EDC Worthy

 

Steve walks warily down the street, brim pulled way down low *

What’s that Steve up to? Well, if he’s carrying a gun, he’s probably up to no good. If he’s carrying a knife, he’s probably going to clean some fish or peel an apple. You see, Americans just aren’t very stabby, we’re shooters.

We weren't always this way, Ken Burns reminds us that we used to like the “cold steel,” but that was during the American Revolution when guns were just awful. By the Civil War, with the notable exception of Terry’s Texas Rangers, the cold steel had been replaced almost entirely with hot lead. 

Natty Bumppo

I’ve been ruminating on these things because I saw a piece on YouTube today that mentioned “EDC worthy” knives. “Worthy of what?” I wondered. Defense? Nah, we love guns. Skinning large animals? Maybe, if your Natty Bumppo. Building shelter, starting fires, fighting orcs? Unlikely. So, with that in mind, what makes a knife EDC Worthy? Can it cut through the skin of an orange? Can it slice Scotch tape in a single bound? Yes? Then it’s probably worthy. We are not talking Excalibur here. 

Watery tart lobbing a scimitar 

I have only met one person in my life who carried a knife unworthy of him. We were on the Mazaruni River (sounds like something from a Marx Brothers movie, but it’s a real river), way up there, on what passes for mass transportation in the rain forest, a long dugout with an outboard motor. We stopped at a residence straight out of Gilligan’s Island and out walks a young Tarzan (What, you don’t know Tarzan? How ‘bout we make him Rambo? O.K.) out walks a young (late teens, early 20’s), Native American Rambo. He produced a bottle of homemade hot sauce to pay his fare. (Guyana produces phenomenal hot sauce.) Nice kid. While we were headed down the river, he pulled a knife from his gym shorts, the saddest looking knife you can imagine, it looked like something straight out of the 99 cent bin of a low-end discount store. This man’s knife was unworthy of him. I had, buried in my pack, a Ka-Bar Marine Knife, which I wasn’t even remotely worthy of. A well-meaning friend had given it to me when he heard I was traveling to the rain forest. So, I gave him the Ka-Bar. Not because I’m a good person, I’m not so great. I gave it to him because it was wrong for me to have such a great knife while he had such a crappy one. Let’s call it a win for utilitarianism. Anyway, I still had my Swiss Army knife, which I used a lot, down there. 

Terry's Texas Rangers employed revolvers, short shotguns, and long knives to great effect during the Civil War. Their methods had been developed, over the years, by their predecessors back in Texas.

The question's not if your EDC is worthy of you, the question is: Are you worthy of your EDC?