On Pocketknives: Greg from Manifold Destiny

As an addendum to my original post on pocketknives, I've asked some others to share their own knives and the stories behind them.

Greg has an excellent eye for design and style, as can be seen on his blog Manifold Destiny. It's now in Tumblr format, so if you're on Tumblr, be sure to follow him. Otherwise, look for updates in my blog roll to the right.

The Knives I Don't Carry

To paraphrase the inimitable Martin Short in Father of the Bride: every party has a pooper, that's why Trip invited me. Though it may horrify the Southern blogosphere, I do not carry a pocketknife on a daily basis. That's not to say I'm opposed to knives, quite the opposite actually: I've had access to sharp implements long before it would be even remotely prudent. I received a Swiss Army Recruit when I was 5 for serving as a ring bearer in my uncle's wedding. That carried me through many years of Cub and Boy Scouting, surviving trips to Bert Adams Scout Camp, and once spending 6-8 months rolled up inside a tent in our basement before being rescued the next spring. In high school I worked as a summer camp counselor and bought an elaborate Spyderco knife that managed to get lost at a lacrosse teammate's party in remarkably short time for such an expensive piece of cutlery. College often saw me without a knife, which was probably for the best from a public safety standpoint, but I did carry a Case Sodbuster during most of law school, which is most useful during a recession for opening rejection letters.

Nevertheless, I eventually secured employment in Washington, DC. Much like a spy behind enemy lines, I'm deep in foreign (Yankee) territory here, and dare not carry personal effects that would identify myself as a southerner. The bow ties and seersucker do that well enough. Our nation's capital has weapons laws that were presumably drafted by Gandhi himself, which I'm sure is quite comforting to the gentleman who was stabbed on my block a few weeks ago. Most of my day is spent in government buildings, and despite being a lawyer myself, I can't for the life of me decipher the regulations surrounding what kind of knives might or might not earn me a trip to federal prison. Someday I'll live again in an area where grown men can be trusted to carry pointy objects in public. Until then, my knives will be staying home.