Moultrie

I spotted the pocket knife in a clump of weeds on the school playground between the swings and the slide. I guessed that an older sixth-grader had lost it when it fell out of his jeans’ pocket during a game of tag.

Although this was during the Cold War, I knew the pocket knife wasn’t an effort by the Communists to weaponize the schoolkids. Public service radio announcements seemed to focus more on preventing potential propaganda directed to the lunch ladies — each staunchly patriotic.

As a library card-carrying first-grader, I knew my duty in spite of the familiar kid cliché: “Losers weepers. Finders keepers.” I scooped up the knife and slipped it into the pocket of my homemade cotton print dress.

Before I claimed ownership of the pocket knife, there needed to be an effort made to locate the owner. I searched out top management to do that, namely the school principal. I handed over my find, hoping the pocket knife would end up in my possession.

Daily, I checked with the principal. “Did you find the owner?”

“Not yet.”

Weeks went by — still no owner.

My actions earned me a certain celebrity status.

“Aren’t you the kid who found the pocket knife and turned it in?”

Kids crowded around for a retelling of my tale.

After a few months went by, a moment of clarity struck.

No matter if an owner turned up or not, the principal was not going to turn over a pocket knife to a first-grader — or any kid, for that matter.

And no, my parents and Santa were not going to provide me with a pocket knife gift.

I moved on to slingshots.

A forked stick from a fallen tree branch, a couple rubber strips, and I cobbled together a slingshot of sorts, accuracy not being a feature to brag about.

The question asked in an article about slingshots: “Is it safe for a child (now in fourth grade) to own a slingshot?”

The answer … “No.” Even if the kid only shot cotton balls in the house, he/she would manage to break a vase.

Parents seemed stuck on the same warning they gave whether a kid longed for a BB gun, slingshot, home-constructed bow and arrow, cannon with water balloons: “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

My parents provided a list of acceptable targets I could shoot with my slingshot: tree trunks.

In time, my slingshot arsenal included a purchased wooden slingshot with rubber tubing and a leather square to nestle my rock ammo in. I went from unsuccessfully trying to hit a massive, century-old Western red-cedar (Thuga plicata) tree trunk to successfully smacking a scrawny vine maple (Acer circinatum) tree trunk.

In spite of my improved prowess with a slingshot, I longed for a pocket knife.

I’d daydream of joining a crew hauling hay to snow-trapped cattle.

“We need a sharp blade to cut the frozen baling twine,” says the farm boss.

I’d casually pull out my hefty, two-blade pocket knife and hand it to the boss.

“You saved the herd,” he’d say.

I don’t remember when I became a pocket knife owner. I recall a desire to whittle. Mom told me to put her paring knives back in the drawer. Eventually, my pocket knife collection consisted of well-worn pocket knives Dad donated from his toolbox.

As an adult, I finally reached pocket knife heaven on a VLB (very low budget) travel trip that included Switzerland to purchase Swiss Army pocket knives with multiple-function blades.