Some knives

I remember when my parents gave me my first pocketknife. I had wanted one
for some time. It was a "pen knife," they said -- it had a blade about 3
cm long, an inch and a quarter or so. I remember it well. It had a white,
mother-of-pearl-like handle, and a little ring to hook a chain into. I was
about six years old and I used it for all the things a boy needed a knife
for: cutting orange peels; trimming pencils; mindlessly shaving wood;
throwing at walls or trees. Trouble was: it did the last very poorly. And
the blade was wobbly.

My father was a knife carrier, too. His knife threw really well and its
blade was much more solid. I eventually got heavier knives that threw
better. And held the blade better, too.

I don't think I have gone out without a knife in my pocket very many days
in my entire life. At some point in the 1990s it became difficult to
travel with a knife on your person, but I continued carrying them in my
luggage.

I have about ten knives, I think. Most don't get used a lot. These were
three I thought would sit well together. My everyday knife these days,
since my wife gave it to me about ten years ago, is a bright red Swiss Army
knife. I left it out of the picture.

Here, on the left, is one of my father's pocket knives which were left to
me when he died twenty years ago. I think he must have sharpened this one
every week for years to get the blade so narrow. It's a Sheffield knife, a
good, solid one.

In the middle, is a knife I picked up in the slushy snow one winter day in
about 1974 while walking up from downtown. It was already a well-worn
knife and it still had a lovely heft. I knew someone missed that knife but
I didn't know who, so it became mine. It was in my pocket every day for
probably thirty years. I keep it in my desk now and it still gets used
pretty frequently. It was made in "Western Germany." Ruhr Valley, maybe.

And on the right is a Chinese knife given to me, a good customer, by the
owner of the art gallery and framing shop whose name and address is
inscribed on it. It's not an especially solid knife, but it has more tools
than the other two -- like a bottle opener and a corkscrew. I've had it
about ten years. A year or two ago, the shop closed because the owner
couldn't get anyone in their family to take it over after they retired.

The three knives sat for five minutes in a cake-tin while I took their
picture.