THE POCKETKNIFE

My first pocketknife was a birthday present the day I turned six years old! It was a one bladed Barlow with long steel jaws and a real good back spring. The blade was of high quality steel and before my birthday was over I had put an edge on it you could shave with.

My Father always claimed that any mountain man worth his salt always had a good knife in his pocket!

Mountain men also played a game called drop. It was the code of the hills, that when challenged, you must play the game. You took your knife and held it in your right fist and extended your left hand, palm up. The challenger did the same. On the count of three each one opened their right fists and dropped their knives into the left hand of their opponent. They swapped knives, for keeps!

The code only permitted you to drop quality steel………no trash. If a man had a real good knife he wanted to keep, he would carry an extra knife in his pocket!

I lost my Barlow within two weeks, in return for a two bladed Remington!

That spring I went with my family to visit some relatives over in Wautauga County. I was looking out of their dining room window and right before my eyes I spied my Barlow, or one just like it. It was just lying there, right there on the window sill. I couldn’t resist………….I slipped that knife into my pocket. In one second flat, I had become a thief!

I was now a two knife dropper. I would keep the Barlow and drop the Remington and I couldn’t wait to challenge someone. But that was not to be. I got to thinking about what I had done and remorse set in before I got back home. True repentance took a while longer.

That Barlow knife got heavier and heavier and then it got to burning my pocket. When I switched pockets it just got hotter. I would wrap it up and hide it somewhere and then tremble with fear that someone would find it. I would then go back, retrieve it and put it back in my pocket. I couldn’t use it and I couldn’t force myself to destroy it or throw it away. I would lay in my, bed listening to the wind howling through the big lash horn pine tree just outside. That’s when I got it in my mind that the old devil himself, would reach in through the window, grab me by the legs and toss me into the flaming pits of hell!

This went on for several weeks. Finally, one day, I was sitting on the meal chest in the kitchen, a pitiful looking creature I am sure, when my Mother picked me up in her arms and said, "Son, why don’t you give me that knife you stole and I will keep it for you until we go back the Wautauga County?"

Somehow, Mothers always know. I gave her the Barlow!

It was way down in the fall when we went back to Wautauga. Just before we went into their house my Mother dropped the knife in my hand and said, "While we are saying hello to Dolly and Lawrence, you slip in and put this thing right back where you found it."

I did!

My Father would have made me confess.

That knife was the first and the last thing I have ever stolen!

Mama saw my awful plight,
She understood my pain
And done the only thing she could
To make me whole again.
In a very special moment,
Perhaps on bended knee
My Mama somehow managed
To intercede with God,
For me!

It is ironic that an unpleasant incident can be of such a magnitude that it lights a spark in ones mind that will somehow give you a different view of things; in fact, a keener perspective of things you have always known but sometimes take for granted..

This happened to me this past summer.

I was aware that the 9-11 terrorist attack should place security of air travel on a heighten alert status but I was amazed at the rude, the crude and the intolerant attitude of the security people at airport terminals toward airline passengers.

This past summer I flew from Mississippi to North Carolina for a family reunion I am a 74 year old male stroke victim requiring a lot of physical and speech therapy in order be able to take care of myself and travel alone. On my return flight I presented my one small bag to security people. While my bag was passing through the detection machine I had problems with the
personal metal objects like change, necklace and watch. I have no feeling in my right hand so I spilled them on the floor. As I was putting the last coin in my pocket a very rude security guard groped my person insisting that I pull my shoes off. I was trying to tell him through slurred speach that it was difficult to do this. He still insisted.

As I reached over to retrieve my bag, two female security guards, took me by each arm and one of them said in a loud voice, "The machine has dectected a security breech in your luggage. Would you come over here and open your
bag." I done as I was instructed to do.

"Here it is." She held up a small two inch pocketknife for everone to see. "Is this yours?" I nodded and admitted that it was.

"Well, you know that we will have to confiscate your knife." she said with an authoritive voice as more people gathered around.

I was aggrevated but I played it cool and replied, "Lady, this is my pockerknife and you will not confiscate it. However, if you want to buy it for $30.00 be my guest" as I reached out and took my pockerknife and began to gather up my possessions so I could close my bag. She wanted my knife, claiming that she had to confiscate it, yelling to me over and over, "You can't get away with this." The crowd continued to grow.

"I am the Chief of Security and we will have to confiscate your knife." I had finished closing my bag when I looked up at someone that I thought for a moment was a reincarnated General George S. Patton without boots.

I gathered up whatever wits I had left by this time and replied, "Like I told the lady, this is my pocketknife and you will not confiscate it and like I told her, if you want to give me $30.00 for it I will sell it to you."

He stepped in front of me as I picked up my bag with the knife inside I stepped around him when he said, "Where are you going? I want that knife."

"I am going to check my bag with the airline instead of carrying it on myself like I done coming up here.. During all of this turmoil I was waiting for someone in security to tell me this. I knew it, but for some reason you and your outfit
could not get past their desire to confiscate my pocketknife There was no problem until your people made it one." I then proceeded to check my bag.

I was finally settled in my assigned seat on board the plane complementing myself that I had handled things fairly good. We had been setting there for about fifteen minutes. I thought we were waiting for a late passenger, when all at once this guy came in, all out of breath, wanting to know if there was a Barney Shepherd on this plane. I stood up.

He introduced himself as a Doctor and in front of God and everybody on the plane he wanted to know if I was still angry and proceeded to lecture me of the importance of adhering to these heightened security rules and regulations.

That was just too much!

I lost my cool. If I had been physical able I would have thrown the the guy off the plane or at least I would have tried to have done so..I had to be satisfied with threatening a lawsuit for harassment. Later, I learned from a spokesperson
from the airline that they usually use a psycologist to handle these type problems and intimitated that I was probably now on their list.

I still couldn't convince the airline spokesperson that I really didn't have a problem; they did. I ask you; is that anyway to run an airline; or for that matter, a war on terrorists?

I may be old but I have learned one thing - if you own a real good pocketknife, bought and paid for by yourself, don't you ever let some stupid and bootless make believe general, confiscate the damn thing!.

There is a rebellious flame fueled deep within my soul; a simple thing called liberty!