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.

On Pocketknives: Joe Gannon

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

I met Joe Gannon a couple of years ago in Nashville and he seemed like an excellent candidate for a post. If his name sounds familiar, you may recall the project he is working on with Max Wastler called "Made Right Here" (I did a blog post about it a few months back. Joe is a great guy and often sports an amazing mustache. Be sure to check out his personal blog as well.

When I was a senior in college I lost my Grandfather. Howard Joseph Gannon, Sr. was a woodworker, a story teller, an old farm boy, a former factory worker, a deer hunter, a pretty typical Eastern Shore man. As a kid, I used to spend summer weekends watching him build wooden toys for the other grandkids in his little home workshop. Cedar hope chest's for the girls, gun racks and wooden trucks hauling "logs" for the boys. In between the hum of the table saw and the scuffing of sandpaper he'd tell me stories of his childhood. He'd remind me how neighbors would thrash wheat as a community. In between tears of laughter he retold the story of his first airplane ride and how he convinced the pilot to buzz his best friend while he sat astride an old Oliver tractor. He showed me the proper way to make a dovetail joint and how to use a biscuit cutter. Lessons were gifted to a grandson over the smell of sawdust and through the smoke of Chesterfield cigarettes. Perhaps his greatest gift was passing his name down to me. Howard Joseph Gannon, III.

It was weeks after the funeral and I was back at school when my Dad called with a request. "We are heading over to Dad's this weekend to sort out his things. If there's something you want let me know soon." "Just his pocketknife if it's still around..." I shot back over the line.

My Dad is the oldest of five brothers and a sister. They set out to divide up a lifetime of possessions, democratically. Starting with the oldest they went down the line in turn so everyone would get a fair pick. There was a veritable treasure trove of woodworking equipment, a truck or two, and as you can imagine boxes of stuff accumulated over 20 years of living as a bachelor. In a side table they found, "every greeting/birthday/Christmas card anyone had ever sent him" according to my aunt. We had no idea he made room for sentiments.

For his first pick, my Dad chose a $2, poorly sharpened, hardware store pocketknife. Second pick, someone snagged the Ford pickup truck.

Joe's son holding his grandfather's knife.

I've had that knife in my pocket almost everyday since. When I reach for it and can feel it's familiar outline in my pocket I'm comforted to know its safe and sound. I'm always met with a moment of fear when it's not there. Countless times I've turned the truck around miles from home just to retrieve it. It's been lost a few times...but somehow always finds its way back in my life, whether it be from the dryer or the TSA's return of valuable property envelope. It's still just a $2, poorly sharpened hardware special, but I wouldn't take anything pretty for it. After all, the knife really doesn't belong to me. I am just watching after it for my son, Howard Joseph Gannon, IV.

On Pocketknives: Jay from Red Clay Soul

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

If you read this blog, chances are that you're familiar with Red Clay Soul. Jay and I have known each other in real life for over a year a now, so he was an obvious candidate for this post. Here is his contribution to the pocketknife series.

I grew up in a pocket knife carrying family, so having one has never been an issue. In fact, I experience multiple panic-stricken moments on the days that I forget to bring it with me. “Did it fall out of my pocket? Oh Lord – where did I leave it…” until I remember that it’s waiting for me at home. My Granddad was never without his pocket knife. I remember him teaching me how to sharpen a knife with a stone and spit. He carried a Buck for as long as I can remember. We’d give him a new one every few years, but it took him about ten years to trade it out. After his passing, Mom got his last knife and keeps it in her jewelry box.

This Buck Gent has been with me for about twenty years. I bought it at Beaver Creek Landing on Lake Wateree in South Carolina. I’ve ‘lost’ it numerous times, only to have it returned by good friends who found it on the floorboard of their truck, or by my in-laws, who found it beneath their couch cushions.



The size of the Gent is very pocket appropriate, and its weight is just enough to let you know it’s there. It’s not fancy, but it’s not junk. It holds an edge well, and is made in the USA. While it is only a single blade, it has been used for so much more than cutting. I would put it up against any of its Swiss Army cousins.

The value of the $25 I spent on the knife has been more than realized, and I’m sure it’ll eventually make its escape. Until then, here’s to my sharp companion.

On Pocketknives: Ryan from A Gentleman's Journal

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

First up is Ryan, who lives in Tennessee and writes the blog A Gentleman's Journal. If you haven't read A Gentleman's Journal already, be sure to take some time to peruse it. Ryan is a great writer and has some great thoughts on Southern society and, of course, being a gentleman.

Like Trip, I didn't grow up carrying a pocket knife. Which is odd since as long as I can remember, my dad and my grandfathers have never been without one: pocket knife, and handkerchief, always. I have since come around to both. My pocket knife was given to me in the fall of 2003, by my offensive line coach, Kip Cloninger. We were having a team meal at a steak house, the day before our senior homecoming game. Coach stood up and announced "Seniors, listen to me. The rest of y'all just shut up and eat. Y'all are men, and men ought to always have a knife. You can never know when you'll need it." He gave us each these black S&W Cuttin' Horse locking blades which all of us, in simpler times, carried everywhere for the rest of the year. Including school.

That knife has seen its more pristine days. Wherever it is now (much to my lament, I can't find it right now) it has a broken tip, little to no enamel left on the blade, the belt clip broke off so long ago that I can barely remember it ever having one, and the swing button fell off who knows when. But, as with books, I find that to be evidence of love. And love that knife I have, very nearly to death.

That knife has cut rope, dressed a rabbit, opened many a box, peeled apples, whittled (it's still whittling if you just shave a stick, right?), cut the foil off a few bottles of wine, spilled my poor thumb's blood, and loosened a few screws in its day. I have used it for everything. Maybe its disappearance is akin to a dog going off to die. Maybe I had utterly used it up, and it couldn't bear the thought of just falling apart in front of my eyes, so it just r-u-n-n-o-f-t, never to be seen again. Wherever it is, I hope it knows it's loved and missed.

Not to be without a knife, I asked my dad if he had an extra. He looked around for a bit and produced three options: a huge walnut handled hawk-bill (which, aside from its inherent bad-assery, is not very practical), a more traditional three-bladed wood-scaled Craftsman that he found while flipping a house, and his silver Kamp King from the 60's. I didn't want to go to prison for having a scimitar in my pocket or risk losing my dad's boyhood knife, so I chose the Craftsman. And we're getting along just fine so far.

On Pocketknives

I've had this post in mind for years, literally. I'm not sure why I haven't gotten around to it before, but I finally did.

I didn't grow up carrying a pocketknife. In fact, it wasn't until 2008 that I decided to carry one. I was convinced by my friend Ralph, who, like his father, always carries one, so I went out and bought a dinky little Buck Solo model which I carried until I received a Buck 55 that Christmas. Since then, I have had that Buck in my pocket literally every day.

I like the Buck 55, which is the small version of the famous Buck 110. It's not the biggest, it's not the sharpest, it's not the fanciest, it's not the most expensive, but it suits my needs. I like the overall size and the size of the blade, the classic styling, the fact that it's a lockback, the practical blade shape, and the fact that, unlike a lot of Buck's products, it is still made in the USA. While I have grown attached to the one that I carry and hope that I never lose it, if it does ever become misplaced some day, the pain will be eased by the fact that another one can be purchased for around $30.

A few years ago I was up in DC visiting a friend and some of her friends seemed to be astounded by the fact that I carried a pocketknife. Now, these two girls are legitimate Yankees, so I guess it's somewhat understandable, but while I would never suggest that carrying a pocketknife is a habit only performed by Southerners, I do have a feeling that it is more common here in the South. Maybe that has something to do with our more agrarian roots, but who can really say? For me, carrying a pocketknife is now second nature, and I often panic when I think that I forgot my knife (turns out that it's usually in my pocket after all). I have used my Buck to remove tags, open boxes, open mail, open that damn plastic clamshell packaging, peel fruit, whittle sticks, and even breast-out ducks. Obviously a 2-3/8" blade wouldn't be great for self-defense, but there have been a few times when I've been a bit more peace of mind knowing that I at least had some sort of blade on me.

A few years ago I read a book called Supper of the Lamb (which the true A Trip Down South fan will recognize from my fourth post ever) by Robert Farrar Capon. It's probably on my Top Ten Favorite Books list (note: I do not have a literal list), but it's an amazing book that I think is best described as a combination cook book and theology book. Capon has some serious digressions throughout, including one about pocket knives. I've reproduced it below; it's a long passage, but I'd say it's worth the read, as is the entire book.

I grant you that I have overstated the case: Not all men have pocketknives. I was carried away by the force of my upbringing. I was raised, you see, in a tradition in which it was considered improper for a man to be without a knife on his person. (Seriously, I hound my sons to carry one, just as my father hounded me, and his father him, and so on, world without end.) My grandfather had a number of dicta, all of which were aimed at delineating how a gentleman should comport himself. One of them was: No gentleman should ever be without a pocketknife. You would have to have known him to appreciate the full paradoxicality of the statement. He had the most elegant manners of any man I ever met, but he was ready for anything--fish or cut bait, figuratively or literally--you take the full measure of the man: A gentleman should be able to prepare a light supper without removing his jacket. Obviously, you would have loved him.

Both my father and grandfather preferred what they (expectedly) called gentleman's knives: thin, graceful ones with pearl or gold handles. For myself, I have for years carried a large Swiss Army knife (the kind that has not only blades, but saws, scissors, screwdrivers, tweezers, a file, an auger, a can opener, and--again, expectedly--a corkscrew). In my father's eyes, such a knife, while admittedly fascinating and obviously useful, was gauche. It tried to be too many things at once (my father was a stickler for using only real tools, and for using them right)--and it was too bulky for a gentleman's pocket. I suppose it marks me as the degenerate son of a great house, but as long as I carry a knife at all, and keep it sharp, I hardly think my forebears will disown me.

I feel the day coming, though, when the pressure of my upbringing will force me to lay aside my portable Swiss workshop. They taught me too well. Deep in my subconscious lies the proposition: An old man without a thin, gold pocketknife is not a real old man. He is a man who missed his calling: no ancient priest of creation, but a superannuated acolyte who never earned the badge of his profession. My ownership of a gold knife, therefore, is only a matter of time. I could not think myself ripe without it.

What is true of my family, however, may not be true of yours. Many men are so taken up with the world of machines that they think it idle to carry a pocketknife. After all, you say, chocolate bars are scored to break easily, cigars are now manufactured with holes in their heads, and the post office efficiently breaks all package strings before they reach the addressee. Who needs a knife?

Your points are well taken. Let me direct your attention, however, to some factors you may have overlooked. First, while chocolate bars can be eaten without a knife, many of life's more satisfactory alfresco delicacies are intractable--even inaccessible--unless you have one. Candy never relieves the monotony of long family car trips half as well as an impromptu dispensation of sausages and cheese. Pepperoni, touristenwurst, landjaeger, cervelat, salami--name what you like--any of them, thrown whole into the back seat along with Daddy's pocketknife, will provide more wholesome diversion than chocolate ever could. If you children are contentious, of course, it will tend to bring out the worst in them. But then, with contentious children, so will anything else. At least it keeps them fighting with each other, and not with their parents.

Your two other points may be dealt with more briefly. For the first: Not all cigars have holes in their heads; until they do, no wise man should go through life (unless he has the elegantly sharp teeth and a miraculous bite) chomping the ends off expensive cigars. For the second: My only answer is that you have never received a package from me. What I tie up stays tied forever, unless you have a knife. You will sooner find a piece of postal clerk caught under my string than you will find the string missing form my package.

For the rest, however, let me simply ask you: How, without a pocketknife, do you pick a piece of privet blossom for a present to your second youngest daughter? How peel an orange to prove the goodness of creation? How amaze your friends with you ability to splice rope on a deserted beach? How open the clams you dig on an idle afternoon? (Even with a pocketknife, it isn't easy; but it is something a gentleman should practice till he masters.) And lastly, how is the race of men to survive boring lectures, conferences, and committee meetings without a knife with which to whittle away the time? We give fold watches when men retire. To keep them sane, we should give them gold pocketknives when they start out.

So much for the digression.

If you don't carry a pocketknife, I hope I've presented a compelling enough case to consider picking one up. They come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges, so just find what works best for you. Also, be sure to leave it at home if you're heading to the airport...

As an addendum to my post, I've asked some others to share their owns knives and the stories behind them. Links to all of the posts are presented below.

Ryan from A Gentleman's Journal
Ralph Settle
Jay from Red Clay Soul
Henry Sanders
Joe Gannon
Greg from Manifold Destiny
Matt Summers

Social Primer Brooks Brothers Tailgate Tour in Atlanta

This Thursday, November 10th, Cooper Ray of the blog Social Primer will be hosting a tailgate tour stop at the Brooks Brothers store in Lenox Mall. I will be there, along with JRS from Red Clay Soul, Caroline of Back Down South, and the guys from The Trot Line. There will be food, cocktails, and beach music by the legendary Atlanta motown band, The Tams. Cooper will be here in support of his bow tie line with Brooks Brothers, and will be unveiling a new, limited edition clothing item with Brooks (he's told me about it, and I think you're going to like it). The event will run from 6:00 and 8:00, so there's really no reason to not swing by after work and grab a free drink or two. The invite is below.

If you think you're going to be able to make it, please do RSVP to georgia@hwpr.com. And be sure to wear a bow tie. Hope to see you there.