I Have a Penknife...

...therefore I am educated.

But not always real bright.

Friday March 7th. A day like any other day. Normally I have every other Monday off but since my birthday was this past weekend I arranged to take my day off on Friday so I'd have a three day weekend. I got to sleep in, wake up next to my beautiful wife and have a relaxed day of pampering. Later in the day we decided to venture out to run errands one of which involved going to Lowes home warehouse so I could pick out a new shop-vac. While there we also picked up a few other things like gardening supplies to get ready for Spring, and a new dog gate.

Since we got the ShihTzupoop for Christmas we've tried to keep her in the kitchen and family room which are non-carpeted. From this area there are two primary routes of escape. There's a doorway of normal width which goes to the dining room and a much wider doorway which goes to the entrance foyer and front door. We had one kiddie/doggie gate of normal size which functions quite well at the dining room checkpoint however we've had to improvise at the other wider, and much more heavily traveled route. This improvised barrier consisted of the ironing board (which is rarely used for its intended purpose and happily volunteered for service) laying across the doorway and backed by various other objects like a suitcase and a cardboard box. It looked remarkably like this:



The new gate is much more practical since, in addition to being wider, it actually mounts in place and has a hinged gate that opens and closes with relative ease. It is also tall enough and sturdy enough to hold back the hounds of hell so it has the added benefit of being able to keep the puppy contained should she suddenly sprout wings and fly. Here it is post installation:



So there I am on Friday evening back home from the adult-male-toystore. I'm standing in my kitchen and I decide that I'm going to put up the new gate. I remove all the pieces-parts from the package and realize that the actual gate portions of the pieces-parts are secured together presumably to keep them from rattling around in the box. They are secured together with nylon zip ties. I suppose someone at the factory thought that in the event the gate parts got high on PCP and went on a crime rampage the police would be saved a step by having them pre-handcuffed. Naturally I did what any educated (male) person who just returned form the home warehouse would do. I took out my trusty penknife.

Now here's that part where I have to issue the obligatory warning. I am a health & safety professional. I have been trained and train others to perform their work safely. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME.

Taking the penknife in my left hand and holding the gate in my right I sliced through that nylon tie wrap like it was butter. In fact the knife went through that thing so fast that it was embedded in my right hand before I ever knew what happened. It took about a half a second for two things to occur. 1) For me to register that I was cut, and 2) For the blood to start flowing like a freakin' river from the vein I hit. My middle daughter was standing there when it happened and when the blood came I'm not sure who's eyes went bigger hers or mine.



Fortunately I'm a former Emergency Medical Technician and I remembered the training. I put direct pressure on the wound, first with my bare thumb, then with a now ruined dish towel. I asked my daughter to get the first aid kit and took the opportunity to show her how to apply a proper pressure dressing. Then my wife and I had some quality alone time on a Friday night in the Emergency Room.

I actually make it sound worse than it was. I caught myself in the fleshy part of my hand between the thumb and forefinger. Since it was a stab rather than a slice the actual cut wasn't very long. But like I said, I did get a vein so because of that and the location it wasn't going to close by itself. It needed two stitches. And of course the always fun tetanus shot.

And the moral of this story is...

Though you may be educated, you may not always be smart. Or...the sign of an educated man is pointed but so is a dunce cap.

Small Signs of Our Decline

I went to a very small college. 1400 students total. One of the benefits of going to a small college was that you got to know the faculty pretty well (that actually was both a blessing and a curse, depending on the particular faculty member). There were no TA's teaching, in fact I don't remember there being TA's at all. I was a biology major and the head of the biology department was Dr. Meredith. Doc Meredith was pretty easy going and soft-spoken and he had the affinity for dumb jokes that all science teachers seem to have. There was a folksy, aw shucks intelligence about him that reminded you of Andy Griffith or Will Rogers.

One day I was in the department office for one reason or another and Doc Meredith was there with a package that had been delivered to him. He was looking around the desk for something to use to open the box. Now when I was growing up every male in the house carried a pocket knife and I was no different. It was a natural thing to me. I got in the habit when I was around eight years old and I've carried one ever since. Naturally I reached into my pocket and produced my knife and handed it to the good doctor.

He looked at the small knife in my hand, smiled that small smile that told you something was coming, then he looked at me and said, "Why, Bruce. You are an educated man."

Well, I was in college in the hopes of becoming educated but I didn't really know what he was talking about so I responded in the manner that any college freshman-aged educated man would. I said, "Huh?"

He proceeded to explain, just as I knew he would, that back in the days when writing was done with a quill dipped in ink, the quill had to be frequently cut and sharpened in order for it to hold the ink and write properly. This cutting was accomplished with a small knife kept and carried specifically for that purpose. The knife became commonly known as a "pen knife". Back then the vast majority of people did not know how to read nor write. The only people that had "pen knives" were those who had and used quills. The only people who used quills were those who could read and write and the only people who knew how to read and write were those who were educated. I carried with me a pen knife, one of the early earmarks of one who was educated, therefore I was an educated man.

It's interesting to me that I had entire semester-long classes in college that I have absolutely no recollection of but the parts of my education like the pen knife story will stay with me for the rest of my life. Strange.

The reason I relate this story to you now is because I was reminded of it last weekend. My wife and I went to Washington, DC for a couple of days for her birthday. We spent the day Saturday walking around near the Capitol and hitting a few of the museums on the Mall. We were about to enter the Library of Congress when I remembered that in this post 9/11 world it is impossible to enter government buildings without first going through security. I have reluctantly gotten used to leaving my pocket knife at home or in the car when I travel by air but I had completely forgotten about the security checkpoints in our public buildings. I really wanted to see the exhibit but I didn't want to have to give up my knife for good. We had traveled by Metro and were too far from the hotel to go back. Hmm. What to do? My wife suggested hiding it outside. It was a Saturday. It was cold. There were very few people around. Sounds like a plan to me. That's what I did. I hid it as high up as I could reach on an out-of-the-way ledge around the corner from the entrance, then retrieved it when we came back out. My wife is a genius. Fortunately, there wasn't much security to speak of in the other buildings we visited that day so I didn't have to resort to knife hiding again.

My point to all this is that from time to time (often when I'm standing in my socks in an airport) I am slapped with a reminder of how far we have regressed. A reminder of what we have lost. When I was a kid we trusted eight year olds with pocket knives. Then the terrorists struck on 9/11 and put us into shock. But that which we lost was not taken away by the terrorists. They acted. We reacted. That's what this country has gotten really good at. Reacting. Usually with a jerk of the knee and little to no thought. To be responsible means at its root that we have the ability to choose our response. We could have chosen to respond using reason, and education, and intelligence. We could have responded in so many ways. But we responded, and continue to respond blindly with fear of a boogieman that our government constantly reminds us of. Our response was to take off our shoes and stand in our socks at the airport. Our response was to accept that our bottles can't hold more than three ounces and that the stock of the companies that produce one quart plastic bags went up. Our response is to reach in our pocket and hand over the sign and symbol of an educated person. In many ways, for me at least, it's the little seemingly insignificant things that speak the loudest. On Saturday I heard that one loud and clear.