Category → Family
Some observations on knives sold at the Great American Outdoor Show
Knife production is reaching an apex, it appears. Never before in one place have I seen so many higher quality production knives as I have seen at the Great American Outdoor Show. Many booths selling hundreds and hundreds of better quality folding knives, with some custom and semi-custom knife sellers sprinkled around.
Oddly, you can’t find a sharpening stone in the entire Farm Show complex to save your blade’s life. No one is selling sharpening stones. Blades out the wazoo, yes. Ways to keep them functioning, no. Whether it is a sign of the throw-away society meeting Pleistocene Man, or too much optimism about modern steels’ edge retention capability, it is an odd sign indeed.
Once the purview of expensive custom knives, Damascus blades are now ubiquitous, although most are probably made in Pakistan and India, so their quality cannot be real high, and you’ve got no idea of their cadmium, arsenic, or lead content, either, although I am willing to bet these blades are positively toxic to human health. They do look nice, though.
[Damascus steel is a mix of different types of metals that when folded over and over and then hammered out reveal an appealing variety of patterns. Because metal types used in Damascus steel vary widely, quality varies widely. I use only Alabama Damascus in my knives]
Clearly, there is a bleeding over from the custom knife market into the high production market, where quality used to suffer badly. Knife buying Americans evidently have improved tastes and higher expectations for their over-the-counter knives. That’s a good thing. But do they have to be made in those rainbow colors? They hurt my eyes. Camo handles are humorous – drop your knife, never find your knife, lose your knife. Maybe those rainbow colored handles work, after all.
One other observation is the high number of bug-out bags being made. Man, Americans seem ready for the apocalypse. After seeing so many of these grab-and-run packs, I now realize that I need one, too. No, my oh-so-1970s Kelty backpacks do not seem up to snuff, even though they have served me well on rugged wilderness trips for many years. Nope, camo is de rigeur here, too.
Come on by the PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs booth and buy a raffle ticket for our Bushmaster AR-15 M4. Just ten bucks gets you a lot closer to having your bug-out bag fully equipped with a state-of-the-art rifle.
Good show! JRJ Knives sells out at Great American Outdoor Show
Want the sign of a good show? Watch the vendors sell out of their items only a couple of days in.
JRJ knives of New Buffalo is my go-to source for top of the line custom knives. John uses ATS-34 steel and stock removal (with a little welding and hammering now and then) to make any knife you want or need. He and I have several knife projects under way, mostly using Alabama Damascus steel and hippo tooth, and although the wait can be longer than you’d like, the results are always better than you could have imagined. JRJ makes high quality knives.
Well, last Sunday I stopped in at the JRJ Knives booth at the Great American Outdoor Show, and John was nowhere to be seen. He was back at the shop, his wife Jodi said, because they had sold out of nearly all their knives. That is, they had sold more knives in the first 24 hours of the show than they expected to sell during the entire week.
Today I was shopping around for old fashioned whet stones. You know, the old fine-grained novaculite Arkansas sharpening stones that were once a staple in every American kitchen. You’d expect to find lots of them for sale at the Great American Outdoors Show, especially given how many knife vendors there are. Nary a one, oddly. Either modern newfangled steels have become self-sharpening, or even rugged outdoorsmen no longer sharpen their own knives. Something odd is afoot. One knife vendor said that he had sold out of all of his premium knives, and had to order more; he hoped they would arrive by tomorrow.
But back to the main point here: All this selling out of items in a day or two is a good show. So far, it is a big success. If you haven’t yet visited, you should. It has a whole new look, feel, and energy. And yes, there are AR15s on display everywhere.
Goin’ to the big show
The NRA may not do a great job of thanking, recognizing, or appreciating its members’ grass roots work that shut down the Eastern Outdoors Sports Show and turned it into the Great American Outdoor Show, but the show is on, nonetheless. I’ll be there all week, off and on, and I hope to see you there.
Pete Seeger – gone
Pete Seeger died yesterday. I met Pete several times in the mid-1980s, when I worked for his brother, John, who was also a remarkable and influential person. Although most of Pete Seeger’s politics were like his brother John’s — mostly vexing and at best confusing to me, he was a very gentle and nice man who made audiences laugh, sing from their hearts, and feel better by the end of the day. Planet Earth is now a little poorer. Fair sailing, Pete!
PS Pete Seeger was related to Alan Seeger, the namesake of a 90-acre patch of old-growth hemlock and pine on Seven Mountains, on the border of Mifflin and Centre counties. This little patch of forest cathedral Heaven has been one of my favorite hideaways since my earliest childhood memories. That a small brook running through it holds sparkly brook trout makes it magic, and not just Heavenly.
Ryan Loskarn – to be judged
Ryan Loskarn. Look him up. No need to say here what he did. Today he took his own life. Now only One will judge him, and not a jury.
Viewing child pornography creates a demand for child pornography, and it creates the conditions where children are subjected to the worst physical abuse imaginable. It is not a victimless crime to watch child porn.
The worst retribution is justified. Suicide is the easy way out. Hanging yourself is the right thing to do. Thank you.
Update**** I extend my condolences to Ryan’s family. To his credit, his shame was so overbearing that he could not live with it. Like defeated Roman generals and honor-bound Samurai warriors of old, Ryan took his own life to atone for his great failure. It is to his credit. And one more thing: Like the traditionalist he was, wrestling with his inner demons, he took responsibility for his actions. I wish another political party out there showed a smidgen of the same awareness among their own failed leaders. Instead, red-handed murderers like Ted Kennedy are exalted.
Hunters United for Sunday Hunting @ Great American Outdoor Show
Hunters United for Sunday Hunting will be in booth 4511 in the Outfitters Hall of the Great American Outdoor Show. Come see us.
Burst pipes? You were in good company
Ten days ago, weather across the country was bitterly cold. Polar vortex, solar lull, regular winter weather…seems there’s a bunch of possible causes. One defining characteristic of that week-long deep freeze was the amount of burst pipes across the country, and around central Pennsylvania. Our home had burst pipes, and a property I manage had burst pipes, and the plumbers at both jobs told me they had spent days from six in the morning until late at night working on nothing but burst pipes. The big box stores were either short on or out of key plumbing components, which caused further delays in getting homes and businesses functioning again.
Which is all to say, I have never heard so many creative reports about where families washed their clothes and dishes. Many went to neighbors, friends, or nearby families. Some went to churches. Some used water from nearby creeks. As damaging as that freeze was, it only bolstered people’s spirit and resolve to carry on, and it cemented a feeling of community and caring among many people who normally just say “Hi” to each other coming home from work.
I found that refreshing.
Happy New Year!
Friends, here is to a happy next year, a new year, The New Year, 2014, for you, for all of us.
And thank you for being part of my past year, which was good in so many ways, thank God.
Make it count.
Josh
Merry Christmas to one and all!
However it evolved into a fake insult, saying Merry Christmas is still the nicest thing one American can say to another.
Christmas is our national holiday. Religious Christians fret over its secularization, and certainly the commercilization and materialism surrounding Christmas stand in contrast to its roots.
But thanks in great part to 19th century British writer Charles Dickens, Christmas is, for all people, a time of cheer, good will towards one another, an abandonment of grudges, an embracing of love as the preferred force in human relations.
So, secularized as this all may be at this point, the message and culture now surrounding Christmas is good stuff.
So, whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, Baha’i, Zoroastrian, or pagan, I wish you a very Merry Christmas. You’re an American, you’ve earned it.
From here on out, it’s all downhill
Yesterday was the Winter Solstice. The shortest day of the year. In a winter-dreary location like Central Pennsylvania, it also marks the beginning of longer days, leading to sunnier days. From here on out until June 21st, it’ll be easier sailing.
Sure, we’ve burned half our firewood and we expect the balance to be gone by February’s end, but just knowing that our friendly neighborhood sunlight will be filtering in more often is a reason for hope. And no, annual trips to islands and warm beaches just do not seem to break winter’s grey grip.