Why I started making knives

I fell in love with knives at the ripe old age of 7 years old. It was 1952 and the folks took me with them to see Alan Ladd in the "Iron Mistress" Where Ladd played Jim Bowie. I really wanted that knife. I owned a lot of knives between then and 1991 when I decided to buy the equipment and learn to make my own knives. I eventually built a series of "Bowies" not terribly unlike the Ladd knife. Mine had a flat bare blade skinner riding piggy back on the sheath with the Bowie.

That satisfied that particular lust, but while in the Marine Corps (1963-69) I really got into the knives as weapons concept. Especially after a friend passed on his K-Bar to me that another Marine had passed to him when he retired. I have since passed it on to Les George, a young man I started working with in my shop when he was 15. After High school graduation He enlisted in the Marine Corps. I like to think I influenced that decision somewhat. After he graduated boot camp in San Diego I presented him with my K-Bar. He has since served 10 years in the Corps, with six of those years, I believe, in EOD clearing land mines, IED's and such. He got out with all his pieces still intact and has gone on to become a very successful maker of higher end folding knives. I hope he finds a young man worthy to pass the K-Bar on to and keep a fairly young tradition alive.

I am tired and going to bed. More tomorrow. Maybe...