We went camping this past weekend with two other families.
All three families have only boys, so our campsite consisted of six sleep-deprived
parents and eight single-digit-age, wild and excited boys. So we gave them all
knives.
Two of the brothers had received their very own Swiss
Army-style pocket knives from the Yosemite gift shop on their last camping trip,
so they brought them along. This led to all the other boys clamoring to have a
turn with the knives. Not wanting anyone grabbing for a fast moving blade, in
the interest of safety, us dads dug through our camping gear and gave them each
their own pocket knife, and taught them the manly art of whittling.
It went something like this:
“Dad, can I use your pocket knife?”
“Sure son.”
(Glare from wife)
“Hey, son, if that knife gets dull, you can use one of the
daggers your mom is staring at me with.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Here, check this out. This kind of single-blade
knife is cool, because if you put your index finger on this little lever and
flick your wrist like this… bam, like a switchblade.”
(Icier, dagger-ier
glare from wife)
“Never do that, though. Sorry, honey.”
As is so often the case, the fatherly approach to this type
of situation differed slightly from the motherly approach. We dads thought the
proper approach was to give our sons detailed instructions on proper knife
safety and whittling technique, make sure the first aid kits were fully
stocked, then sit back and watch them learn by doing.
As near as I could tell, the mothers’ approach was to attempt
to keep them away from all sharp objects until they turn 25.
The dads finally won out, once we promised to take an active
role in the refereeing of all knife-related activities, and soon all the boys
were happily seated in their camp chairs around the fire pit, whittling like
mad. We did, however, run into a few unexpected issues that we never got fully
worked out.
For starters, we couldn’t get them to keep their elbows
resting on their knees, allowing them to whittle straight out away from
themselves. They kept leaning back and bringing the work closer to them and
higher, ending up with the stick up by their face and the knife whipping
rapidly past the tip of their nose.
They would also get easily distracted, but would continue to
whittle, while their eyes wandered off to something more interesting beyond the
fire pit. We kept having to say, “Either stop whittling or watch what you’re
doing.” Again, the learn-by-doing method would have taught this quite a bit
faster, but I guess the moms wanted to save the Band-Aids in case of a bear
attack or something.
The kids would also regularly get up and walk around the
inner perimeter of the campfire chair circle. It turns out that seven-year-old
whittlers have little to no awareness of their surroundings, and neither do five-year-old
walkers while in a campfire chair ring of whittlers. Most of our time was spent
yelling, “Stop walking! Watch the knife! Be careful! Don’t stab your brother!”
etc.
We had to make sure that the whittling remained the standard
“sharpen the end of the stick,” or “get all the bark off the stick,” because
some of the other things they came up with were not optimal. I found Son Number
One with the stick pressed against the top of his knee, sawing a notch all the
way around the stick with the knife blade. He was almost through when I stopped
him. “Let’s try not to test out dad’s tourniquet skills on this trip, OK buddy?
Besides, your mommy would faint and hit her head on a rock. We don’t want that.”
The next day Son Number One and Two both decided that they
wanted to make miniature canoes out of ¾” diameter sticks that were 6” long. I just
couldn’t see the interior of the mini canoe getting hollowed out very safely,
and I figured our first aid kit would probably fall a little short if we had to
attend to a knife sticking all the way through a hand. “Why don’t we just stick
with ‘standard whittling’ instead, OK?”
For the boys, almost as exciting as being allowed to whittle
was the prospect of simply having the knife with them in their pockets. My boys
kept asking me if they could take the knives with them into the woods.
“No.”
“Aw, dad. Why not?”
“Because you are not allowed to whittle unsupervised, or
more than 50 feet from the first aid kit, and whittling is all you're allowed to
use the knife for. Why do you want it?”
“For bears.”
“If you see a bear, I would like you to call to me, instead
of trying to take it on with a 2-1/2” dull blade… Unless we tied the knife to
the end of a long sturdy stick…”
(Icy dagger glare from
wife)
“Never do that, though. Sorry, honey.”
It was a fun weekend. The boys started to learn a new skill,
and they all lived to tell about it. As a side bonus, the activity of whittling
did serve to slightly lessen the requests to throw another pine cone on the
fire, although wanting to throw the other guy’s whittling stick in the fire did
result in a few near knife fights.
Even though their mothers refuse to believe it, they were in
far more danger after the whittling than during, from running around with the
sharp, smooth sticks they made. Our knives were pretty dull.
All in all, it was a successful trip. We came home with all
eight boys with the same number of holes in their bodies as they arrived with,
and by the end of the weekend they had successfully whittled hundreds of
sticks, which was fun for them. They had also successfully whittled their
mothers’ nerves down to sharp, raw edges.
Thankfully, we don’t whittle at home.
See you soon,
Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen
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