In this essay I am going to be talking only about pocket knives, as distinguish from knives that are meant to kill.  I suspect that this again is an exercise in nostalgia.
Looking back more than 70 or 75 years ago, there was a custom having to do with knives.  My father, for example, would go nowhere without a knife.  When he went to work, he had a heavy-duty knife that he carried in his pocket.  On Sundays when he went to church, he had a more fanciful knife.  But the point is that on no occasion was my father knifeless.
At the time 75 or more years ago, knives were a welcome thought on the American scene.  Work knives were actually used in the performance of my father’s duties.  At one point, there were such things as “Boy Scout knives” that had various blades and would also include a corkscrew.  When it came to knives that were carried on dressed-up occasions, knives were often worn on key chains in full view.
In this day and age, if an airline customer with a knife would attempt to board an airplane, the knife or knives would soon be discovered, either through a pat-down or through some sort of x-ray device.  But knives have all kinds of utility.  They could cut string, or they could be used to peel an apple.  On the subject of knives, I was more or less neutral.  I recognized their utility but carrying a knife in my pocket tended to wear the pockets out.  But if my father or other gentlemen of his age carried knives, either the work-a-day knives or the Sunday knives, or if they attached them to their key chains, they thought that this was a sprightly accessory.  But as time has gone on, knives have lost their value.
As I said at the beginning, this is an exercise in nostalgia.  Nostalgia has to do with my father, who would go nowhere without his knife.
That includes the work-a-day knife or the Sunday knife.  And so I conclude that in these days of pat-downs, knives are out of the question.  They were appropriate for my father, who lived a long time ago.  My father and I were never pals.  But from time to time, I remember him fondly.  And the thought this Sunday morning turned to my father and his knives.  I suspect that if he were to leave the house without his knife, it would have been an occasion for distress.
Perhaps knives were a part of my father’s generation.  For all intents and purposes, I have not been involved in the knife culture.  But that does not prevent me from writing a small essay on my father and his love of knives, either the work-a-day models or the Sunday show-off models.
 
E. E. CARR
February 12, 2012
635
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In my work as an investment banking intern I have had no less than three occasions where I have needed a knife, primarily to open boxes of printing materials. I’ve had to borrow the company’s shoddy little boxcutter and it brings me great shame; clearly I should just have my own handy at all times.
Because seriously if a banker needs one once every three weeks or so, I can imagine that real professions have even more need for them.