I got this knife February 14th, 1992 at the RAF Bentwaters Air Force base in England at the ripe old age of 11. (After doing some quick math I think it might have actually been 1993.) My father and I were at one of the shops on base and he was getting some stuff for my mom for Valentines Day. I had a penchant for saving my allowance for these days we visited this shop, and I remember that originally I had set out to get a new Lego set. The one I wanted they didn't have in stock though, and back then there wasn't much of a call for ordering stuff, so if they didn't have it, you pretty much didn't get it until they did, or you found it someplace else.
I remember that I was a little distraught at not finding the Lego set I wanted, but then after some wandering around I found a small section with some knives on the wall, and was incredibly intrigued by them. Would my dad let me get one? Only one way to find out... I asked my dad if I could get one, and he told me that he didn't have a problem with that, provided I took care of it and was very careful with it. (How different life was back then.) He then mentioned to me that there were other knives for sale in a different area of the shop. I saw this one and was immediately smitten with it. He tried to convince me to get the pilot version as it came with a whetstone, but I wasn't having any of that, and after some further deliberation and the realization that this wouldn't wipe out all the allowance I had saved, I bit the bullet, and purchased my first knife.
Several years went by at this point, and after it was all said and done, this and a stuffed animal I got the same day were the only things I had. I gave my new baby brother the stuffed animal a year ago right after he was born, leaving this, and only this, as my oldest possession, and the dearest. My parents divorced a few short years after I got this knife, and my mother's choice in men was, at the time, less than perfect. Her second husband was fairly abusive, and there were times at night when I worried when the next altercation would happen. This knife was near me almost permanently during those times, mostly outside, but at night, it lived under my pillow, just in case. I think that it was my security blanket for the longest time, and honestly, having it around me constantly probably stopped more fights than anything. There were some good times though, and where we lived in Arkansas was an outdoor paradise. Our back lot was filled with woods, and extended for quite some ways. My step-father's parents owned the next couple of lots over, so the woods seemed endless, and I was given free reign to do as I wished. I stayed outside to avoid him, but despite that I truly treasured my time outside there.
I made many shelters using that knife and that knife alone to fell many trees (back before I knew anything about preservation or that maybe I shouldn't just cut down every tree in sight) but thankfully due to the understanding of the limitations of the knife, most of the stuff cut down was fairly small and not missed. I made a bridge that spanned a creek between the lots that was easily 14 feet wide, and it was a sturdy and well built bridge. I made many hidden lean-tos that later became some great shelters for paintball, and those were times well remembered. Outside, in my dad's old BDU's, wearing a pair of his old issue boots, sleeping under the stars and just loving the outdoors.
After my mom had the good sense to leave, I moved several times, bouncing back and forth between her house (where ever it happened to be at any given time) and my dad's, and in the process lost or misplaced or just plain discarded almost every thing I owned. Stupid on my part I suppose, but looking back, I cannot think of anything else that I really treasured. This knife was, at the end of it all, the only thing that mattered. It was my safety, my tool, and the one thing that never let me down. Years of what I would now consider abuse saw only mild damage to the knife, a slight loosening of the pin that holds the tang in place.
Last year, during a particularly emotional time with my fiancee's son, I gave him this knife. I showed him how sharp it was after over 18 years of ownership, and never had I seen someone so impressed. I showed him how it would shave arm hair, and during the process managed to slice a hair in half lengthwise. His jaw dropped. I then showed him the scar on my left arm, and explained that doing the shaving my arm hair thing is what had earned me that scar, in a rare moment of not respecting the knife as I should have. He understood. It was then that I gave him the knife, and I thought it was a fitting gift for earning his tote'em chit in Boy Scouts. I would catch him just holding it, looking at it, always with a look of awe and reverence.
He took it out a couple months after I gave it to him and for the first time in over 8 years gave her a taste of some work. She isn't as sharp now, and there are a couple of rolls on the sharpened swedge on the back that I steeled out (for the most part), but every now and then I will see him at his desk, hunched over it with a ceramic rod I gave him, doing his best to get it back to razor sharpness. I try to help him sometimes, but mostly I let him learn for himself as he forges that bond with the knife.
I have since gotten him a BK11, and a very nice SAK that he doesn't seem too fond of, but he is getting a new folder for Christmas that he picked out but thinks I forgot about. He has some other junky pocket knives, gas station deals and whatnot, but he is learning.
So that is, or rather was, the knife that held the most sentimental value for me.
