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swallace
93
Feb 22, 2018
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This is a good discussion. It's ironic as I recently went through my father's knives that he has stashed in his man jewelry box in his bedroom (right next to his Viagra...which I wish I didn't see). We had gotten on the topic of knives due to my new love for them and I asked to see his. I remembered he carried a large folding Buck on his belt loop for years when I was a kid. He now only has a small swiss army in his pocket that is completely worn down (he would sharpen it on the bottom of his coffe mug every few days, so it was pretty scratched up). I thought I was going to find a golden cache of treasure when he opened that box, but it wasn't anything special. He had about 6 knives and all were either Buck, swiss army, or...non-branded. They were all gouged, scratched and beaten. Some of the blades were even worse than the handles, and some weren't. Although, there was one exception, he had a Case knife that he had gotten from his father years ago. It was pretty well perfect and it had a very nice wood handle and tarnished brass surrounding it. I asked him why he doesn't carry it because it was still very sharp and I loved the handle. He said that he had borrowed it from his dad years ago when he helped him with a large wood-working project. They were building memory boxes for his 4 grand daughters (2 of whom were mine), so the project meant a lot to both of them. He had forgotten to return it to him right away, and since they hardly spoke to each other because they were both that old school man who hated talking on the phone or going to visit each other for no reason, my grandfather never got it back. He passed away a few months later and my father never had the heart to use it for fear it would get damaged. It was the only real item he had from his father that mattered to him. My grandfather was poor and didn't have much money in his pockets let alone a nice knife. So, my father always felt he robbed him of one of his very few nice things he had. Of course, I reminded him that my grandfather would have asked for it back if he had really wanted it. I sometimes think he may have known his time was close to being up and that he wanted my dad to keep one of his nicest possessions. Hopefully someday, my dad will pass that knife on to me.
Feb 22, 2018
Axeguy
1372
Feb 28, 2018
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swallaceThanks for that. We always wonder what our dads have in their locked trunks, etc. And our sons will feel that way about the things we keep as mementos. I inherited my father’s and his father’s swords: Masons and military service. These are mementos that mean something and bind me to them, as we all shared military service and combat experience in command of platoon- to battalion-sized units. I wished we had actually talked more with each other about our service...but picking up their arms, I can imagine, ‘same s***, different decade’, lol! :)
Feb 28, 2018
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