What's in Your Pocket?

There was a commercial some years ago (for a credit card, I think?) that asked a question, "What's in your wallet?"  Today I want to ask a similar question, "What's in your POCKET?"  It's a good question.

I was at a wedding reception recently and was talking to a gentleman who is a vocational agriculture teacher at a local high school.  He's been doing so for the last 28 years.  He was telling me about how things have changed in a little less than three decades.  He said that when he started teaching vo-ag, most boys had something in their pocket.  Wanna guess what that was?

A pocketknife!

This is one of my pocketknives that I carry in my pocket.  My Dad gave it to me.  It was one of my grandfather's knives.  I carry it to remember him.  These days, you've got to be careful where you carry it, though.  If you go to an airport or a courthouse, or a sporting venue, you will likely have it confiscated from you.  How sad is that?

Back to the story.  The vo-ag teacher told me that 28 years ago when he started teaching, most boys carried a pocketknife in their front right pocket.  He then asked what I thought most boys carried in their pockets today.  I guessed a cell phone.  He told me that most boys are carrying....

Hand sanitizer!!

He said they they are carrying little bottles of hand sanitizer and are constantly washing their hands, and it drives him crazy.  He looked at me seriously and said, "What's happening to our men?"

Another good question.  That leads to the text from the sermon that our pastor preached this morning.

I Thessalonians 4:11-14 New King James Version (NKJV)

that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.

There was a time not so long ago, that we built things, fixed things, sewed things, and grew things instead of pushing buttons on screens and sanitizing our hands.  I pray that we return to those days real soon.

 

Grandpa's Pocketknife

Back in September 2012, I posted this: Pocket Knife Post from 2012  It is about pocket knives.  I came into possession of a pocket knife recently that reminded me of that post.  Here is the knife:

My cousin, Patrick, mailed me a package containing this knife.  It belonged to my grandpa.  He called it his couteau (knife in French).  I didn't recognize the knife, but looked on the Internet and discovered that it is a Remington pocketknife, likely manufactured in the 1930's.  The acorn shield on it tells you that one of the blades is a leather punch.  It is the blade on the left hand side below:

Remington Arms Company manufactured pocket knives for Boy Scouts.  In the above link, I have a photo of my scout knife.  It is very sad to me that 2020 finds the Boy Scouts in bankruptcy.  That is a story for another time.

Not many carry pocketknives any longer.  I use one daily at work, so I carry one.  I carry a cheaper "throw-away" knife that clips to my pocket.  I probably go through two or three a year.  They aren't meant to last like quality knives of the past.  I don't want to carry knives like my grandpa's as I would hate to lose it.  Also, you risk getting it taken from you by the TSA if you are boarding a plane.

I can distinctly remember my grandpa always having a pocketknife with him in the pocket of his coveralls.  After he retired, he'd drive out to the farm and watch the rice harvest.  His truck would drive in and a cloud of dust would billow up and cover us as we sat underneath a big cottonwood tree seeking shelter from the hot summer sun.  The whine of the combine engine roared in the distance.

My grandpa would walk up to us and say, "How's it going, Old Top?"  He always called us "Old Top."  He would sit on the grass next to us and set an old, worn brick down in the St. Augustine grass that grew around the old homeplace we waited around with the rice truck.  He'd reach in his right front pocket and pull out a pocket knife (probably the one shown above).  He would spit on the brick, open the knife, and begin a slow, rhythmic motion of sharpening the blades.  The knife rubbing against the wet brick would make a scraping sound and a fine orange sand would appear from the brick, soon darkened somewhat by the blade.  He'd shave the hair off his arm in a spot to gauge the sharpness of his knife.

Knives were everyday tools back then.  Why, you could whittle a stick while passing the time (no cell phones).  You could clean your fingernails or dig out a splinter from the palm of your hand.  You could open a can of Steen's cane syrup.  You could clean a squirrel or skin a catfish.  A man without a pocket knife was like a fish without water or rice without gravy.  True story:  One time my grandpa had set a trot line to catch fish.  Trouble is, a big bird got tangled in the lines.  My grandpa eased up in his boat and put the bird out of his misery.  Then he proceeded to use perhaps this knife to cut the bird up and re-bait the trot line to catch more fish!  (You gonna fish or cut bait?)  Both!

This knife must have been special to my grandpa.  These days when my $9.99 Amazon special knife breaks, I throw it away and get another.  This particular knife broke on my grandpa, but he didn't throw it away.  One side is made of bone.  If you flip the knife over (below), you'll see it has been professionally repaired with wood.

I imagine it broke and it was too special to throw away or put in a desk drawer somewhere.  No, he wanted to continue using it, so he had it fixed.  The precision of repair is pretty remarkable.  You can see below how a slight groove was carved in the wood so that my grandpa could put his thumbnail in the indention and flip the small blade open to clean used motor oil out from under his index finger nail.

Like my grandpa's old pocketknife, I'll keep the memories of him and good times of the past around, pulling them out, spending time with them, careful to not lose them and hopefully keeping the memories sharp and in good repair.