Whittlin' Away

whittlin' away - an essay I went to buy a pocketknife recently for a preteen I know, a small boy with wide dreams and spaces to live in that match The usual hardware haunt was quite limited in its selection, so I went online to find the perfect treasure for an eight-year-old There was a wide array of overpriced stilettos and bayonets but nothing of simple sturdiness for boys with a woodsman's mindset So I went to the long-established area gun and tackle shop in search of a small locking blade that a boy could rub and oil and admire The sales clerk showed me several walls of hundreds of knives that in all probability included a full-size replica of a Jim Bowie broad knife with blood channel I naively asked if they had any not quite so - lethal He replied no, all they carried anymore where "tactical" knives I wondered what sort of tactics a eight-year-old who might still think little girls were "icky" would be in need of contemplating When I was a boy, all boys carried pocketknives as a point of practicality, whittlin' away our childhood, by shavings and curlings The thought of hand-to-hand tactics regarded only to arm wrestling and sneaking past authorities meant parents and teachers - to play Tactically bypassing metal detection and doing terminal bodily harm to anyone was completely unknown to our innocence and, too, to society "Tactical" pocketknives for boys (or anyone) is a present-day mindset of our own fear- and bravado-driven selves that we would sleep better without Nine and eleven are odd numbers that do not add up to an even world Even though we profess better selves, our current example falls short Little boys know not, and should care not, for such murderous dreams. I, too, care not for this. It may be true, someday, if we, as people, will it © Goode Guy 2012-10-13