Where's lt632ret?

M

Mick57

Joined
May 27, 2004
Messages
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Anyone been in contact with him? I sent him an email after his book & CD arrived, but didn't hear back. Haven't seen him post here either since then, so was wondering if he's OK. Anyone know?
 
As far as I know, Rich is fine. He is just taking a vacation from the forum, and from the computer. For him, as for many of us, this traditional "season of joy" is not. It is stressful and vexed with sentimental memories. LT is O.K., just sitting back for a spell, maybe engaging in some serious shed diving, artifact sorting.

Codger
 
Thankyou for asking I just looked in for a minute and saw this posting. I appreciate the thought. I really havent seen anything that really needed any input from me most of the questions are being handled so I am leaving it up to the kids like Codger. Thanksgiving was depressing however I have anticipations that Christmas will achieve new levels to the depths of this emotion. With all the sorrow and real suffering in the world I really have no right to complain and I realize this however the rational does not always work.

I did get a chuckle on Thanksgiving I decided at the last minute to buy a small Turkey and make it up. I am a rather good cook. It gave me food poisoning and my main thoughts were who will feed the cats if I have to go to the hospital or die. Then I realized that if I died the cats would have lots of food. Frankly I found it so appropriate I put the music on rather loud and tried barfing along to the tunes. 26 years in jail and a multitude of horrors leaves one with a rather sick sense of humor.

The last few weeks have lead to my doing projects and as we all know very few have the mechanical acumen that I do. On that note lets see, there is the cable I put up between two trees to hold the 20 X 30 two hundred dollar
canvas tarp for my camper RV. This escapade included my falling of a 14 foot ladder which should have killed me but which only caused pain since I held on to the tarp and it somewhat broke my fall. Then ( since I was responsible for figuring how high ect to make the damn thing) I immediately (when trying to pull it in by myself )broke the plastic refrigerator cover on top of the RV and put a 12 foot rent in the new canvas ( which took 2 days to sew together by hand with 80 lb braided shark line.) That was in the wind on the ladder again in 30 degree weather. Ah yes feel free to call me when you need some work done around the house.

I really havent posted since around Nov 11 when a marine posted that he had broken his knife when he was pounding on a log or some such nonsense. If I had the inclination and gave a hoot I would take a picture of all the broken knives ( Schrades ) which I have hundreds? thousands? Schrade knives broke as any tool is liable to do especially if misused. Schrade knew this and that is why they would repair or send a new one that seems to be the point which was missed in the discussion. I know because the broken ones I have are all the ones that were sent back to Schrade because they ( Schrade) did back up there product. He was correct when he said he would never buy another Schrade and that is true because they ain't making any more so I hope his next ( Chinese) knife holds up better under misuse. Aw what the hell it is all past history. Just like Smokeys promise to keep the collection together. By the way all the big collectors were notified and Smokey sold all the automatics and many of the regular knives to several of the big collectors. Then I was advised of this and asked ( by the fellows who bought them) if I wanted to purchase any of them of course at retail. Is that funny ( say how about a contest to guess what I told them Naa to easy to guess my reply.)

I also went to CT Mohegan Sun a few weeks ago to watch the PBR ( since I had to change my plans and did not get to see the finals in Vegas.) I like bull riding it is tough to fix a bullride like you can a prize fight. In the way of knives I have recently garnered a few. Schrade Cuts and Schrade Walden and one JC Higgins Gaffer ( still in the box ) . I thought I would add this pic so that I had some knife content. These are all doubles and triples ect but I had not put them away yet so a snapped a pic.

The exhibition in the Museum in Ellenville is complete except for the official press release ect. So if you are in the area please take a look. It will be there until the middle of Feb. Since room was limited I really could only cover the 50 years or so that Schrade was in Ellenville. Frankly it is hard to believe there is that much stuff there, since you can hardly see anything missing when you look around in the house. In fact I could not even fit in alot of the stuff from the period of time I was trying to cover and had to pick out what I felt would be best. If you are in the area of Ellenville stop in and look around it sure isn't Smokey Mountain but as the adage says the journey of a thousand miles starts with a first step. Although I am not sure how many steps I have left. Once again thankyou for asking about my well being and thankyou for not asking about my mental stability. LT
 
See? Holiday blues, food poisoning, flying Wallendas (without a net), (by the way, the 26 years he was the den mother, not the inmate, though after that long, one would begin to wonder), Barfing to the oldies, cat food, Tim Allen's use for shark wire, professional bull riding, not-so-benevolent offers to buy portions of the Schrade collection and his counteroffer to put them some place an inmate might hide them, adding pieces to the expansive Langston Collection, assembling and curating the first Schrade exhibition since the last truck left Ellenville back in ought four, and quoting famous philosophers. I told you he was ok!

LT, the only people sure of their sanity are those who have none (surely we can draw a parallel about all the inmates being innocent?). Thanks for popping in. Your friends here do miss your wit and knowledge when you go off on adventures.

Codger
 
Lt; Thanks for taking the time to drop in. I do have a few house repair jobs if you are interested. (sounds like you are really good at what you do). Any way, good to hear from you. Do well.

Paul
 
Glad to hear you are ok. Why did man invent the ladder anyway?

Given all the recent bad things that have been going down close to me lately, I try to take stock of what I have and the friends I got. I count you among them, Rich, as well as all the rest of the asylum here.

On an unrelated note, I thought you probably got a chuckle out of that news story the other day. The one where the peace activists got taken hostage...there's some irony for you.

I haven't had much to say on the forums lately either, nor do I usually have much to contribute. I have scaled back my knife buying lately, looking for certain pieces. I have got some new (old) ones in, and if I get motivated, I will resurrect the old school schrade thread and post some pics.

Take care everyone, I'll be lurking...

Glenn
 
Good to see ya post again. It certainly isn't the same around here when you're gone for a stretch. I'm enjoying the book & CD. Thanks again.
Bruce
 
LT, with all of your Thanksgiving adventures, you sure as hell "one upped" anything else that the rest of us might have come up with. Sounds to me like the making of a sequel to "Christmas Vacation". It really was funny to read, but I hate that you had such a dismal time.
 
Lt,
Where were you when I had to tarp my motor home? Darn thing developed a leak & I can't get it into the shop until next week!
Glad to hear you are doing well....anyone who can barf-to-the-oldies can't be doing too bad. (lets see......Barfing-To-The-Oldies.....sounds like the Richard Simmons treatment for bulimia)
I am glad the display is going well in Ellenville. Sure wish I could get out there and see it, but that is a long way from Oregon!
As regards mental stability.............whats that???????

Glad you are doing well. Thanks for posting.

Dale

PS- Not all Marines are so stupid! I think the only knife I ever broke was the pen blade on my first pocket knife (an old knife my Dad gave me when he got a new one), circa 1957.......long before I had enlisted in the Marine Corps. :D
 
Respectfully I never said anyone was stupid and my opinion of the corp and its people is such that even if I felt that way I would be prone to overlook it. Our people in uniform are the best people in the world and the marine corp has some of the best of those. The fact is if that old boy needs a knife all he has to do is tell me he wants one. I was never in the marine corp however I have shared some dirt with them. I also on occasion did not always agree with there opinions however I always knew that I could count on them to give there all and in fact a few did. I would like to think they felt that way about me. LT
 
Sorry LT,
I didn't mean to imply that you were denigrating the Corps. I didn't take it that way at all.
Having been in the Corps for 3 1/2 years I have met stupid Marines, or shall we say they aren't the shapest knife in the drawer.
IMHO it is pretty dumb to abuse a knife by using it for something it was not designed for, ergo; Bad Marine- no liberty call. :D

Good to hear from you again LT!
Semper Fi,
Dale
 
I would like to see that exhibit in Ellenville,but I do not know if I can convince the Admiral to go on such a journey. How far is it from Baltimore? Maybe I could make it a day trip.
Thanks Rick
 
Lt, you don't know me, as I'm a just recent participant in this forum, and haven't chatted much. Just wanted you to know that you sound like a hell of a good guy, and I also really enjoy your style of writing: you pack a lot of stuff (not to mention wit) into your words. You sound like a bit of a daredevil with ladders in the cold wind, though....a sailor in a previous life?

Sometimes (okay, often) I wish the "holiday" season wasn't such a big focus at the end of the year...we have enough to do at this time, as it is, without feeling forced to celebrate and go through rituals that have often long-lost meaning. It all kind of accentuates both the highs and the lows of emotion, for me at least. If it wasn't for my sweet daughter's enjoyment of Christmas and Thanksgiving, I'd probably just go away fishing for a month....if I could afford it!

And speaking of state of mind....who cares, anyway, as long as nobody's hurt, I guess.

“Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.” Aristotle
“No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.” Aristotle

Oh, and remember to let your neighbour's cat test all your food before you eat it. :)
 
Nicely said Pocketknife. We all appreciate LT.

However, LT is such a hardball, I bet he tests Buster's food before he gives it to him...;)

Don't be a stranger here LT...you help keep this forum alive, humorous, and educational with what you bring. :thumbup:

OK, enough sucking up...:D

Regards,

el lobo
 
Thankyou for all the nice sentiments but I ain't taking no showers with any of you. Which is another point why don't we have any female members of this forum. One poor gal asked a question here once and after our subtle inuendos and witty banter was never heard from again.

I enjoy speaking with the gentle sex except that while I never understood them now I do not even understand what they are talking about or there language. The terminolgy is beyond my 1960 tys grasp. They act like men except if you take offense and call them out to the parking lot ( for a knuckle sandwich ) as was the way men settled things in those olden days then they call the police cry and become wimmen again. Of course if you call a lot of men out to the parking lot ( today) many of them think it is a date. I wish them all well it is not my world or one I even want to be part of I am just an obsever being amused while running out my string ( to paraphrase an old cowboy expression ).

I realize that it is not Christmas when I submit my annual sick humor prison story however this subject reminds me of an instance of when I worked in Mattewan for the crimminally insane in Beacon NY. My self and a couple of other mickeys ( the name used for new officers now called probies ect ) . We were assigned to Johnson Hall in the Mattewan complex. Mattewan was a depressing old castle type of nuightmare place that had seen horrors I would happily relate ( since I felt very much at home and ease when I worked there ) The insane are guileless for no matter what they do no matter how sneaky or nefarious it is simply that they are nuts and therefore not vicious even though there actions may be horrendus. If you can understand that kind of logic then an insane asylum is quite a homey environment.

Now as I said we were assigned to Johnson Hall which is where the females bugs were kept. This was because it was the newer more modern section of the institution. Truthfully it is often quite difficult to tell an insane woman from a sane one. Of course that is only my opinion, in any event. In those days the female inmates still wore the kind of clothing that they wore in the movie The Snake Pit with Olivia Dehavland ( pardon my spelling Olivia). Aside from the horrible drap garb, most of these people were usually disheveled and quite scairy. For the most part grooming and cosmetics were not paramount to there life style. In any event a fight between two of these individuals broke out in a section near to the one ( section) I was working. This incident taught me a life long lesson, it was that the female gender are much more dangerous than the male. This is partly do to the fact that when they fight there are no rules no honor. Most men will at some point stop kicking another man when he is down a woman will only stop to pick up a knife or other tool to do a better job.

So when the fight started the only one in the immediate area was a friend of mine who stepped in between the two combatants to separate them ( silly fellow he had forgotten the above mentioned lesson that there were no rules. ) As he pushed the two fighters apart one woman slipped and fell to her knees. By this time the other woman was being restrained however at this point the one on her knees did a snapping turtle action on my friends genatal area. Her grip and determination were quite sincere and for whatever reason the insane are, when truly absorbed in an endeaver, much stronger than the sane. We arrived on the scene in seconds sadly however by this time the officer was on his back screaming as a crimson stain spread over the crotch area of his pants. You must give credit to the determination of the mentally challanged since pull and tug upon her jaw her tenacity in holding on was such that even when the officer had passed out she clung to her purpose. Amazingly even after she was accidently clubbed unconscious her jaws still had to be pried open.

This event which is everlastingly imprinted on my mind ( yes I can still see it as though it was yesterday ), taught me a great deal about the female gender however I am sure it does not help me in socializing now that I am living alone.

There is an old story which as a new recruit was related to me by one of the senior officers. It involves a man riding past an insane asylum when a tire falls off his car ( do to the lug nuts not being properly secured ). He pulls over to the side of the road right next to a fence with a big sign saying ( INSANE ASYLUM ) . He gets out of the car and looks at the tire which has come off and of course all the nuts have been lost on the road. While he is pondering how to secure the tire to the car an inmate on the other side of the fence stops mowing the grounds comes to the fence and suggests to the driver to take one lug nut from the other 3 tires and that will let him get to a gas station where he can replace the ones missing. The driver is quite thankful and looks over at the inmate and says "Hey that is pretty clever why are you in there ?" The inmate replys " The sign says I am crazy not stupid". I have found that to be a good lesson to remember in life.

Regarding driving from Baltimore it is 5 hours and really is a long Schlep ( this word is an ethnic term meaning long and tiresome ) trip. However if you decide to come up give me a call and I will be glad to have you over for a few cocktails, In that event I would suggest you reconsider making it a one day trip. I could also show you old Mattewan which was converted in the middle 70 tys to a general pop prison. You see they determined that do to financial restraints these people really weren't insane at all and all they needed were higher doses of thorazene. Yup I love NY.

I am including some more pics of some of the displays in Ellenville. Please check the archives ( if you have an interest ) to see some of the original ones I posted. Hopefully there will be a press release as well as perhapes a video of a walk through with some of the old employees oh yes and I am to give a lecture. Hopefully I will be better able to stay on the subject of knives than I have in this posting. LT
 
As so usual in our threads we tend to ramble and I will pick up where our LT has left off.

Gross misuse of Schrades.... Here is a pic of a knife I gave away to a guy at work just before deer season last month. Just an extra 140OT I had laying around. He got lucky, got his first deer right off, and a friend used this knife to gut the deer (too big a knife in my opinion, I told him the 140 was more suited to general camp use than field dressing). They did ok until it came to breaking the pelvic bone, at which time the knife suffered a fatal injury. Lot's of things work good for doing that task... Slamming the pelvic bone over your knee, using the saw blade on the 97OT (said knife will do the entire field dressing job), or any folding camp saw, or, as I was taught while hunting in the south, simply tie off the exit holes of the deer after cutting them free and pulling them out of the pelvis without breaking the bone. Deer hauls out of the woods easier without those back legs flopping around. Wasn't the 'Honesteel' recommended for the job of breaking the pelvic bone? Anyway, I'll keep this knife, and have supplied said nimrod with a new one.

Yep, I am afraid we may have not been the gentlemen we could have when visited here by the ladies. 'Nuff said I hope on that subject. I will watch myself and keep my fascinations with the maidens of Ellenville in check.

This thread... Yep, we care about each other. Every one contributes here and I am so proud to me a member of the forum. Good sentiments, not just this time of year, but anytime, are always in order.

Hey LT! Were there not a couple of Schrade knives commemorating Prisions in New York? Did you serve at either of them?

Have a good day, my friends,

Phil
350250.jpg
 
Rambling and veering from the title subject is not a negative thing, in my opinion. It more naturally follows the flow of normal conversation, rather than the edited content of a book chapter.

Gross misuse of Schrades.... As we progress from the 1950's toward the 2050's, a lot of our traditional knowledge of tools has gone by the wayside. Folks seem to want a fast-food version of a knife, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, perform the duties they were never designed for. Knife abuse is on the rise, and the new metal technology cannot keep up and compensate.

Since fall before last, I have used my 140OT Trail Boss on quite a few deer. I agree that a smaller blade is really more adept at reaching some of the tight areas, but being a polygamist when it comes to my knives, I just pick up the Sharpfinger and put it to those tasks it was designed for. I never saw the need for splitting or sawing bones of a whitetail. If you are at all familiar with the anatomy, you just cut on the dotted lines, seperating muscle groups and limbs through the joints by severing tendons. Field dressing, for me at least, does not require complete removal of every trace of viscera, especially since I make use of some of those parts others commonly discard. Using my method, at the end of the processing, all that is left is a clean spinal column with attached pelvis, and two gun racks, err....lower legs.

Yes, the honesteel was designed and touted as a wedge/ chisel for the job of brealing the pelvis, and most were even sharpened on the bevel with a final grind.

Enjoy your day friends and keep warm. I am off to work in the cold, 25 here now, still dark, and I dug another new pool yesterday and construction awaits. Have 897UH will travel!

Codger
 
My 51OT took a lot of abuse, damn knife was like a folding prybar, the only reason I retired it was that the pivot pin was wearing,(due to a lot of inertial opening(wristflicking)).

LT stay off the ladders on windy days with large tarps, I got pulled off a garage roof with a friend of mine tryin' to put a 40' tarp on his roof.
 
I'm really intrigued by the Gaff Knive in the top picture. Now that is an original design. Looks like it would be a little ackward to carry in the pocket though. I can't imagine that there were many of them made.
Believe me Lt, you are not alone in feeling a little less than joyfull at this time of year. But if I can watch "It's a wonderfull life" once or twice before Christmass I can unsually drum up a little holliday spirit.
Once all this mess is over maybe I can combine a trip to Ellenville with a ski trip that the family would enjoy to somewhere nearby.
Thanks RHP
 
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