Tirtha Bowie Saves the Day

Steely_Gunz

Steely_Gunz

Got the Khukuri fevah
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May 9, 2002
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Well with an exciting title like that, you would think that this would be a tale of tiger fighting, or dispatching half a dozen armed thugs in a Dundeeian "now that's a knofe" fashion.

Sadly (and luckily) no. My Tirtha bowie saved the day for a very absent-minded dad on a blustery day. So be prepared, there is some Khuk (well HI Bowie) content...but mostly it's a story about how I had a frustrating morning due to my own accord. :p

I'm a hands-on dad. My mornings consist of getting up around 5:30 to get the coffee going, prep my wife some breakfast, and get my daughter up and fed. My wife takes awhile to get ready, so the least I can do is get her a good hot breakfast to start the day and prepare the baby for daycare.

However, this time of year is a bear for me. I'm in the swimming pool business, and it's insanely busy at this time. Where in months past I could have been very come what may with my mornings and just got to work when I got to work (Hey, there are some perks to being the boss;)), from April through July that is just not an option. In other words, I have to rush in the mornings after I get my wife fed, my daughter fed, and grab a quick shower.

Yesterday morning, Evey was being a bit fussy. She's teething and she would prefer to take a nap at 7am (right when I'm trying to get out the door). So after a struggle to get her into her clothes and a struggle to get her into her coat, I finally have her ready. I pick her up, grab my phone, grab a soft drink for later, and toss the dog a couple treats as is our contractual agreement for allowing the baby to live IN the house;). I'm heading out the door, brrrr man it's blustery for April. No time to grab my jacket. I have Evey in hand, time to get her in the truck. I'll be fine. Slam the door behind me and head for the truck.

I get to the truck door...no keys. I check my belt twice where I keep them hanging. What did I do with them? <<terrible lightbulb>> I wore my jacket yesterday and put them in the pocket. "$%&#$!!!" It's 44 degrees outside, windchill near 40. Baby in a light fleece jacket. I'm armored in nothing more than a light button up over shirt and a straw cowboy hat. My wife by this time has been gone for 20 minutes and is in a meeting. My sweet retired neighbors next door are out of town. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid :grumpy:

My daughter is happy as a clam. She's finding the excitement VERY entertaining. Quickly, I check all the windows to the house. Locked...damn my diligence to home security. I walk around to the back yard. Of course the back door is locked. My dog peers out at me sadly. He gives me a look, "Dude, I would totally help out...but I gots no thumbs:(".

Panic nearly sets in. If it were just me, it would be no big deal, but I have my 9 month old daughter (still just smiling and waving at the birds perched on the fence) in this weather. I try calling my mom...no answer. Why does she even HAVE a cell phone if she's not going to carry the dang thing!

Slowly a nagging detail of salvation creeps in. My sliding glass window in the back of my truck cab is broken and no longer locks shut! If I can slide it open, maybe I can fit into the truck and get to my garage door opener! I set my daughter down on the front stoop so I can see her. I give her my overshirt to keep her warm and my hat to play with (better to chew on my hat than eat a bug). I climb on top of my bedcover and try to slide the window...stuck.

*#$&%#$!!" Wait! I can pry it. Breakage be damned, my little girl is not sitting out here in the cold any longer than possible. I draw my trusty oft carried Tirtha from the should holster in which it rides. I can wiggle the blade just enough to get the window to move. It's only stuck with road grime. A twist of the grip and a whispered prayer and the window slides open!:D

...but I can't fit..at all. Not only will my shoulders NOT go through the opening, but the car seat perched right under it would prevent me from getting very far. The door lock or the garage door opener! If I could just reach them! Sadly, my ridiculously long monkey arms are not getting even close to what I need. It's an extended cab truck, after all.

I lean out and check on my daughter. she's giggling and wiping her runny nose all over my shirt...well at least she's happy. It dons on me that there is a broom around back. If I can get it, I might be able to use the handle to press a button inside the truck. I pick up my little snot-monster and carry her with me to the back yard. I find a wooden handled push broom propped up against the house. Thank God for my wife NOT listening to me to put things up after she gets done using them. I grab the broom and rush back around to the front of the house. I set Evey down after reconciling with fact that my work shirt is going to spend the rest of the morning as her Kleenex. Oh well. I have another in the house.

I hop back on truck bed and slide the handle through the opening. I don't have a clear shot at the door locks, but I can certainly see the door opener clipped to my visor. I inch forward. thunk, thunk,...thunk. The handle with the broom head isn't long enough! It's missing its mark by 3". The broom head won't fit through the opening any better than my shoulders.

I curse and breathe out. The head is permanently attached to the shaft. It doesn't screw off. There was no choice. The broom must be sacrificed to the god of garage doors. Without the head, the combination of my arm and the shaft, I might be able to reach the button.

I climb down (again). I draw my mighty blade once again, and THWACK!...<clatter clatter> the broom was no more. For an instant, I began to flush with embarrassment. What would the neighbors think about all of this. Then I grew steadfast. To hell with the neighbors. If they were watching and not coming out to help, then they deserve to know that the crazy guy down the street packs a 17" knife on his chest daily:D I sheath my knife and defiantly gaze around the neighborhood. That's right, I solved an problem with a big ol' knife...twice.

I peek over again, Evey has found her feet and is slapping them together like a little seal. She beams back at me with her mama's eyes and flashes me a toothless smile. She's fine.

OK, I climb up again. One more chance. I carefully position my broom stick and take on a stance that could only resemble a Neolithic caveman attacking a monstrous 4x4 woolly mammoth. I slide my arm through. I can reach the opener. <<poke>> <poke>...nothing is happening! The garage door opener has always been a bit tricky. It starts to slide down the visor. If it falls off, I'm hosed.

<<Kerrrr chunk chunk chunk>> The garage door begins to open! Success! :D

I snatch Evey up, greet my bewildered dog, run inside to get my jacket (with my keys) and change Evey's clothes. The whole ordeal took no more than 10 minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime. However, I can say that without my Tirtha bowie, it would have taken much, much longer.

Word to the wise...don't leave home without a trusty piece of Nepali steel. You never know when you might need it;)
 
So it only took one "thwack" on the broom handle? Wow!
Any pics of the bowie to complete the story? :D
 
alexs said:
So it only took one "thwack" on the broom handle? Wow!
Any pics of the bowie to complete the story? :D
Click to expand...

Yep, just one swing. I was pretty pumped up with adrenaline. Having a 10" blade helps too;)

IMG00244-20110304-1049.jpg

Here's a pic the bowie fresh out of the box. It's been blued since this was taken.

IMG00252-20110310-1714.jpg

...lika so;)

IMG00265-20110324-15352.jpg

Here's a pic of the bowie in my shoulder rig (please notice where my keys are...that's where I thought they were in my story;))

eveybunny.jpg

Just for fun...a visit from the Evey-Bunny:D
 
Awesome story, I have locked myself out of the house before and it really is a pain. It happened to be raining and my wife and I were going out for dinner. I keep a kukri in the one of the sheds (15" AK thats my shed buddy when i need to wak stuff). We have a sliding glass rear door with a metal bar to hold it shut. I cut a twig a narrow twig from one of our trees and pressed on the sliding glass door to create seperation between the seel of the door. The twig was inserted and I lifted the metal bar and then popped the sliding door lock by lifting up on the handle (yeah not real safe for the house I realized). But I got in the house, got my keys and my wife was uber impressed with my creativity. Not as cool as your story by a long shot but it has khuk content :) I since have stashed a spare key in the shed and buffed up the security of the rear door.
 
Nothing better than a good story well told! Thanks for taking the time to tell it. Sweet knife, sweeter baby!

What's the origin of the carry rig? That's about as low key a way to carry a monster like that around, though it'd get me locked up in NC if discovered. Still unsure why we can carry guns (with permit) but not knives, batons, or other 'less than lethal' items concealed down here. Even concealed pepper spray is verboten, though I doubt any decent cop would pop a lady with a canister in her purse.
 
lol, well I can you that we now have a door key hidden in the landscape just in case I have another oopsie. It could have been much worse, rainy, colder, or whatever. I learned the valuable lesson that children simply suck your brain function out of your skull. I thought I had gotten most of my cognitive faculties back after the "zombie months" at the beginning where the baby cries all night....I'm starting to figure out that it's a irreversible condition:p

The shoulder rig is one part Tandy leather kit, one part my own creation. When I ordered the knife from Yangdu, I told her that I was looking for a 17"-ish bowie to go on trips with me where my CCW wasn't recognized. Now, I know that in most places a huge knife is just as much of a no-no, but I would be out in the wilderness, so at least a big ol' bowie might still be viewed as a tool. However, from the get go, I wanted to come up with a way to carry it so that it 1) would not flop against my leg and 2) be out of sight and mind of any people I meet on the trails.

Soooo, I'm a very novice leather bender. Tandy Leather had their shoulder holster kit on sale. It's designed to go with their semi-auto and revolver holster kits. Instead, I made a series of modular holsters and sheathes that can attach to the shoulder rig. Most days I carry my Tirtha Bowie on there. However, I also sometimes attach the holster for my large .357 Blackhawk. It does a good job hiding the 6.5" barrel.

The bowie rides a little higher than I would like, but all and all it's a pretty comfy way to pack a giant knife without anyone being the wiser. :D
 
Great story well told, lots of laughs, all with a HI effected happy ending. :D :thumbup:
 
Yahmanin said:
Nothing better than a good story well told! Thanks for taking the time to tell it. Sweet knife, sweeter baby!

What's the origin of the carry rig? That's about as low key a way to carry a monster like that around, though it'd get me locked up in NC if discovered. Still unsure why we can carry guns (with permit) but not knives, batons, or other 'less than lethal' items concealed down here. Even concealed pepper spray is verboten, though I doubt any decent cop would pop a lady with a canister in her purse.
Click to expand...

Pepper spray concealed is illegal!!! And I thought California had it bad! What is the rule on Tasers/stunguns?
 
alexs said:
Pepper spray concealed is illegal!!! And I thought California had it bad! What is the rule on Tasers/stunguns?
Click to expand...

I can't believe that TASERs are legal in California, but sure enough they are. I'm heading out there in a few months for a week or two. Once again, my CCW doesn't transfer there, and I PROBABLY won't walk down the street carrying my Tirtha Bowie across my chest;) I think I'm picking up a TASER for travel and then I'll give it to my wife to carry around here.

Michigan is also a weird state about TASERs. You can't even OWN one unless you're a police officer :eek:
 
I hang my keys by the door. I can't leave without seeing them. I used to do a pat-down before letting the door close behind me: keys, wallet, tie ... :)
 
Yes, tasers are legal in CA, both open carry and concealed. But be prepared that the sheeple will call the police on you if you carry the TASER M26c openly as it looks too much like a gun. Then the police will detain you for an hour or so to look at everything "fun" you might be carrying and refresh themselves on their own state's knife laws. Then let you go without so much as a 'sorry'. So, now I carry mine in a messenger bag, much harder to pull out than from a holster but far less terrifying to sheeple. I am thinking of getting the TASER C2 as it is compact and less gun-like even on one's belt.
The only restriction I found for pepper spray in CA is that you can't buy the huge containers.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I can't believe that TASERs are legal in California, but sure enough they are. I'm heading out there in a few months for a week or two. Once again, my CCW doesn't transfer there, and I PROBABLY won't walk down the street carrying my Tirtha Bowie across my chest;) I think I'm picking up a TASER for travel and then I'll give it to my wife to carry around here.

Michigan is also a weird state about TASERs. You can't even OWN one unless you're a police officer :eek:
Click to expand...

Another self-defense tool you may want is a large folder as folders are legal even concealed in CA at any length at all. I favor the Cold Steal Rajah 2 with a 6" FFG blade and a kukri-like shape, though it's no Tirtha bowie, and maybe keep in your car the Espada XL at 7.5" blade. Any other large folder will do too, even assisted opening can be concealed, as long as it is not automatic or gravity which are illegal, and if it is a dirk or a dagger it has to be open carried.
 
Awesome info:) Thanks. I don't want to make waves in Cali, but I'm not going "naked" either;)

Esav, I would have to hang mine on the door's deadbolt to even remember to look:p. Generally, I mutter to myself out loud, "OK, got my keys, got my wallet, got my knife, got my gun, got my soft drink, got my baby...? OK, let's rock." See what happens when you don't talk to yourself? :p
 
In NYC, my apartment door had three locks. The front door of the building was also locked.
 
Max Power said:
So tell me more about the shoulder rig. Did you make it, mod it, buy. Can I buy one from you?
Click to expand...

Welcome, Max:) The shoulder rig is a combination of a holster kit and a sheath I made. Basically, I bought a shoulder holster kit from Tandy Leather (I believe they have an online store at Tandyleatherfactory.com). I think it cost me around 35 dollars, and it consists of a round disk for a pivot between your shoulder blades, four adjustable straps, two arrow-shaped pieces of leather for the holster to attach to, and a series of d-rings, snaps, and chicago screws to hold the whole thing together.

Honestly, it took me about 10 minutes to put it together. It's designed to be used with a standard pistol holster (right or left hand). The pistol slides onto the narrow side of the arrow shaped piece of leather, the "arrow head" keeps it from sliding down any further, then the attached d-rings keep it from slipping back off.

I never liked carrying my gun horizontal, so all I did was make a series of sheathes and holsters where instead of making a belt loop slide on a belt horizontally, I made the loop so that sheath or holster slipped down onto the arrow-head keeper vertically. I'd be happy to make one for you, but you literally can put together the shoulder rig in 10 minutes (not factoring in dyeing it and such. That's easy though). As for the sheath, all of the ones I make are custom fit to the knife and they are U-G-L-Y. I'd never consider selling one. However, in the fall and winter I do have a little more time for projects and would be happy to dabble making one should you want.

That said, if you want a good looking leather rig, shoot wildmanh (Heber) an email. He's a good friend of the Cantina and does exceptional work.
 
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