I really miss my pocket knife...
azstarnet.com
Just can't cut twine with that PDA
By Dale McFeatters
I recently encountered an old, lost and almost forgotten friend - the pocketknife. We were preparing to move, and I came across a box of penknives inherited from my father.
Dad, like most males going back to the founding of the republic and probably beyond, was rarely without one.
I slipped one, a flat, sturdy stainless-steel job, into my pocket and carried it every day of our move.
The knife was invaluable, especially for cutting that plastic packaging tape, the kind that scrunches up into an impenetrable tangle if you try to tear it.
It was also invaluable for tightening and loosening various gizmos when the regular screwdrivers had gone AWOL.
I thought to myself, "This thing is really handy. I should carry one all the time."
I used to - several generations of Swiss Army knives through college, the Peace Corps and starting out in the newspaper business.
I'm sure I used the knife blade on occasion, but I don't specifically remember it. More useful were all the other tools - the screwdriver, can opener, saw, corkscrew - very handy, that - awl, toothpick.
Something vital would break, and I would replace the knife, until some years back when for whatever reason I didn't.
Once no man would have been without a pocketknife, a slim blade or two in a handle inlaid with amber, bone or ivory.
As the bearer got more affluent, the knife got smaller, small enough to attach to a key chain stretched across the paunch.
The pocketknives might have been an atavistic homage to the days when every gentleman carried a sword, but they served a real use - a portable manicure, a cigar trimmer, a letter opener and a means of cutting the tough twine that packages once came wrapped in.
None of that "pull tab to open" for our rugged forebears. In idle moments, they would whittle.
Not too long ago, it was a rite of
passage when a youngster was allowed to start carrying his Cub Scout knife outside.
There must be millions of Boy Scout knives, clunky enough to make your pocket sag, stashed in the back of drawers everywhere.
Nor was carrying a pocketknife exclusively a male custom. I don't know what was in the 19th century woman's reticule, but for a long time my wife carried in her purse one of those massive Swiss Army knives that contained every tool necessary to re-create civilization from scratch, should the need arise.
My daughter the art student states that a slimmer version is one of the best presents I ever gave her.
Alas, the federal government has seen fit to end this fine, old American custom.
If you carry a pocketknife - unless you're a total recluse - sooner or later the federal government will take it away from you, at an airport, at the entrance to a public building, at any venue where the president or vice president happens to be.
It is all done, like the custom of going barefoot and beltless in airports, in the name of security. But there seems an even further determination to stamp out the custom altogether.
Even if you removed the knife blade, airport security would still confiscate the handle with its little tools, perhaps for fear that with your tiny screwdriver you might dismantle the plane in flight.
I will divide up my dad's knives among my children, but I suspect with our generation the custom of the pocketknife will end.
And what will the next generation hand down?
"Son, I want you to have this. It was your grandfather's. It's his personal digital assistant with wireless phone, e-mail, Internet and photo functions. He was never without it.
"Just don't try to take it through airport security."
* Dale McFeatters is a columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, 1090 Vermont Ave. NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005; e-mail: mcfeattersd@shns.com. |
