I can't remember when or where he acquired it, but it's the only knife I can remember him carrying on a regular basis.
Dad worked in the maintenance department of a textile mill for almost his entire life. He used to tell me, "I don't care what you do for a living, just don't work in a cotton mill."
- Buck 703
Dad's farming was done on an 80-something acre farm ten miles South of Anderson. After working in the cotton mill all day, he would come home and jump on a tractor until just after dark. Growing up in the country, there were always cows and hogs to feed (or chase). There was always something that needed picking, or cutting, or hauling, or freezing. Dad cut up many a vegetable and peeled many an apple with his old Buck knife.
When all the boys grew up and got married and went to work at "anywhere but a cotton mill", we all thought it was a great idea to get Dad a new knife to replace his old "worn out" Buck knife.
Every Christmas, birthday, and Father's Day, each of us in turn would make an attempt to get a knife for Dad that would replace the old Buck. Dad would always give an enthusiastic "Thank You", and would admire the beautiful new knife. Then he would carefully wrap up the new knife and place it back in its box.
Dad never used any of these wonderful knives. We tried getting him everything from a Boker, to a Case, to beautiful custom folders. We even searched and found a new-old-stock Buck 703 exactly like the one Dad had. It too went back into the box. Dad just loved that old Buck 703. It was his faithful companion.
After Dad retired, he was diagnosed with COPD. Ironically, he was a lifelong smoker, but had quit smoking six months prior to retirement after the latest price increase. Then followed the cancer: Bone cancer, lung cancer, thyroid cancer...
We noticed his confusion with life began to grow after each surgery. We sadly watched him struggle with the pain following surgery, and his frustration with all the tubes and wires that seemed to always be tangled around his arm.
Finally he was diagnosed with Alzheimers. For some reason he began to think that the house in which he had lived for forty years wasn't really his home. He began to tell us that he wanted to go to "his house" and he didn't know why we would move him out of his beautiful house that was near the river. Sometimes I would put him in my car and drive him through the pasture, down to the river where we had fished and waded many times. This would help, and we would always talk about the cows, and digging post holes to build the pasture fence. It was only temporary.
On May 4th, my birthday, 2016, my Dad passed on from this life. I'm thinking about him on Father's Day.
I sure miss him.
Here's a picture of Dad's old knife, along with a carving that CARVIN DON here on AAPK made for me to give to Dad back in 2011. It was one of Dad's greatest treasures, and he always kept carving and knife together on his side table until the end.
- Carvin Don's handiwork
