All About Pocket Knives

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Too cool.