always, and always written I am absolutely convinced, just for me, just for that certain, perfect day. ;)

Dave

PS: I am very interested in learning about high performance stock removal knives.

DL
 
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