Today I took the last of my husband's fancy knives to a place here in Gardiner that says it will try to sell them on ebay, ship them off if they do sell. The place, Ship on Site, charges a commission of %33, which seems steep, but considering the fact that I have not, in the past 5 1/2 years, managed to go thru the process myself, it seems worth it to get the thing done.
Micheal collected knives; like most women, I hate knives. To me (to us!) they represent only danger, pain, blood, death -- nothing good, in short. But many men like, are fascinated by, knives. O.K., guys, why is that? Can they represent anything but danger, pain, blood and death to you? Ah, a thought occurs: they could represent power, that all-time favorite of men's. Don't mess with me, guy; I've got this real sweet knife here, and I know how to use it. In other words, perhaps men think of knives as something they could wield, while women are more likely to think of them as something that could be wielded against them. And the thing about knives is that anybody can use them, at any time, can hurt themselves or others with them, whether or not intentionally. With a gun at least it has to be loaded before it becomes lethal.
Many knives, of course, are "utility" knives, not intended to threaten or do away with your fellow man, but to accomplish some much more mundane task. Knives for gutting fish or skinning animals that have been killed on a hunt (here they still represent danger, pain, blood and death, but for animals, not for humans). Pocket knives that are good for cutting rope, wire, your girl's initials in a tree (do young men still do that?) All-purpose Swiss army knives, that men no longer seem to carry as a matter of course, and if they do normally carry, they have to relegate to their checked baggage whenever they fly. (I recently needed help getting the lid off a bottle of water in the terminal at Portland -- turned to a nearby man and started to say, "Would you happen to have a..." and then changed it in mid-sentence to "No, of course you can't have, can you?" to the poor fellow's utter befuddlement.) Chefs want their kitchen knives good and sharp. Micheal used to be meticulous about keeping our kitchen cutlery sharp, and after nearly six years of not being sharpened I think it's safe to say my kitchen knives miss Micheal mightily.
So yes, knives have their place in the general scheme of things, and maybe they feed a man's fantasies about being tough, but for a delicate flower like myself they're just vile things to have around. I felt a pang when I realized nearly all of Micheal's dragon collection had been bought up at the huge house-and-garage sale I had a few months after his death. (I was about to take off for Scotland for as long as the money would hold out, and did not want to be paying storage for any more stuff than was absolutely necessary.) I realized, too late, that I should have kept at least one dragon, as a memento. But I had no such compunction about the knives. Sorry, Micheal, I'm happy to be shut of the last of them at last.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I would like to refresh, in my own mind if not in yours because you may be too young, a very familiar sight of my youth. It concerns old men who were retired and did not have all the modern facilities to occupy their idle time. I see these old geezers sitting on park benches under shady trees on the courthouse lawn talking. About what, I was too young to understand or remember but they were invariably holding pocket knives which they were sharpening or trading. Others were peeling apples. It was a sort of contest to see who could peel an entire apple without cutting through the long peel which would sometimes reach nearly to the ground.
Others were busy doing fancy carving on walking canes or toys for kids. If they did not have that talent then just whittling on a stick was satisfying
In my younger times a pocket knife was standard equipment for a man and he was not completely dressed without it. It had an endless number of uses from sharpening pencils to carving food. My father was the buyer of candy, tobacco, etc. for a wholesale house and received many premiums from the salesmen. The most frequent was a pocket knife, of which he had many (and I still have some). They are wonderful mementos.
I have never seen anyone cut with a knife except by accident or for medical treatment, and do not tend to think of them in any foul manner.
Post a Comment