Sunday, May 9, 2010

A Good Pocket Knife Can Mean a Lot

Winchester 22-01335 3-Inch Folder S/E Clip Wood Inlay Pocket KnifeI recently lost a pocket knife, the one I think of as my "daily" knife, the one I carry with me whenever I am out of the house. It's just a little Winchester pocket knife with a three inch blade I picked up at Walmart a few years ago for about six dollars. I usually keep it in my pocket, but the knife had a metal clip on its side and I decided out of the blue one day to try to use the clip. So, I clipped it onto my belt before going out to take the dog for a walk. When I got home, the knife was gone.

I think I cursed. The knife had no sentimental value to me, but it had been a trusty blade over the years, proving its worth in some fashion or other just about every day. Also, the knife had not been expensive, so it was not as if I was out much money.

Besides, I had other pocket knives. Not a ton of them, I'm not a knife collector, but I had a half dozen or so to pick from if I wanted another "daily" pocket knife.

Then I got to thinking about the pocket knives I owned. And I got to wondering why I had carried that one particular knife when I had others to choose from. It came down to the fact my Winchester knife had been durable, cheap and handy, and I hadn't carried any of my other knives because they had sentimental value for me and I had not wanted to take a chance on losing them.

One of my knives had belonged to my father. Two had belonged to my grandfather. One I bought from a Frenchman who told me a tale of having dug up the knife on the beaches of Normandy (I like to think that knife had perhaps belonged to one of the U.S. soldiers storming the beaches on D-Day, but there's nothing to prove that). Another knife had belonged to the grandfather of a friend. And yet another I had picked up about ten years ago the first time I took my wife to a Renaissance Festival.

So, I had not wanted to carry any of those knives. I still didn't, because I still didn't want to take a chance on losing them.

Digging around in a box of office supplies, a box that had never been unloaded after our last move, I came across another knife, a cheap pocket knife with a plastic body. I remembered I had carried that knife when I worked at a newspaper years earlier and I had used the knife to cut the strings on bundles of newspapers.

For the time-being, that plastic knife (though, yes, it had a steel blade) would have to do until I could find a replacement.

Still, I missed my old "daily" knife. I walk my dog every day, usually several times a day, so on our trips I've been looking for that knife. Day after day, no luck.

Then, this morning, I got up earlier than usual, mainly because I had gone to bed earlier than usual the night before because I had not been feeling well. Since I was up early, I decided I'd go ahead and take the beagle for a walk before the day became too hot. We followed our usual path, the one we had traveled the day I lost my knife.

We had been walking perhaps a mile when the morning sun caught on something ahead of us, something glinting on the ground.

I thought, Could that be my knife?

I rushed ahead.

Sure enough, it was my trusty Winchester pocket knife. There was a little dirt on it and some smudged places, but thankfully there was no rust even though there had been rain the day before. I was happy as could be. It almost felt like providence, as if someone was looking down upon me from above and had given me a little treasure for the day. Yes, I thanked God for letting me find my little pocket knife.

Then I took the knife home, cleaned it, oiled it, sharpened it and placed it back in my pocket where it currently resides. And where it will stay. It's a good knife, but the clip on it isn't worth a darn.

No comments:

Post a Comment