Beyond The Edge - Tales Of Traditional Pocket Knives

[Naturally]

The Camp Safety Supervisor sat in his seat at the front of the crummy which would haul logging side crew back to the camp from their logging site in the "tall and uncut.

It was time for him to hand out safety awards to the crews for their safe work history during the past six month,

He was particularly pleased with the current award because he was able to negotiate a great deal with the supplier. Every man would receive a high quality three blade Case pocket knife. He could hardly wait to hand them out. It would take some fast work to get a knife to every man in one day but fortunately he had helpers.

Quitting time came and went and all the knives found new owners and a satisfied safety man climbed into his company pickup, very satisfied with his life. He was halfway back to camp when his company radio sqawked to life. It was the camp Supt. And he didn't sound pleased. "Who's big idea was it to give my crews knives as an award?" He demanded. "Uh, I guess it was mine" responded the Safety Man. "Well I just thought you'd like to know I've had over twenty men show up in my office to report badly cut thumbs from testing the edge of your blankety-blank safety awards."

Now that’s irony with a capital "I". Gotta love the intention, recognizing safe work with something practical and high quality, but this one sounds like a classic case of ‘didn’t think it all the way through.’ It’s a good reminder that even a well-meant gesture can backfire if folks aren’t prepped for the risks. Maybe next time pair the knives with a 5-minute safety briefing … or at least a Band-Aid

Could have been a Case 3-blade like this Stockman from my collection, but could have been a Gunboat Canoe or Sowbelly

 

[Llynn]

My story about the Navy comes from the early 1960s when it was very common for Chiefs, 1st class and even the occasional precocious 2nd class to call recruits and strikers squirrels.

The knives in school yarn came from my own experience. I grew up in a logging camp and went to a very rural school. No boy, including yours truly would think of leaving home without their trusty knife. Later, in high school, these same boys frequently showed up at school with a hunting rifle in a rack mounted in their pickup.

The Safety Supervisor bit is a true story that happened in the 1980s when I was working for a very large timber corporation. Thinking of it still makes me giggle though there really was a fair amount of blood involved...those "safety awards" really were sharp. They had a dark bone (or antler) handle and I think I still have mine around somewhere....at least I did before I moved last year.

Thanks shipmate. I really enjoyed your comments.

 

[Naturally]

My story about the Navy comes from the early 1960s when it was very common for Chiefs, 1st class and even the occasional precocious 2nd class to call recruits and strikers squirrels.

The knives in school yarn came from my own experience. I grew up in a logging camp and went to a very rural school. No boy, including yours truly would think of leaving home without their trusty knife. Later, in high school, these same boys frequently showed up at school with a hunting rifle in a rack mounted in their pickup.

The Safety Supervisor yarn is a true story that happened in the 1980s when I was working for a very large timber corporation. Thinking of it still makes me giggle though there really was a fair amount of blood involved...those "safety awards" really were sharp.

@Llynn , really enjoyed reading your stories. There's a lot of character and lived experience in each one. It's fascinating how cultural norms shift over time. What was once seen as common sense, like every kid carrying a knife or a rifle in the truck, now sounds like something out of a different world entirely. And that safety award story? A classic mix of good intentions and unintended consequences. Definitely gave me a chuckle, even if it came with a few Band-Aids. Thanks for sharing a "slice" of a time that feels both distant and oddly familiar

 

[Llynn]

Of course you are aware that I'm going to call you "Chief" from here on out. With sincere respect of course.

 

[Naturally]

Of course you are aware that I'm going to call you "Chief" from here on out. With sincere respect of course.

If not Naturally, then Jim please LoL ... I've PCS'd to Civi-land.
Commissioned an artist to picture the four ships I served aboard.
I was an "elderly recruit", joining when I was 33. Finally did the right thing and served my country.
Boot camp San Diego, Schools: Mare Island in Vallejo CA (twice).
Shore duty in maintenance at Fleet Combat Training Center Pacific (FCTCPAC) Point Loma, CA
And Instructor duty at Fleet Combat Training Center Atlantic (FCTCLANT) Dam Neck, VA

Name blocked for online security ...
Order in which I served:
Bainbridge, Norfolk, VA
Callaghan, Everett, WA
Groves, Pascagoula, MS
JFK, Mayport, FL

 

[Naturally]

@Llynn One of the most challenging writing tasks I ever had to do, and I had to do it often, was writing evaluations and awards for countless junior sailors and subordinates. These had to be in a specific format and style that the military is accustomed to. The harshest critics were often senior enlisted and officers. Even after many years, it remained a work in progress to get it just right for each and every sailor. Truth is, I would have rather been dealing with equipment. But paperwork was always a necessary part of the job, and the shipmates I served with, who supported me and our mission, deserved my best effort.

 

[Naturally]

Linwood in Wonderland

One morning, rather later than breakfast but earlier than a proper tea, young Linwood Thistle came upon a most peculiar sight in the woods behind his aunt’s crooked house.

There, wedged neatly in the trunk of an ancient and unfriendly tree, was a Laguiole knife.

Not a boring, brown-handled, humdrum sort of knife, but a brilliant, rainbowy, twisty sort of knife that looked like it had been made by someone who didn’t believe in straight lines or sensible colors.

It stuck out like a spoon in a soup that wasn’t expecting company.

“Well now,” said Linwood aloud, as was his habit when trees began acting suspicious, “this is entirely too interesting for a Thursday.”

He reached for the knife. The tree shivered.

“No thank you,” it grumbled (yes, the tree grumbled), “I’ve only just gotten used to having it stuck in me, and I don’t fancy going hollow again.”

Linwood blinked. “But it doesn’t belong to you!”

“Doesn’t belong to you either,” the tree retorted, tightening its bark around the blade tip. “It belonged to a painter who mistook a wall for a door and walked through the wrong side of an idea.”

“A painter?” Linwood said, cocking his head.

“Yes. Named Seize. Seize Happywallmaker, a French painter,” the tree muttered. “Either way, he painted things that wouldn’t stay painted. One day he painted a knife, and the knife became itself, and ever since it’s been cutting holes in the world.”

“That sounds very impractical.”

“It is! That’s why I swallowed it. Trees are very good at keeping things from wandering.”

Linwood pondered this, tapping a chinaberry twig against his chin. “Well then, if it’s a knife that cuts holes in the world, maybe I ought to borrow it for just a moment. There’s a rather tiresome spelling exam tomorrow I’d like to walk around.”

The tree sighed. “If you must, take it. But be warned: it cuts more than paths. It cuts meaning. It cuts time. And sometimes, it cuts you loose.”

With that, the bark unwound like ribbon, and the knife dropped into Linwood’s hand. The handle shimmered. The blade gleamed. Something behind his left ear tickled.

He gave the knife a cautious look all around.

And POP! the tree disappeared, the forest turned upside down, and Linwood found himself walking through a corridor made entirely of sideways clocks and upside-down umbrellas, where logic was a puddle and every step made a rhyme.

He would not return in time for tea.

 

[Naturally]

218

Of all the 2022 Blade Forums Bunny knives made that year, only number 218 was known to hum at midnight. No one at the Titusville factory admitted stamping 218 into the bolster. One said he thought he saw numbers glow faintly but assumed it was just a sheen of oil catching the light or something in his eyes. One blamed an apprentice named Eliot, though no one could remember hiring him.

The name Eliot was briefly on the breakroom whiteboard under “Do not trust,” yet no one could remember Eliot ever setting foot on the factory floor. Someone must’ve put the name there, but who?

The humming began exactly three nights after the knife found its owner. That night, it drifted down the Mississippi River by barge, tucked in the pocket of a man named BrotherJim, who claimed he could taste different metals just by holding them, and once identified a Canadian quarter as “spicy” on the edges.

BrotherJim, with no formal training in metallurgy or music, swore the hum was in the key of E minor, said it matched the sound of a starling flapping its wings in reverse, whatever that meant. His cousin, SisterLorna, disagreed. She said it was the sound of moss remembering rain. The truth, if there was one, likely lay somewhere between a kettle heating and a mosquito dreaming. The hum seemed to vibrate the air, pulling the very molecules around it into rhythm, sending a slight shiver up the spine, only the most sensitive could feel.

Months after it first hummed, during an electrical storm over a field in Iowa, the knife reportedly jumped six inches into the air, landed point down in a patch of grass, and pinned a single four-leaf clover to the earth without bruising a leaf. BrotherJim told no one. He picked the knife up, wiped the blade on his sock, and whispered, "Thank you," before looking around, just in case someone had seen.

No one knows where 218 is now. Some say it was traded for a jar of dandelion syrup at a roadside stand in Ohio. Others believe it was buried under the third pew of a collapsed church somewhere in Vermont, still humming, waiting for someone who remembers silence well enough to hear.

These days, it could be anywhere. If you catch a faint hum just past midnight, somewhere between a kettle heating and a dreaming mosquito, don’t dismiss it as your imagination. It might just be 218 checking in.

Until someone else finds it, I’ll carry 218. The hum, strangely, has a soothing quality.

 

[Naturally]

Untied

As he brushed sand from the handle, the sun was just touching the horizon.

The sky had softened to a gentle wash of vibrant color. Waves rolled in rhythm, each one kissing the shore in applause. He sat cross-legged near the water’s edge, velvet sand beneath him, scent of salt and seaweed hanging in the air.

The Canal Street Pinch Lockback rested in the palm of his hand. Its sunset smooth-bone handle glistened. Its hue was not unlike the sky itself, a glowing, worn orange. He turned the knife slowly, watching as the polished steel caught the fading rays. There it was again: 226, stamped subtly into the edge of the bolster.

He didn’t know how many were made. There was just that number, and in that moment he didn’t feel a need to know. The knife had come with silence, and it deserved to keep it.

A gull called somewhere behind him. The wind moved through the dune grass with the hush of a lullaby. He closed the blade with a soft, satisfying click and set it beside him, letting his hands rest on his knees.

There was nothing to fix. Nothing to chase. No purpose or task awaited him. Only the slow, steady breath of the ocean and the warmth of finding a calm, soothing, peaceful, and meditative place.

He stayed until stars appeared, one by one, like old friends returning to greet him. After naming them all Eliot, a thought drifted in. “Ya know, I have no idea how to get back to the car.”