This forum is to share stories that are meaningful, or entertaining. The posts can be original stories, stories passed down in a family or a region, they could be based on a person's experience, childhood, or basically on anything. They could even be fictional, or humorous, so long as they are stories.
Back in the beginning of Desert Storm I was sitting outside the royal airport in Saudi Arabia, doing nothing much but playing with a Schrade Sharp Finger I'd rescued-found several years back while cleaning a cargo plane. Actually I was whittling a wooden spoon and joked it was for digging under the wall to escape. Mostly to "escape" shear boredom of counting passing camels since the war hadn't kicked off yet.
Along comes some French fellas and one drops back to look over my knife. He jabbered something, might be trouble
He smiles and pulls out an Opinel First one I'd ever seen! We ended up trading some patches and it probably brightened both our days to see some guys just love sharp iron.
My retirement shall consist of carbon steel, cheese, and crackers.
Maybe it's just my location but I've gotten a lot of strange looks, especially when I was 8 or 9 (16 now). Part of it is just that I think that people are honestly surprised to see a little girl pull out a pocket knife I was certainly not at all bashful about pulling it out to do this or that; it seemed less likely to hurt the person next to me than a needle while sewing. I did learn that I shouldn't use it during school, but of course I soon forgot this and brought it out when someone got their clothing caught in a bicycle, which led me to the principal's office with a threat of expulsion Later on another teacher asked for someone to give her a pocketknife to do a gardening task. Go figure. However, people continued looking at me funny if I used it (Someone even asked “are you going to attack someone with that thing?” Seriously the only purpose for a knife he could think of?). In fact, it was from getting so many strange looks that I started to use it in public only very discreetly if I pulled it out at all. Of course, for all the people who give me weird looks there are also people who think its cool or look at me jealously...
I am also 16 and live in CT, so that's not a great location for the things I love, but oh well. I haven't gotten many weird looks because I don't end up in public a lot, and therefore don't end up using any knives in public too often. Location often plays the biggest role in this, because someone that wasn't brought up around knives or firearms is obviously going to be uncomfortable around them until you show them not to be.
Great first post by the way
CK
Get rhythm...when you get the blues.
Have you joined Knife Rights yet? Go to: http://www.KnifeRights.org
Protecting your Right to own and carry the knives YOU choose.
I work in a major city's police training academy. To cut up a box, I pulled out a chinese half serated lockback knife. The director of the academy saw it and commented on how wicked it looked. I said, "You've got to be kidding! That's nothing! Do I scare you?" Then we all laughed.
While eating at a formal reception, the roast of beef was a little less than tender and the "steak knives" on the table weren't cutting it, so I pulled out my Emerson CQC-7 and proceeded to cut up the beef. The conversation at the table came to a dead halt, and everybody was looking at me like I had grown a second head! I looked around and started to laugh, at which point the conversation turned to knives, and the guy sitting on my right asked if he could borrow it to cut his meat as well. Was a good night all the way around.
Here in WV, knives and guns are as common as deer tracks, so normally a knife does not cause a stir. Once I had to go to testify at the courthouse and as I emptied my pockets for security, the deputy picked up my old Boker trapper and began to examine it with great interest. He looked up and said "I'm going to have to confiscate this". I suppose the look on my face was sufficient to express my shock but then he broke a smile and said, naa just kidding but it sure is a nice one. I picked it up on my way out after he jokingly pretended to have misplaced it.
One Christmas my future brother-in-law presented me with a sword cane. It was a welcome gift because I had recently undergone back surgery(for the third time)and was having some difficulty walking due to the nerves in that leg acting up.
Upon heading back to Massachusetts I went through the screening at the airport(this was over twenty years ago so it was nothing like it is today)they discover the blade inside the cane. The Wayne County sheriff comes over and informs me that I cannot take this on the plane and I will have to ship it!
I hurriedly take it over to be shipped and barely make my flight.No problem when I arrive in Boston.
Fast forward a few months.I have completed my move to Michigan and I am driving back to Massachusetts to return the truck I had borrowed for the move and pick up my car.I am about an hour out when I get pulled over by the Ohio State Police.I wasn't speeding or anything but my hair is rather long and I have a beard and am dressed in jeans so I guess I was being profiled.
I have in my pocket my custom Jason Williams folder and on the dash tray of the truck is another knife I was using to open boxes and my sword cane.Also there was my handicapped placard which was to prove very useful.
The trooper was very polite and asked where I was going and looking around the cab.He spots the cane and picks it up and shakes it saying:"And what do we have here?" I tell him and say that I have been using it to get around as my leg still isn't working very well.
He asks if I have any other weapons on me and I hand over the folder.He looks at it and asks me to step back into the cruiser while informing me that a sword cane is a felony in Ohio. I figure it's all over now;I'm headed to jail.
He checks out my background that takes about a half hour and then asks me if I would mind him checking the back of the truck.I say no problem;all that is in there is some moving blankets and my sign painter's kit.
He looks all through it and when he is satisfied that I'm not carrying any dope or weapons he says:" What I would suggest you do is take your cane and lock it up in the back of the truck and when you get back to Massachusetts get rid of it!" He hands me back my knife and says,"Have a safe trip!"
To this day I believe that the only thing that saved my butt was that handicapped placard.
Oh yeas I almost forgot;the cane is still in my 1955 Pontiac Safari wagon.I keep it under the hood and use it to prop up the hood because the springs are a bit weak.
Good story k7k. Some cops would've locked you up just because they could
How about some pictures of that '55 Safari?? I'm sure it'll fit in a thread somewhere here!
Chris i woke last night to the sound of thunder
how far off i sat and wondered
started humming a song from nineteen sixty two
aint it funny how the night moves
royal0014 wrote:Good story k7k. Some cops would've locked you up just because they could
How about some pictures of that '55 Safari?? I'm sure it'll fit in a thread somewhere here!
I've posted pics of it before in another thread but here it is for your viewing pleasure.I've owned it for 20 years (in February) and have logged over 180,000 miles with very few problems.Still has the rebuilt engine that came with it.I bought another engine just in case but will probably use it in my 57 Safari when that one is completed.
Reading these stories reminds me of something that happened to me a few years ago. I live about 8 miles from the nearest town, which has population of about 6000 folks. Being a rural area most males carry a pocket knife of some sort. The high school football team, which competes with mostly other small towns of similar size and also rural, was in the playoffs so began to travel farther away for games at neutral sites as the playoffs progressed. Eventually they played a game in the big city of Fort Worth.
My wife and I arrived at the stadium and parked. As we approached the gates to the stadium I saw a metal detector - something we had not seen before at previous games in other towns. Without giving it much thought, as requested by the woman working there I emptied my pockets including among other things my pocket knife, into the provided tray in preparation for walking through the metal detector. Now, it's not like I carry some "evil looking" fantasy knife or switchblade. It was just a yellow handled medium Case stockman. But when I dropped it into the tray her eyes got as big as silver dollars and she indignantly and forcefully said "You can't bring 'that thing' in here!" So I had to take it back to the parking lot and leave it in my vehicle. Later found I wasn't at all the only one who had the same problem. I'm betting on the other side of the stadium the fans from the other small town team we were playing that night had similar experiences.
Member AKTI, TSRA, NRA.
If your religion requires that you hate someone, you need a new religion.
When the people fear their government, that is tyranny. When government fears the people, that is freedom.
Like Mumbleypeg, I was stopped at a Fort Worth football stadium before a high school ball game. I had to take my Case trapper back to the truck I drove. Now, that posed a problem for me. You see, I am a football coach, and my job in the press box each Friday night is to log and chart offensive formations that the opponent uses. I sometimes have to do some fast writing, so sometimes the old pencil lead breaks, and I have to sharpen my pencil quickly. I could do that just fine with a sharp Case or Schrade Old Timer. Sometimes one of the other assistants would pass a pencil down to me and I would put a point on it in just a second or two. But, with no knife in my pocket, I had to hope and hope and hope that the press box had a pencil sharpener in the visitors' coaches' booth. Sadly, it did not. Surprisingly, very few press boxes do have pencil sharpeners, though coaches use pencils in the box all the time.
Since that time, I have tried to remember to take my pocket knife out of my khakis before I get to the stadium, and I try to have about a dozen sharp pencils ready.
Cowboy7130
"What's wrong with that knife, Bol? Won't hold an edge?" "It's like a wife ... each night, you better stroke it!"
Get yourself a couple of these and throw 'em in your pocket for those occasions when the sheeple are large and in charge. They won't frighten the masses.
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Forged on the anvil of discipline.
The Few. The Proud.
Jerry D.
This country has become more about sub-groups than about it's unity as a nation.
"The #72 pattern has got to be pretty close to the perfect knife."
--T.J. Murphy 2012
A few years back, on our way to a Knife Club meeting a few of us were having breakfast at a Denny's restaurant four of us knife collectors were discussing knives and had a few of them on the diner table in the crowded restaurant. An older lady (probably late 70's) came over to our table and asked us if we all collected knives. We said yes. She said her late husband had a few, and if we came in there every month before our meeting she would bring her husbands knives in to see if they were worth anything and if we would be interested in them. we never did see her again but it was a nice unexpected addition to our conversation. Dave
jerryd6818 wrote:Get yourself a couple of these and throw 'em in your pocket for those occasions when the sheeple are large and in charge. They won't frighten the masses.
Make sure you take the blade out or some draftdoging wuss might feel threatend! ftd
A good many folks in Alabama walk around with a knife pouch on their belts, Bucks, Schrades, etc.
So, knives are not that big a deal.
I do, however, almost routinely cut a steak with the knife in my pocket, instead of those big fat wood handled "steak knives" provided by the restaurant to those that order steak or pork chops.
I get a lot of odd looks when I used it and then lay it on the table, as the current pocket carry is a heavy duty 4 1/4" A. G. Russell cocobolo handled gunstock folder with a massive, but wickedly sharp, clip blade.
I don't know if they're shocked by the knife or the pocket lint I wipe off just before I use it.
Charlie Noyes
DE OPPRESSO LIBER
"...Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons ___but they are helpless against our prayers. "
Charlie you're a man after my own heart. I too use my own knife when cutting meat in a restaurant. I figure if I've got it I might as well use it. My thought is if it offends anyone, they're just too sensitive.
Phil, I started doing that years ago while attending an NKCA knife show in Springfield, Missouri.
I was going to dinner with some dealer friends, Cindy and Jim Taylor and a man I had just met named Fred Hunter.
As we were about to leave for the evening, Fred Hunter picked up a multi-hundred dollar custom made knife from his table, covered the table and we left.
He used that knife to cut his steak that night and it went through that beef like it was literally butter.
I asked him about it and he said, "You'll never see a restaurant steak knife do that."
I was hooked.
That knife was back on his sales table the next day.
Charlie Noyes
DE OPPRESSO LIBER
"...Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons ___but they are helpless against our prayers. "
First one I'd ever seen! We ended up trading some patches and it probably brightened both our days to see some guys just love sharp iron.
I was certainly not at all bashful about pulling it out to do this or that; it seemed less likely to hurt the person next to me than a needle while sewing. I did learn that I shouldn't use it during school, but of course I soon forgot this and brought it out when someone got their clothing caught in a bicycle, which led me to the principal's office with a threat of expulsion 
Later on another teacher asked for someone to give her a pocketknife to do a gardening task. Go figure. However, people continued looking at me funny if I used it (Someone even asked “are you going to attack someone with that thing?” Seriously the only purpose for a knife he could think of?). In fact, it was from getting so many strange looks that I started to use it in public only very discreetly if I pulled it out at all. Of course, for all the people who give me weird looks there are also people who think its cool or look at me jealously...
Too cool.
