02-28-2018, 11:11 AM
This is a great thread topic Wade and I very much appreciate your shared sentiments here. It's obvious to me that your Dad isn't really gone because he's still in your thoughts and now, he's in mine as well. So thank you very much for the introduction.
My home sharpening ritual isn't very ritualistic at all. Joan decides when her knives aren't sharp enough and conveys that information to me. I then package them all up, take them to the office with me and sharpen. Joan's pretty good at keeping edges straight so this occurs, maybe, a couple of times a year.
When I think of ritual though my mind automatically goes back to the days when I still lived in Kansas. Every summer my friends and I (6-8 of us) would pack up and go on a five or six day trout fishing trip in Colorado. Trout fishing in Colorado centers around the Gunnison area. The Taylor, the Gunnison, East River and lots of smaller tributaries like Texas Creek, Spring Creek and Ohio. We always stayed at a very old hunting and fishing camp called Spring Creek Resort twenty or so miles north of Gunnison. The camp buildings were built in the forties out of log with native stone foundations. Our trip planning went the same way every year. We'd leave after work and drive through the night to arrive in Gunnison in the morning. We'd buy all the groceries for the week at the local Safeway and pick up our fishing licenses. Then we'd head up into the Mountains and fix lunch at the cabins.
The cabins sat right on Spring Creek so after lunch we'd tote a cooler down to a flat, grassy area right next to the stream and set up at an old picnic table there. Then the knives came out. There's going to be plenty of fish to be cleaned, right? Mostly nice big folders. One of the group, Gene, was a gunsmith and knife maker. He'd supply the stones and we'd set to work. More often than not for hours. My most clear memory of all this is me grinding and grinding and then handing the knife to Gene for inspection. He'd shake his head and hand it back to me and I'd continue my efforts. This all became ritual for us each and every year and only interspersed, some years, with a little tomahawk throwing. Bubby was always on these trips so maybe he can chip in here as well.
Don't try to find Spring Creek Resort. Just like a lot of other things, its been gone for some time now. The memories of those sharpening sessions are still here though.
My home sharpening ritual isn't very ritualistic at all. Joan decides when her knives aren't sharp enough and conveys that information to me. I then package them all up, take them to the office with me and sharpen. Joan's pretty good at keeping edges straight so this occurs, maybe, a couple of times a year.
When I think of ritual though my mind automatically goes back to the days when I still lived in Kansas. Every summer my friends and I (6-8 of us) would pack up and go on a five or six day trout fishing trip in Colorado. Trout fishing in Colorado centers around the Gunnison area. The Taylor, the Gunnison, East River and lots of smaller tributaries like Texas Creek, Spring Creek and Ohio. We always stayed at a very old hunting and fishing camp called Spring Creek Resort twenty or so miles north of Gunnison. The camp buildings were built in the forties out of log with native stone foundations. Our trip planning went the same way every year. We'd leave after work and drive through the night to arrive in Gunnison in the morning. We'd buy all the groceries for the week at the local Safeway and pick up our fishing licenses. Then we'd head up into the Mountains and fix lunch at the cabins.
The cabins sat right on Spring Creek so after lunch we'd tote a cooler down to a flat, grassy area right next to the stream and set up at an old picnic table there. Then the knives came out. There's going to be plenty of fish to be cleaned, right? Mostly nice big folders. One of the group, Gene, was a gunsmith and knife maker. He'd supply the stones and we'd set to work. More often than not for hours. My most clear memory of all this is me grinding and grinding and then handing the knife to Gene for inspection. He'd shake his head and hand it back to me and I'd continue my efforts. This all became ritual for us each and every year and only interspersed, some years, with a little tomahawk throwing. Bubby was always on these trips so maybe he can chip in here as well.
Don't try to find Spring Creek Resort. Just like a lot of other things, its been gone for some time now. The memories of those sharpening sessions are still here though.