As promised, I return.

As I promised, I am back, with a new entry. :-)

The other day, I was doing a little bookkeeping with some of my collections. Updating my rosters on my coin collection (I will finish that Silver Eagle set someday!), giving the more elderly samples in my pocketknife collection a quick wipe with an oily rag, letting my hands play.

As happens a lot, I ended up with the oldest knife in my collection in my hands, and the one that means the most. It's a pretty elderly stockman, somewhere around a century old, and pretty worn down. The blades wobble and flex, the handle shifts slightly as I press it into my palm, the old silver shield stands proud, high above where it should be. No collector would give me much for this- a no-name maker in poor condition.

Yet, it's the one that would never be sold.

Why? It was my great-great-grandfather's. Why are the blades so worn? Because my grandpa's earliest memories are of his grandfather carving with it, and using one of the little blades (so small even then) to scrape out his pipe. That blade is worn down to toothpick levels of size, but that's not all. The master blade? Thin and weak from years of carving, from whistles to walking sticks.

I never knew him. My grandfather gave me this the winter before he died, with the strict instruction to never let it go. I won't.

In its way, this old knife reminds me of Grandpa himself. Worn, but still sharp, even to the end.

We're all like that, I think. A cherished piece in a grandchild's collection someday, some worn memento of a life lived. That knife has its scars. So did Grandpa. Someday, my grandson will have it, and think of mine.

That's not bad. :-)

Just a late musing, folks. Don't mind me.