By John Carlson—
My name is John, and I am a pocketknife addict.
This, I suppose, will be how I introduce myself to my fellow cutlery junkies in Pocketknife Addicts Anonymous – assuming that’s ever a thing – when I show up in pursuit of a 12-step program to overcome the craving that is pocketknife addiction.
I’ve been hooked for years…
Even as a little kid, pocketknives were an infatuation. Two doors down, my neighbor Dougie already had a miniature one with a fake pearl handle. I was envious, but hardly surprised. While my folks were squeaky clean Baptists, his drank beer and smoked Lucky Strikes, one of which Dougie liberated from its pack to introduce us both to the joys of tobacco when we were just six or seven years old. It only seemed natural for a kid like that to be packing a blade, even if it was just an inch-and-a-half long.
I had to wait for my first pocketknife until the ripe old age of nine, when I enlisted in the Cub Scouts. That magical day, the whole family accompanied me downtown to J.C. Penney. There it felt like I spent hours trying on the Cub Scout shirt, the Cub Scout pants, the Cub Scout belt, the Cub Scout neckerchief and the Cub Scout dorky brimmed beanie.
The truth was, I couldn’t have cared less about any of that stuff, especially the beanie.
But finally we approached the Promised Land, the glass counter under which the pocketknives were displayed, and there was mine! It had a solid feel, was emblazoned with a Cub Scout emblem and had a blue textured handle that contrasted beautifully with its shiny silver blade, awl and screwdriver/can opener. Walking out of that store, I was floating on air.
From the start I was allowed to carry it to Allen Elementary School, the 1950’s being a time when killing kids in their schools was unthinkable. We boys would dig out our knives at recess to play our own version of mumplety-peg, the rules of which were always sketchy. The important thing was, none of us ever accidentally knifed each other in the foot.
That first pocketknife stood me in good stead until November of 1963 when I was thirteen. Walking up to The Corner Store on Cleveland Street, I was intent on buying something to fit my mood. This wasn’t unusual. I’d bought countless cherry Cokes at its fountain, cheap model airplane kits from its shelves and endless “Sgt. Rock” comic books from its magazine racks.
This time, though, my mood was darker. For just a couple bucks, I bought a cheap but nasty looking pocketknife with a six-inch blade. It was the ugly kind of knife you might have seen some juvenile delinquent wield in a movie like “Blackboard Jungle.” Just why I bought it wasn’t exactly clear to me, except President Kennedy had been assassinated a couple days earlier, and even a dumb kid could sense that somehow things were very wrong. Looking back now, maybe I used that tragic event to rationalize my purchase, but I don’t think so. About then it simply felt like a good idea to have an extra pocketknife near at hand.
After that, though, I kept collecting pocketknives under happier circumstances. Both machinists, my grandfathers kept timeworn pocketknives in the greasy smelling toolboxes that hinted at the workingman’s skills in their rough hands. On a couple occasions I talked them out of an old battered pocketknife, one all the more precious to me for their having owned it.
These days, I occasionally dig out my pocketknives for the sheer joy of getting reacquainted.
There are a couple official Swiss Army knives, a traditional red-handled one and a silver handled one, both solid tools manufactured by Victorinox, which makes the best. That’s one way to tell you’re a true pocketknife snob: You turn up your nose at official Swiss Army pocketknives made by lesser manufacturers like Wenger, which I find inferior.
I mean, who but a pocketknife nut would even have an opinion?
Others? There are spacey looking ones my grandfathers probably wouldn’t even have recognized as pocketknives. All sorts of bladed multi-tools, too. Plus there’s a bone-handled beauty that’s lots older than I am, souvenir knives celebrating places like Niagara Falls, and an inexpensive Remington so tightly well made, you close its blade at the risk of losing a finger.
Not everything about checking out my stash makes me happy, though. Over the years I’ve lost my share of pocketknives. There’s a favorite green Cutco with a locking blade, one I haven’t seen since digging in my pocket to buy groceries on a Florida vacation.
Five years later, I still regret that vacation.
Of course, emotionally involved with pocketknives as I am, the benefits of owning them far outweigh the heartache of losing one.
First, say you’re walking around somewhere in Indiana and get bitten by one of the copperheads that supposedly come out in droves because they crave the taste of cicadas. You have the means of making cross cuts in your flesh over the fangs’ puncture wounds like cowboys bitten by rattlers used to make in Westerns, even though doctors say not to do that anymore.
Second, it makes gift shopping for fellow pocketknife nuts a cinch. I haven’t bought my son anything but pocketknives as presents for the last ten years.
Third, this also works in your favor. Nancy kept asking me last December what I wanted for Christmas, and I couldn’t think of a blessed thing. Finally in exasperation, I said “Just go to Lowes, find the pocketknife display, then buy me something cheap from it.”
I even made it sound like a sacrifice.
But Christmas morning I opened this stocky little Leatherman, excited as a kid. Every day since, I have felt its comfortable heft in my hand or pocket … and grinned.
Now how are you going to beat that?
John’s weekly columns are sponsored by Beasley & Gilkison, Muncie’s trusted attorneys for over 120 years.
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A former longtime feature writer and columnist for The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, John Carlson is a storyteller with an unflagging appreciation for the wonderful people of East Central Indiana and the tales of their lives, be they funny, poignant, inspirational or all three. John’s columns appear on MuncieJournal.com every Friday.
