Buck knives for dinner

My step father was an old cowboy hippie. He worked on a ranch in Montana, served in Viet Nam, organized a commune in Mendocino, partied with Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia, ran guns, grew pot, and once pulled a gun on Charles Manson. He was a colorful individual. When he took up with my mom, I got a whole new education in guns and knives. I already had a swiss army knife and my old boy scout knife, but he thought I needed a buck knife. He thought Buck Knives were the only folders for a real cowboy. I remember freaking my aunt out one thanksgiving. We had just sat down, and she looked around and said "Michael, do you have a steak knife? I'm out of steak knives." I said, "I've got a knife." She said "oh, good!" Then I pulled out my Buck Knife 309 Companion and she was mortified. "Oh, Michael!" she said, "Not a pocket knife! You can't eat with a pocket knife!" I responded "but I do at home!"

Dinner at our house in those days involved my step father cooking some amazing cut of meat, and the three of us sitting down to the table and pulling out our knives. I'd pull out my aforementioned Buck 309.

Mom mom, ever the showoff, would whip out her Buck Knife 110 Folder and flick it open with one hand. This was the knife all the older boys had and loved to carry. It looks mean, but it's also one of the best hunting knives around.

My step father, of course, carried a big old sheath knife. His was a browning that you can't get anymore, which he carried in a custom sheath he'd got from his saddle maker: but also had the classic Buck Knife 119, possibly the best mass-produced sheath knife ever made.

Then, knives out, we'd start eating. My step father always said, if your going to carry a knife, you might as well use it: and he couldn't see any reason to get a bunch of fancy steak knives out when we each had a knife with us already. I did a lot of other things with my old Buck Knife, but eating steak with it was probably the best.

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