A Piedmont Porchlight Story
If somebody ever builds the Museum of Ordinary Things, don’t forget to leave room for a pocketknife. Not one of those fancy collector’s knives that comes in a velvet-lined box. I’m talking about the kind that lived in somebody’s pocket so long, the shape of the handle matched the shape of their hand.
I got to thinking about that one morning at the Coffee Cup. Curtis Pope was using his pocketknife to sharpen a pencil. Hattie walked by, stopped, and folded her arms.
“You know they make pencil sharpeners.”
Curtis never looked up. “Yes, Ma’am, they sure do.”
“Then why are you usin’ that old knife?”
“‘Cause it already knows how.”
Hattie just shook her head. “I don’t even know how to answer that.”
I smiled into my coffee. “My daddy would’ve understood.”
Curtis looked over. “He carry one?”
“Every day.”
“So did mine,” Hattie said. “If Daddy put his britches on, his pocketknife went with him.”
Funny thing about pocketknives. Nobody ever had to ask where they were. They were just… there. Right front pocket. Same place every day. I don’t reckon they spent much time cutting things. Mostly they opened feed sacks. Trimmed fishing line. Sharpened pencils. Peeled apples. Cut baling twine. Opened mail and Christmas presents. Whittled sticks while waiting on somebody who said they’d “just be a minute.”
Curtis smiled. “My granddaddy could fix just about anything with his.”
“Could he?”
“No. But he always started with the knife.” That got a laugh.
Hattie sat down for a minute. “My mama hated Daddy whittlin’ on the porch.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause he’d leave little curls of wood everywhere.”
Curtis grinned. “My mama swept up enough cedar whittlin’s to heat the house.”
I thought about my own daddy. Funny thing is, I don’t remember what kind of pocketknife he carried. Couldn’t tell you the brand. Couldn’t tell you how many blades it had. But I remember the sound. That little… snick.
Every boy in America knew that sound. The blade opening. It meant somebody was about to fix something. Or make something. Or teach you something.
Outside, Earl Johnson came walking past the Coffee Cup carrying a bucket. Curtis hollered through the screen door.
“Earl!”
“What?”
“You got your knife?”
Earl patted his pocket. “Got my britches on, ain’t I?”
“What for?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The whole Coffee Cup laughed. That seemed like reason enough. Funny thing about a pocketknife. You carried it because one day something was going to need cutting. You didn’t know what. You just knew it would. Kind of like carrying hope around in your pocket.
Hattie picked up our cups. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t think I ever saw my daddy leave home without his knife.”
I nodded. “I don’t think I ever saw mine leave home without his either.”
For just a minute, the three of us got quiet. Funny how one little tool can bring a whole person back into the room.
If somebody ever builds that Museum of Ordinary Things, don’t polish the pocketknife. Leave a little dirt in the hinges. A few scratches on the bone handle. Maybe even a blade that’s been sharpened so many times it’s half the size it used to be. Because those little marks ain’t damage. They’re a record. Proof that somebody carried that knife every single day. Not because it was valuable. Because it was useful.
And I reckon the best people I’ve ever known were exactly the same way.
olbigjim 