The Pocket knife

When I get home from my "real job" in the late afternoon around 6 pm, I quickly get out of my khakis and buttondown and put on some work clothes and boots and I'm out the door to enjoy some sunshine and some good, honest, physical work.  The days are shortening now and I feel like I'm racing the sun.  I carry water to the cattle troughs, feed the chickens some rice, bring feed to the pullets and check their water.  The new bell watering system I installed is working nicely by the way. 

Satisfied customers

Once that is done, I then turn my focus to whatever I have on my to do list.  It could be harvesting vegetables, weeding, planting, fixing something that broke, etc. depending upon the season.  While working, I keep my cell phone in my pocket to take any calls.  I'm terrible with phones.  I just got a new one after my old one got dunked in Bayou Nezpique in the infamous capsizing of the Garfish you may have read about in a previous post.  One time a year and a half ago, I was running across the pasture with one of the milk cows when my phone dropped out of my pocket.  I didn't realize until later that night that it was missing and I spent about 20 minutes criss-crossing the pasture repeatedly calling my number with another phone until I saw it lighting up in the grass since I had it on vibrate and not ring.  That one, at least, was able to be salvaged.  Most others have gone to a watery grave.

You know in addition to carrying a cell phone, I used to carry a pocketknife.  A pocket knife is a useful tool that most men used to carry, especially country folk, since a pocket knife is helpful for many tasks you run across, including cleaning oil and dirt out of your fingernails.  Not many men carry one now that we're all modern folk.  I think there are a few reasons for that.  I may be right or wrong but here are the reasons I can think of right off-hand:

1. We've moved away from an agrarian society - you don't really need a pocketknife at the office,
2. At some workplaces it could be illegal to carry a knife,
3. You would definitely have it confiscated by the TSA at any airport, and
4. Not many people get oil or dirt under their fingernails anymore.

My boys grew up in Scouting where you were taught basic safety skills with a pocketknife.  At around 9 or 10 years old you can earn the Whittling Chip which demonstrates that you have been trained in the proper use of a pocketknife and can carry the knife at scouting events.  You must have the card at all times.  If you are caught handling the knife in an unsafe manner, an adult tears off one of the corners of your card.  Once all 4 corners have been torn off, your knife is taken away and you must go through the course again.



# 4 is a good rule to follow!

I remember my first pocketknife.  It was an official Cub Scout knife that was blue.  It looked just like the one below.  I had to carve a bar of Ivory soap into some work of art as one of the requirements for earning it.  I can't remember what I carved.  You see that ring on the end?  You know what you'd do with that?  You'd clip it on your belt and walk around proudly.  Try doing that today and it would get you expelled and thrown into an alternative school, it would throw numerous mothers into conniption fits and it would certainly ratchet up the terror alert level from yellow to red in a skinny minute.  For the love of all that is good and holy, what has happened to us?!? 



My old trusty Cub Scout pocket knife

I then graduated to a Buck knife and currently have a Leatherman as it has all sorts of tools in addition to a regular knife blade.  I ended up losing my favorite knife.

 

As I was driving home the other day, I saw some people harvesting rice and saw a guy driving the rice truck that takes the rice from the field to the storage bins.  That used to be my job when I was farming.  Even as a young boy, my job was to be on the truck, spreading the rice so it wouldn't fall over the sides on the way to the bins.  We'd sit under the truck in the shade and out of the blistering heat waiting for the cart to deliver the next load of rice while we feasted on bologna or vienna sausage sandwiches. 

My grandpa would come sit under the truck and pick on my brother and I.  He always wore these blue or gold colored coveralls and he'd pull a pocketknife out of his pocket and begin to sharpen it.  He would use a regular brick, not a whetstone. He would spit on the brick (instead of using oil) and then sharpen his knife on it and would get it razor sharp.  So sharp it would shave the hair off your arms.  He'd call it a couteau (koo - TOE), knife in french.

When my grandpa passed away, my dad gave me one of his pocketknives and I'd carry it and use it to cut twine on hay bales and such.  When we were helping another farmer harvest rice in the town I grew up in, I lost that knife.  The last place I saw it was under the rice truck in the shade waiting on the cart.  I think I was whittling on a stick while waiting for the cart to bring rice to the truck and I put it in my pocket. 

I later put my hand in my pocket and it was empty.  All that I could find was a hole in my pocket.  I think it is for that reason that the Leatherman knife is made to clip on your pocket or fit in a leather case that you wear on your belt.  I don't think that you can legally call a knife that you wear on your belt a pocket knife, though.  It killed me to lose that knife.  I wish I still had it.  It looked like this one below, a black Case Stockman, a three bladed beauty.  Searching on eBay now...