When I was a child, I can remember opening Christmas gifts at my Grandmother’s house and ripping off the paper only to find a taped box or plastic zip tie wrapped around my new toy. The torture involved in opening gifts at that young age was that you could only go so far in playing with a toy before you had to ask for an adult to open the gift the rest of the way for you.

I knew where to go for help.

My Grandpa, my Uncle and my Dad all carried penknives. Every day of every season, from the time I was old enough to remember until now, they always had a tool in their pockets to either pry something open for one of us kids or to make their lives easier.

Penknives, pocket knives, folding knives and switchblades were around everywhere I went from the time of infancy until the time I earned my first penknife. Having been around them my whole life, I have never seen a pocketknife in a negative light or to be used as a weapon.

One of my penknives is always in my right pocket, or fifth pocket if I’m wearing jeans, and it has become a staple of my “must have items” along with my wallet and my bandanna.

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