Look sharp and you’ll notice the groove in the blade, what you call the “ricasso,” which lightens the metal without weakening the structure. I promise you this workhorse will hold an edge and do you proud. It’s item JB 92, “The Gunny,” a genuine bargain at just $26.50, and don’t be dragging your feet tonight. Don’t be faint-hearted. It’s one popular specimen, but I’m still going to run a special, right now, rockbottom: 25 flat. Merry Christmas. Call me crazy, but what’s the point of being boss if you can’t follow a quirk, if you can’t share your blessings? Find your phone. Our number’s streaming at the bottom of the screen. Don’t be left out here in the giving season.
Now one thing we do on this show is cut, cut and blunt, re-hone and cut again, as this is not your lukewarm “for-show” show but a “for-use” show, and I know the competition over at “Knife World” and Sylvester King of “Blade and Tang” will shake their noggins and say how Mr. Jim of “Sunday Knife” goes purely off his rocker when a holy time looms around the corner. Those self-styled wise men cut nothing but paper and only display and bully and beguile. They don’t ever show real-use conditions. Of course, any knife I rough-demonstrate for you is a loss for me, short term, as I won’t sell used items but will donate them, be they sheephorn Bowie or Wild Boar canoe or a little whittler peanut with an awl. I myself’d want to witness the thing in action–trimming, slicing, whacking, nocking and cutting clean through–before I’d slap down hard-won cash money for my own use and delight or to wrap up under the trimmed tree. We want you to behold the quality, so we cut pasteboard and hardwood, T-bone and taters, rope, trussed turkey and whatnot, and we cut prices, too. When I say “we” I mean “me,” as things stand just now, Rhonda being AWOL, so to speak, following her own star. But hope springs eternal, especially when the sleigh bells ring, you know. Are you listening?
And those other ones, you know, on the big networks, the prime time elves, they don’t think much of my fundamental mission. I mean, the idea of a faith-based knife show is purely moonstruck to them, but listen up. You know Mr. Jim wants to give honest value, and when I say you can’t purchase this owl-head Ontario stockman or that French style toothpick from Buck at a lower rate anywhere else on God’s sweet earth, you know I’m speaking gospel, because I want to be your knife provider, and pledged to hold sacred the Ten Commandments, I will not lie. I will take my profits in good will as well as specie, I guarantee, but also I’ll follow up with charity, Empty Stocking Fund or Salvation Army. Women’s shelters, too. What you sow you reap. I’ll more than tithe, and you already know about those five hundred Rambo survivals with butt compass and double-snap sheaths I bequeathed to the USMC last July. Support our boys in the field. Their motto is Semper Fi, you know, same as Jesus, for better or worse, even in times of sorrow or the heart’s distress.
If you’ve not tuned us in before, you likely won’t appreciate I’ve had the prostrate cancer back in June and came within an inch, but I’m on the mend, thanks to the mercy of God and the Carillion Wellness Team. And I might mention that it was cool and precise cutting that saved my bacon, quality surgical blades plus God-fearing doctors who will not tolerate dull. But it changes everything, and even more recent what you might call turmoil has confirmed my faith that faith is all we’ve got, no matter how much we preen or prosper. Illusion will fall upon you, misfortune crack down your door, but if you have your faith and some work you believe in, you’ve got a fighting chance. I’ve often been saved by wage work, too, be it taxidermy, auto sales, laying pipe, night watching for Wackenhut or the assembly of deluxe mobile homes. I’ve been a Swiss army tool of a man. But I’m not here to preach or finagle you nor rehash my own luck, rough or sunny, no matter what discord I suffer under. I’m beaming down the satellite rays and coming into your homes tonight amidst all the tinsel and wassail and pious gratitude to show you some fine and righteous steel.
Now I know a good many of you are partial to the hunter style over the trapper for day-to-day, and this two-beaked hunter from Kissing Crane–order number 62R621–will be a joy for many a year to come. If Butch will just get the turntable–that’s it, thank you, Butch–now see how well it presents, sleek-like, the unusual sawcut bone handle, steel catching the light. It makes the hair along the back of my neck quiver. Not like some things I might name, this product is as true as it is beautiful, but now let me show you the temper in action. While I’m fetching the wood scraps, well, it’s obvious Rhonda’s not here to reach me the items, and that’s a sadness to us all on “Sunday Knife,” mostly me, but there you have it. See how the feather blade slivers right along that slat. That’s pure bird’s eye maple and somewhat prone to snag, but this little wonder worker curls up as fine a ribbon as you could want. You’ll notice–a man can’t say this too many times–I always keep the keened edge aimed away from me. Look at that. A human hand is one of God’s marvels, what they call “deft,” which sounds akin to “death,” and right along the wrists you’ve got under the surface some big blood cables, vulnerable. I mean, see your pulse pounding, and if you slip one quarter inch under the skin with a stray blade, you can make it fountain out red as Satan’s face or Santa’s jacket, and unless you’re one lucky fellow, it’s Katie-bar-the-door. But don’t let me be planting any bad ideas. Keep those wrists safe. I know some take a depression in this season, but there is no heartache that cannot be soothed in the Sweet Hereafter in His good time, and the meek shall inherit, as you’ve heard me say before. Rush to judgment is nothing but vanity, and I can witness to that fact, amen.
But enough of that. This blade is forged in Japan, and those little buggers know what they’re at when it comes to edge and temper, and now they are many of them as good a Christian as you or me and keep their sacred word, which some folks real personal to you might not always be trusted to do, though I am not naming names. Those Orientals are sworn and trained artisans and stand behind their craft, bless their hearts. So what do you think for a honey like this? $12.95? Some would jump on it. At $10.95, a steal. I’ve got eighty-two of these high utility babies with the lockback blades–62R621–and they come in the tin presentation case with embossing. Where is that thing? This is one time we do miss Rhonda, but evidently she has other fish to fry. Well, I’m letting these gems go tonight–special pre-holiday discount–at ten dollars even so long as this lot lasts. It’s the miracle season, so get on your Smartphones or e-mail us right away to not miss out, as they’ll be flying out of here, but our lines are open 24-7, and I won’t raise the asking price even as the merchandise dwindles. Fair chance for every customer; knock and we shall open wide. I like to see you smile.
Knife, you know, is a cutting word, that “i” in the middle sharp as a harlot’s claws. It’s pure Viking is where the word comes from, terror of the seas, but we know about cleaving instruments from scripture, as well–ma’kelet in Genesis, a butcher’s, and from Psalms ta’ar, more razor-like. That’s Hebrew. And recording scripture was itself needful of a knife. The pen knife is called that as its first use was to sharpen and slit pens when they were feathers or reeds. Imagine that. Now Abraham himself had a knife, as a family–even in bad straits–will have tasks, and Gideon and his men had their swords, Peter too, but think on this. Jesus was a carpenter before he was a healer, and you know he had the need of knives to trim down a hoe handle or whittle a peg, then in his healing ministry possibly to cut roots and dig the medicine seeds from a pod, lance open boils. I have been a cabinet maker myself, so I know about the first from experience, but the latter part is just me reading between the lines. Closest I’ve come to doctoring is driving an ambulance, which is a stress job, I swan it is, not so easy to be an angel of mercy. And Jesus might have broke the bread, but you know he had a knife for when there was a spring lamb or some fish. They did fish, and the disciples suffered storms and kept their hearts up, mostly. Sailors always require a blade. You have to keep your heart up, come whatever sort of storm in the spirit, even if you are single, which the Shepherd’s chosen cohorts were, though by choice. I bet you fish, too, and an angler is forever needing a knife.
But work as you will and try as you might, you can’t save yourself from every mishap with a blade. This is a personal aside, you understand, and I’m gonna get you directly to the Bee Pick and a Schrade trapper with abalone facing and a star shield, as well as an Ocoee gut hook and some novelty items like the ladies’ lipstick knife and the shotgun shell dual blade. Two shakes of a lamb’s tail, but first, I’ve got to witness just this tiny bit.
If you work or just hobby up with a sharp and pointed thing, you know you are going to take some nicks. We’ve had our share right here on Sunday nights, no lie. Accidents happen; it’s part of the grand plan. There is power in the blood. You are going to smart and bleed, and life is like that, too. Life and knife. And when you cut, you’ve got to tend your injuries till you mend. What I’m referring to is this: so many callers tonight have already asked about Rhonda’s health and why she is not on camera with her beaming smile, green eyes and pretty pink hands to show off the featured merchandise. You may also notice I am not wearing any jewelry on my hands, which is a smart move for a model who shows things that fit in the palm, though I was always proud to display my wedding gold, and now I feel right peculiar without the circle on my finger, but Rhonda has flat out quit the show and quit me, evidently, and we would both appreciate your prayers as we come up to the holiday season, especially on this Sunday evening, for a troubled soul needs a friend, but that should answer the questions I know you’ve been holding back. It’s best I move on without getting into how that gal–a blade woman herself, cutting hair and trimming nails when first we met–has given up displaying our mirror-polished blades, mini-Swiss utilities and sleek dirks to seek her fortune elsewhere, though what with me mentioning this on the air, she might be watching in her new used Winnebago at the Shawnee Fish Camp and Trailer Reservation, where she is now homesteading, and she might just take a mind to appear and make up. Or something. In case you’re curious, the ring is still close by in my watch pocket, and anyway, I expect she’d be too ashamed to storm in . . . , but we need to transition and take a moment to let our sponsor the Henry Repeating Arms of Bayonne, New Jersey show you what they’ve got on the shelves of your local firearms merchant in case you still have a Yule present to purchase for a loved one or want some fresh ordnance to finish out the game fowl season yourself.
Welcome back, ladies and gents, slicers and carvers and collectors, even gawkers, be ye wayward or saved. Big Jim here, your knife provider, the man who wants to give you an edge while also reminding you of the generous mercy of the Lord no matter what the travail of the day. You know I’m prone to rattle on, but this is a business, as well as a mission, which is the more important, as you all by now know. As Rhonda used to recite up to a couple weeks back, the knife has been with us since we first had to survive by the sweat of our brow after the fig leaf incident, which I’m not going to lay any blame for, but you all know the story. The knife is part of what God gave us the brains to contrive. In my belief it was a tool for skinning and rendering long before men weaponized it and went after their neighbors and kin, but everybody knows a blade, even carbon steel, anodized, even the finest Solingen from Germany, needs to be refreshed. It needs to be revived, like renewing vows. It was Simon Peter who kept Christ’s apostle band revitalized, and Jesus called him the rock, as that was the meaning of some of his name.
When I was a boy it was just an emery-rough rock we had for our hand-me-down Barlows. We’d spit and swirl, shaving toward the grain, everything in the wrist, but today there are more gimmicks for sharpening than the devil has tricks – some grit steel, some ceramic, v-guides and wheels and strops, but no matter what else you have, you need something that will not fail you. And do not put a fine implement on the grind wheel just to see sparks shoot out. Those are the angels of the edge flying away, the soul that holds the hone, the beauty and the use. Nossir, don’t jump on a fad, and remember: simple, portable, reliable, affordable. A filing device you can trust sure as God made little green apples and paired us two-by-two.
Well, what I have tonight is a hard leather razor-case Gerber whet steel that swings out like this on the pivot so the case becomes your stable grip. Order number G7444. You just take your knife–be it stockman, pruner hawksbill, K-Bar, what have you–and shave along the edge, away from you as always, like you were whittling off hairs almost, eight times at the maximum for the average knife.
Let me show you here. First I’m going to try to carve up this sheet of bond paper with a little Case pocket model that old Butch has been hammering on like he was trying to beat it to a ploughshare. Watch close now. See if that’s not the most ragged job of slicing you’ll ever witness. Just hacking. A shambles. But watch me run this nicked-up joke along the Gerber steel. Zoom in and mic it, Butch. Yeah, hear that wee-tiny scrape and scrape and scrape? Boy howdy, don’t it jump when you get to a ding, but see how quick it acuminates. You know that word? Knifology for “sharpens.” Okay, maybe a dozen strokes for this rascal; Butch does a righteous job when you tell him to hack a thing up. Look-a-here, amazing, but it’s no miracle. No spirit nor spit involved. Now see how sweet that paper takes the curve or the straight. Ready to peel a peach or leave a delicate lady’s calf smooth as silk. There’s a lesson here, too, in the sharpening, because it’s by trial we learn and improve, and trial is by what’s contrary, what’s rough. Life and knife again. Blade and blood. And you’re going to like this. You’re going to love it. You trot on over to your Wal-Mart and look in the display case. You say, “What’s the price on this whetting jobby?” Well, the Mart man in his badged-up vest is going to say, “Mister, that’s a Gerber, and it’ll run you . . . .”
But I hear “Hark the Herald” rising on the audio monitor to tell me once again our time together is passed, and let me remind you what a pleasure it is to be a guest in your homes, to share the Word with you and offer every pilgrim one of you a look at the finest cut-ware available on this blessed earth. And don’t you overworry on me and Rhonda for a single precious minute, as He is all-wise and almighty. He has a bigger plan than we can ever know, that great knifesmith in the sky who keeps our hearts warm in his sparking forge and won’t let cold anger linger as he snags us by the tongs, slaps us on the anvil and shapes us to His ends with the fierce hammer of his sacred Love. See you next Sunday. Peace on earth. Amen.
- Sunday Knife - April 28, 2013
