Knives

I have always carried a knife of some kind since I was 7 years old. I even remember getting my first pocketknife; a yellow handled king-fisher. My Grandfather bought it for me one time when I was camping with him. I used to carry it around everywhere, until my mother took it away from me. Since that time, I carried various different knives including a gravity blade, switchblade, stiletto, and several lock blades. Today I own quite a collection of pocketknives consisting of ones that I have bought or given to me. Whenever I go somewhere and if someone needs something sharp, anyone that knows me asks to borrow my knife because I always have one. The few times I had forgotten it at home brought about great shock in all that discovered I had forgotten my knife.

Due to my intense affair with pocketknives, I am also diligent in the care of them. I clean and oil the blades and hinges on a regular basis. Most importantly, I sharpen them all the time. This does not apply to just pocket knives I own, this includes all the belt and sheath knives I use. Now you have to understand I am an Eagle Scout with a Bronze palm. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Boy Scout organization, Eagle Scout is the highest rank you can obtain. Once you are an Eagle Scout you can earn your Bronze, Silver and Gold palms. This means you went above and beyond a regular Eagle Scout. It is a point of honor and merit that an individual earns the Eagle Scout award. It is again that much more for every palm you earn after it. I am only a Bronze Palm, I could have gotten my silver and gold but I earned a different prestigious award, and that took up a year and a half of my life. Once you turn 18, you can no longer advance through the Boy Scout organization so there is no chance for me to go back and get them. I learned many things through Scouting and I recommend anyone with kids have their children join. One of the lessons I learned was how to care for and sharpen knives. I’m good at sharpening knives. I get irritated when they dull on me. Therefore, I am constantly sharpening them. I actually own a knife where I sharpened it so much that the blade looks nothing like it originally did. I have some friends that think I over sharpen my knives. One friend had me sharpen his butterfly knife for him. After I was finished, he was pleased with the sharpness of the blade…. Until he opened it and sliced his hand all to hell. He had asked me to sharpen the false edge as well, so I happily did. He ended up dulling down the blade so it was safer to use. See, when I sharpen a knife I put a razor like edge on it.

Why am I telling you all this? Well if I didn’t give you the background the next bit won’t be as amusing. Last night I was going through my costuming for the event and I checked my belt knives. Both of them needed sharpening. I was giving one of them to my wife to use in her kitchen box so it needed a good edge. The other knife is the one I use for everything around camp. I pulled out my whetstones and went to work. For safety reasons I did NOT put a surgical edge on the blade I was giving my wife. The blade I was keeping I decided I needed to put a really good edge on, the best I’d ever done. So I sat down and proceeded to sharpen. After about an hour, I thought I would test the blade. Nope, not sharp enough. It left some stubble. Back to work. Half an hour later, check the blade… better, but no sharp enough yet. About 5 minutes later… OUCH!!! Hand cramp! Good lord all mighty! My right hand curled into a gnarled claw like some arthritis-ridden old man. Every one of my fingers was in pain, the palm and back of my hand was spasming. I did not want let go of the knife. I had the image of me sitting on my couch with this knife pinning my foot to the ground in my head. My hand seized down on the handle, I couldn’t let go now. I searched for something to help me pry the knife from my hand. Finally, out of desperation, I grabbed my cleaning rag with my left hand to grab onto the blade and try to wrench the knife out of my hand. (Didn’t want to get my oily fingerprints on the blade). Messaging my hand until the cramps went away; I finally found the sheath for the knife buried under cleaning rags. Looking at the rag, I can see where it is all sliced up from my trying to pry the knife free and there are small cuts on my left hand. Nothing serious, just very minor slices, not even bleeding. I've never, ever had anything like that happen to me before. And yes, I'm taking more potassium!

Tonight, I get to go and do it again. My knife still isn’t sharp enough. When I tested the edge against my thumbnail, I can still feel a burr AND it still isn’t sharp enough. At least this time I didn’t slice my leg open cleaning the blade. (That is story for another time).