00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the airwaves had off. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tail gate. I've got some stories to share for the love of a knife. If you're a new listener or a highly decorated veteran of this struggle each week, you've no doubt surmised by now that I have an affinity for Case pocket Knives. I'm going to tell you a little how that relationship started over a year ago, where we are now, and how to play a game that can fill your pockets with knives or your mouth with dirt. But first, I'm going to tell you a story. It was a case medium Stockman pocket knife, and it cost fourteen dollars in nineteen seventy nine. It was brand new, The sizes were made of yellow del run and it ran a close second to the Mini Trapper that we the Reeves family considered a gift from Heaven. I remember standing at the display case, listening to mister Leland Bryant tell stories about him and my dad while I smushed up the glass with my hands and painstakingly scared over each knife, the colors, and the blade configurations. Fourteen dollars was a lot of money to a thirteen year old in April of nineteen seventy nine, especially when the money came from what was left from selling further previous winter, and maybe a little of my birthday money from March. But I was determined to give my dad a case pocket knife for his birthday. The case display at Hurley's Hardware was the flame, and I was the moth. I couldn't walk by that store on the sidewalk without going in to look at him. I didn't have a lot of opportunities to go in there, living so far out of town, so when I had the chance, I took full advantage of it. Whenever I was in town and turn loose, my friends and I would go inside, taking a break from the heat to soak up some air conditioning, fingerprint the glass, and stink up the place like only young boys can. Mister Leland and all the other folks in there would ask each of us how our parents were doing by name, mostly out of curiosity and care, but maybe a little just to remind each of us that if we broke anything, they knew who to call to seek reimbursement and retribution from. It didn't matter when or who I was with. If I had the chance to go in and look at that knife display, I did it. And I've said this before. You can bait a trap with a case pocket knife and catch me every time. This should explain to what degree my weakness for these things is. But on this particular day, I was shopping for one for my dad. I wasn't just ogling all of them and dreaming about holding them each in my hands. I was fixing the walk out of there with a brand new one and then give it away to him on his birthday. It would be the first case knife I would ever purchase. I had want in my pocket that day, one that my dad had given me, and I owned more than one of them at that time, but they'd all been given to me as gifts or I'd want them playing mumbletypeg on the playground at school. What's mumblety peg? Well, I'm so glad, you asked It's a game dating back to the eighteen hundreds where folks would flip pocket knives into the ground and competition. Some did it for money and some did it for fun. But here's how we played at West Side Elementary in Warren, Arkansas, the same school. Me and another fellow sophisticate skipped by hopping a train and hoboing all over town. And I suppose this is where I should put the disclaimer don't try this at home. That's for all the nerd lawyers that are listening and looking for an opportunity to get Brentley in some litigations. Since we are dealing with a sharpened instrument, at least it should be sharpened. But if flipping a knife off your fingers into the ground sounds dangerous, you probably ain't toting one. And if you are toting one and it still sounds dangerous, odds are your knife's about as sharp as you are. Nonetheless, consider yourself warned. Before school and at the big resist, we'd gather up, hopefully out of the constant eye of the duty teacher standing out there surveying the playground with their X ray vision and hound dog smelling abilities, searching out anything that was fun. They could immediately put a stop to it. Mumblety peg was at the top of their list, not because it involved a pocket knife. We could tote pocket knife to school. Then that wasn't a big deal or the problem. No, it was because of the gambling. And it wasn't really gambling, not really. It was more of a game of skill. But when a younger would lose his knife or get a mouthful of dirt trying to keep it, some of them would go squalling to the teacher. That's the kind of folks that need warning labels on paper coffee coaps contents may be hot. Really, did you not just order hot coffee? Or right about the road signs that say bridge may ice in cold weather? Was the in cold weather part really necessary? For that matter? Was the bridge may ice necessary if it's rain and sleeping or snowing and the temperatures are dipping around the freezing mark? Shouldn't you already know that? Don't get me started. Here's how you wind up losing your pocket knife at school or go home with your teeth looking like you had a mouthful of burnt matches from chewing the dirt up trying to keep your knife. Check it out. MUMBLETYPEG requires you to stick your knife in the ground by flipping it from lying flat on your closed fist both hands, then by throwing it by gripping the blade both hands, then with the point of the blade resting on each finger and thumb, both hands, again your arms crossed across your chest both hands from the top of your head, and backwards over each shoulder, with the finale ben when you would slap that knife as it stood in the ground from your last over the shoulder throat, having to successfully stick your knife in the ground again. Now that last one was called plowing the ground, and it was not easy. You each took turns, and when someone missed, the other person started whenever he missed. If he did, the previous contestant would pick back up from where he stopped until one person made it all the way through, depending on how many steps the loser had left determined how many times the winter got to hammer a finger long limb whittled down to somewhere between a pencil and a toothpick into the dirt. Now we played an abbreviated version of mumblety Peg because we didn't have time for a real game due to our primary reason for being at school was to get an education and not holne our skills as a future circus performers. So if the loser was four steps away from finishing when he got beat, the winner got four licks on that peg that was just in the ground enough to hold it upright. The hard ground wasn't an issue, and if you broke the peg when hammering it in the ground, the game was a tie. This discouraged folks from trying to pound a peg to China out of meanness. But if the ground was soft, you'd be gnawn. You'd be gnawn at the dirt trying to get that peg like a beaver on a pinnock, or you had the option of giving up your pocket knife to the winter. If the peg was so deep you didn't want to be digging for it with your choppers. If you got that peg out of the ground successfully, you got to keep your knife and your reputation as a sportsman. Our playground version took out the over the shoulder throws and apply on the ground throw. Those were tough, and we wanted to get to the peg rooting as fast as possible and for as many folks we could get before the bell rang. If we could just have one young and eating dirt, it was a victory for us all. Now more than once I watched boys hauling butt to the bathroom to wash the dirt off their faces and out of the mouths, to get to their seats before the tarte bell rang. I was in that number occasionally myself, but I never lost a knife, not one that's mumblety Peg, or at least our version of him. We played another game called Chicken, that one I ain't talking about, not today. 00:09:14 Speaker 2: Anyway. 00:09:20 Speaker 1: Back to Hurley's Hardware and the case display, mister Leland opened up the display cabinet and pulled out a brand new Steal in the box medium yellow model thirty three eighteen CV case Stockman pocket knife. I ainted him fifteen dollars and had a twenty dollars bill left in the bill of my overalls. I asked him to go ahead and hand me that brown bone mini trapper for myself. 00:09:45 Speaker 2: Now. 00:09:45 Speaker 1: I left there with three dollars in change and two new knives, one for my dad and one for me. I wrapped his present the best I couldn't. When his birthday came a few days later, I gave it to him. I remember his big smile when he opened it up and how proud he was to have his new knife. We both said it was a match to his yellow trapper that he already had. I showed him the one I bought that day. He gave me a quarter in return. That keeps you from having bad luck. Hey, I don't make the rules, I just follow them anyway. My dad would carry that knife on and off for a while, just like I and others I know do, swapping them out for new ones that had been added to the rotation, and eventually putting them back in the box. They came in and placed him in a drawer. That's where I found it thirteen years ago after he passed away. We were getting his affairs in order and doing all the things you have to do when taking care of someone in the state, and I found it, and I recognized it immediately, the birthday gift I had given him on April to sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine. I knew which birthday because if you know case knives, you know that they have a stamp dating system on the blade, things that change every year. He was forty two years old when I gave it to him. That knife is now forty five years old, three years older than he was when he got it. There's no surprise ending to this story, and you really know, unique revelation, just just a footnote in the legacy of an inanimate object that I shared with my dad and for the last thirteen years he's been sharing it back with me. I'll share it with one of my children one day and a host of others. And that's just how that happened. 00:11:40 Speaker 2: But is at the end, we'll see. 00:12:05 Speaker 1: For the love of a knife. I guess y'all heard the new opening for the show. If you skip through, I'll save you the trouble of going back. This Country Life is now presented by Case Knives. If you're new to This Country Life, go back and start at the beginning of all the shows if you really want to get an idea about my family's history with this brand. None of it has been planned or orchestrated in any way, and was actually started by someone who contacted the good folks in Bradford, Pennsylvania and said to the effect of, Hey, there's some dude that works for me theater that has a podcast, and y'all want to hear it. Now, fast forward a year and a half later, and those folks are inviting me and my family to come to the Maid in Bradford event celebrating one hundred and thirty five years case knife production. One hundred and thirty five years ago was eighteen eighty nine. The Eiffel Tier was finished. North and South Dakota, Montana, and Washington were admitted as states. Brook Trout were introduced into the Firehole River and Yellowstone National Park, and the New York Giants won their second consecutive World Series by defeating the Brooklyn Bridegrooms three to two. And up in New York, not far from Bradford, Pennsylvania, the Case Brothers whooped up a case pocket knife. Ma'am? Was that a good year? 00:13:34 Speaker 2: What? 00:13:35 Speaker 1: Anyway, as things have a tendency to do, they worked out In last week, my wife Alexis, and my youngest daughter, Bailey and I found ourselves in the company of a bunch of like minded folks whose only difference in us is that they used just about all the letters of the words they're speaking. They called it a family reunion every year, and spending a little time with them, I can see wire there were folks from all over the country. There knife collectors and traders from every direction and points of the compas setting down under one big tent, showing off their collections and visiting and reminiscing about old times and talking about the new ones to come. There were some really amazing knives, both new and old, there, and I gave a couple of them a ride home to Arkansas. They like it here. But the best part of the trip we were treated to a tour of the factory where all the knives are made, all of them, every one of them right here. Five minutes into the tour, I asked Tony Defonso, who was over plant production above the din of the fans and the operating machines, if I could take a video, and he said, yeah, but make sure you get that big American flag hanging on the back wall. We're proud of that flag and these knives that we're making here in America. Over six thousand knives were being turned out in that plant every day. The majority of it is by hand. The only automated production was a robotic welder that was added to weld bolsters onto spacers. Now we're gonna talk about exactly what each of those are in a minute, and I promise you don't want to hang around for it. It's going to be the best part of this whole episode. I met Miss Linda, who's been working there for thirty three years. She was one of the many long tendered employees that worked there, some of them generational employees, along with parents and children and spouses, siblings and cousins, all making a living producing of product that goes through one hundred and sixty steps from the time it gets there is raw materials until it leaves wrapped tighter than bark on a beech tree with wax paper and secured it in a box. I talked with Tammy at the wrapping table and I asked her for a lesson in rapping, and she gave me one. I challenged her to a race on the next one. She finished so far ahead of me that she could have took a nap before I was done. I saw trays and tables full of every model of pocket knife in production. The workspaces were all orderly and clean, unlike what I would assume the nine factory would be. It was obvious that the folks working there take a lot of pride in their work, and they should. City of Bradford has a population of less than eight thousand people that lies three miles south of New York State in the Alleghany Mountains and is a paradise all its on. Remember when I said I was going to talk about welding bolsters and spacers and it was going to be the best part. Well, we're at that part now, and if you happen to have a case pocket knife close it can do so safely. Whoop that rascal out and follow along. I've got my dad's dockmen in front of me, so I'm gonna use that one to tell you the rest of this story. Each end of the knife has a shiny silver part on both sides. Those are called bolsters. If you turn the knife over and look at the back, you'll see the brass or gold colored thin line. That's the spacer that allows the blade to move in and out of the knife without touching the other blades or rubbing against the inside. Not very exciting stuff, I know, but very important to where I'm going with this. For the last two years, Case out of a machine that helps the folks weld the bolsters onto the spacers. Because of the demand for more knives. This is in addition to the folks that were already welding them by hand, and an activity that is taking place right now, regardless of the time you're listening to this podcast, there's folks working. That machine didn't replace anyone. This corner of the factory was actually the first place we visited on the tour, but it made the biggest impact on me, not only for the tour, but for the whole trip. Tony introduced me to a man i'd been watching concentrate on his work. Mister Dave was in what seemed like perpetual motion, moving around this station, welding bolsters onto spacers, steadily placing the finished parts into a tree. He was obviously well versed in his duties, and I shook mister Dave's hand, and I was surprised to learn that mister Dave had been working for Case for nearly fifty one years. For the last fifty one years, mister Dave had his mits on just about every case pocket knife that was made there. Here's where it gets good. Before I left home, I thought about what two knives I'd take with me. Y'all know where most of you do anyway, that I told two pocket knives. One used to be an off brand loaner. Well, I retired that practice and I now carried two case knives, and I don't loan either one of them, but I wanted to bring two knives with me on that tour that meant something. One of them I brought was a twenty twenty three Model sixty two oh seven Mini Trapper than John Pantuso gave me last year. John works on the marketing team and he sent it to me after he heard the podcast. That was my introduction to the company and the rest of the folks that worked there, and that knife means a lot to me. It was the first token of appreciation from a company that not only me, but my entire family has been promoting for the last six generations. I accepted it on behalf of them, and it was for all of them that I carried it with me back to Bradford. The other knife, the second knife I carried, was the case document that I gave my dad for his birthday in nineteen seventy nine. I planned to get a picture of both of them in that factory. I thought that'd be pretty cool. The first case knife that have been given to me by case in the first case that I bought that had also been my dad's, the guy that started me on this whole trip to Pennsylvania when he gave me my first one when I was just a little boy. While I stood there listening to mister Dave tell me what he did and for how long you've been doing it, started doing some math in my head. I said, mister Dave, you were working here in nineteen seventy nine, right. He smiled and nodded yes. I pulled that knife out and handed it to him, and I said, would you have worked on this knife? He opened up the blade and checked the tang stamp markets indicating what decade in year it was produced, and handed it back to me, smiling. Yeah, I would have worked on that knife, he said. I couldn't tell him the story of that knife fast enough. As a matter of fact, I couldn't tell him but about half of it before I got so emotional I couldn't say anything. Lexis had to finish the story for me. Mister Dave understood, and he smiled. He allowed me my moment. Then, when he found out I was from Arkansas, he wanted to know how good the deer hunting was I regained my composure and I told him how proud I was to meet him, and I thanked him for his work he was doing there and that he had been doing throughout his career. I told everyone I met him there that could hear me how much I appreciated the effort that they put in to turning metal and bone into utilitarian pieces of handmade art. It's not just knives that they're making, and they know it. The next day at the Case Museum, Miss Heather and Jeremy were set up outside during the events, sharpening and polishing knives for anyone that wanted it done. Now. I'd met him the day before on our tour and I watched him masterfully doing the same job, But now I had the opportunity to really watch them and for them to tell me about each step and how they did it and how long they been doing it. I let him polish and re sharpen the knife that John had given me and how I came about receiving it, each commenting and laughing that they probably handled that knife before I did. Then, before I handed him my dad's knife, I told him that story. I know they've heard no telling how many tales just like mine at events like that one. But they each listened intently, and they thanked me for telling them about each knife and for letting them become part of the history of this one. I probably could have summed that last twenty five minutes up with one sentence. I bought a knife for my dad when I was young, and after he died, I got it back. That's a fair assessment of the tale. But the knife isn't the story. The story is all the people, from my friends on the playground and the teachers at school, to mister Leland and Hurley's Hardware, mister Dave, all the other wonderful people that I met along the way, and my wife and daughter went with me on this journey to a little valley in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. It started generations ago on my great grandfather bought a pocket knife. How thankful I am for that seemingly inconsequential act. That was the first ripple in the pond that is still making waves today. I thank you so much for listening and being a part of this country life of mind. It truly is something special, and I'm forever grateful for all of your support for me and ol'clay bow here on the Bear Greece Channel. Speaking of that rascal, me and him will be down in Venice, Louisiana at the Cypress Cove Medieater Fishing Experience on October tenth through the sixteenth, and there's still some slots available for that. If you're interested, you can find out on the Meat Eater website. I'll be in the Great State of Kansas with the Latvian Eagle himself, mister Giannis puld tell Us on December the thirtieth through January the second. Come bring into New Year with me and Giannis and help us put some ducks toes up in the decoys. There's a couple of spots left that are gonna go quick. I keep telling them that we should be blowing up beaver dams and running trot lines in the Selein River bottoms. Maybe we could do something like that one day, who knows. But that's it for me until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful

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