My wife just visited me here at work on her way to La Grande, Oregon.
The drive takes five hours and the route goes through the most beautiful and sparsely populated country in America.
She will spend a week up there working on her Masters and come back next weekend.
As she sat in the car and I stood alongside, I asked if she wanted a knife for self-defense.
She asked if I had "that knife with all the jaggedy teeth."
She meant my old Rescuer with its four inches of serrations.
I didn't have it with me and so I offered her my Native.
She declined it because I have sharpened the swedge, which makes it difficult to handle safely, and she sees it as "creepy."
OK.
So I reached around to the small of my back and pulled my Chinook II out of my waistband and handed it to her.
She opened it up and her eyes got big.
I said, "If you have any trouble, just open it up, hold it naturally, and it will tell you what to do."
She then carved the air and made "swish-swish" noises with her mouth.
I said, "Don't lose it."
She answered, "If I lose it, will you still love me?"
"Yes."
As she drove away, I watched the car get smaller and disappear after a few corners, and I thought how good it felt to know she had that knife in the car with her.
That knife.
A Spyderco Chinook II.
My wife will never take any self-defense courses.
Forget it.
She doesn't want to hear about it.
However, I know that in an extreme situation, if she just gets the knife open, it will tell her what to do and her natural athletic ability will take over.
I don't mean that in any mumbo-jumbo, mystical sense.
I mean, the design of the knife itself and the way it feels in the hand; and the relationship of the point and the edge to the grip; these qualities speak to the person holding the knife.
With a Chinook II, one knows what to do without knowing it.
So, thanks to Sal Glesser, Spyderco and James Keating.
Life remains uncertain and dangerous; and yet I feel much better knowing Kathryn has my Chinook II with her.
The drive takes five hours and the route goes through the most beautiful and sparsely populated country in America.
She will spend a week up there working on her Masters and come back next weekend.
As she sat in the car and I stood alongside, I asked if she wanted a knife for self-defense.
She asked if I had "that knife with all the jaggedy teeth."
She meant my old Rescuer with its four inches of serrations.
I didn't have it with me and so I offered her my Native.
She declined it because I have sharpened the swedge, which makes it difficult to handle safely, and she sees it as "creepy."
OK.
So I reached around to the small of my back and pulled my Chinook II out of my waistband and handed it to her.
She opened it up and her eyes got big.
I said, "If you have any trouble, just open it up, hold it naturally, and it will tell you what to do."
She then carved the air and made "swish-swish" noises with her mouth.
I said, "Don't lose it."
She answered, "If I lose it, will you still love me?"
"Yes."
As she drove away, I watched the car get smaller and disappear after a few corners, and I thought how good it felt to know she had that knife in the car with her.
That knife.
A Spyderco Chinook II.
My wife will never take any self-defense courses.
Forget it.
She doesn't want to hear about it.
However, I know that in an extreme situation, if she just gets the knife open, it will tell her what to do and her natural athletic ability will take over.
I don't mean that in any mumbo-jumbo, mystical sense.
I mean, the design of the knife itself and the way it feels in the hand; and the relationship of the point and the edge to the grip; these qualities speak to the person holding the knife.
With a Chinook II, one knows what to do without knowing it.
So, thanks to Sal Glesser, Spyderco and James Keating.
Life remains uncertain and dangerous; and yet I feel much better knowing Kathryn has my Chinook II with her.
