Not sure if I will get back next time so posting this now

[lt632ret]

. I am going to explain a very strange story one which may very well confound you as the reader as it has me the author or perhaps in my case, agent or victim might be a better term. I must write this quickly while I am still able or indeed still here. Here as I write this being the present, April 18 2006. As you may already know I have for the last half century, sought and collected cutlery and artifacts from the past some going back hundreds of years. It was one day about two weeks ago that I chanced upon a very strange looking machine at an auction. It had come from an estate in Tuxedo Park NY. It is a small town which is about an hour, from my home. Originally this area was a quite elite with large gated Victorian houses and had been the homes of some of the most well known people in the world especially in the later part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Indeed it is where the formal men’s attire ( the Tuxedo) had gotten it name from and was also associated with the Tuxedo 2 bladed pen knife also called the Jenny Lind ( after the famous singer ). There were many unusual items at this sale. Since the original owner had been a collector of original patent prototypes and was supposed to have been an acquaintance of many famous inventors Thomas A Edison, George Schrade and Henry ford being counted among them.

I saw the item and knew what it was (a circa 1900 Kent Patent knife sharpener ) These items were popular from around 1850 until 1920. These were made by George Kent from High Holborn London Knives are placed in the slots at the top of the rotary oak box. Inside are roller sharpeners, and felt buffers and bristles which clean and polish both sides of the knife at the same time. An abrasive powder is poured through the chute. The rotary action constantly raises the polishing powder from the supply chute. This was the most popular type of knife cleaning (and sharpening) machine from about 1850 to around 1920. Prior to the introduction of stainless steel, knives rusted quickly and required constant washing and cleaning. Large households would have used machines like this on a daily basis. Now while these old sharpeners are getting rather rare they are not unique however since I did not have one I purchased it at auction after some spirited bidding in fact I must admit the other main bidder was a most unusual looking individual and seemed to just disappear when the auctioneer awarded it to me (almost by mistake since he seemed to miss the other interested party’s bid.) The other fellow seemed to have a nebulous quality to him and the really weird thing is he looked a lot like me.

When I got the item home I got out some furniture polish and WD-40 and started to clean it up. I looked through the hole in the side where the powdered polish ( crocus powder ) was usually poured and instead of seeing a split stone wheel where the knife blade would normally sit surrounded by brushes I saw wires and windings much like old wire coils also strange crystal oblongs almost like the old resisters or capacitors only transparent. It was at this point that I gave closer inspection to the machine only then did I see the words almost illegible ONE TURN = 100 Y . I had not turned the manual handle on the machine, used to turn the sharpening stone, which normally would have been inside the wooden frame, I had tried to but it seemed stuck that was why I had originally thought to oil the mechanism.

Needless to say I had no idea what was going on. However being curious I started to turn the handle just the start of the movement brought instant nausea. Strangely when I looked around my two cats who had been in the next to me were no longer in the room but rather back out in the kitchen eating when in fact they had finished there meal 10 minutes earlier. I live alone ( except for my cats) my home is perhaps 150 years old my house is located in the closest corner to the hamlet of Wallkill and next to the old railroad tracks which now is a rail trail. of the old John Borden home farm . Johns father had been the son of the original inventor of condensed milk and was the town benefactor the original high school and various other contributions as well as his generous nature helped build Wallkill where I live, on the banks of the Wallkill river and 3 miles from Walden NY. My home was originally a carriage house and when the train which traveled daily upstate to Kingston and beyond to pick up milk from the various farms to be brought to the milk plant between Walden and Wallkill ( to make the famous condensed milk). It would pass the carriage house which is now my home if the engineer rang the bell a specific number of times it meant there was a visitor who needed to be picked up to be taken to the mansion on the hill where Borden lived, the
Caretaker would then hitch up the horses and go pick up the guest. The room the machine was in my barroom ) had been build much later in the 1950tys.
The relevancy of this information will as I go on will become apparent.

I had by now decided that I had to know what was going on being alone at this point in life I have little fear of the future care nothing of the present and only dream of what could have been in the past. I then started to ponder what I was looking at. I again turned the handle minutely and again experienced a minor vertigo checking my watch it was 10 minutes earlier than it had been. Ok then that was it. I put on a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt I felt that I would wait until early morning to see if my supposition was correct. Could it be could I have found an old lost Edison invention similar to the one written of by HG Wells? Well what the hell I had nothing to lose. Luckily I have among my other artifacts fairly large collection of old gold coins. Now worth much more than there original value. However if my interpretation of the inscription was correct One Turn 100 years I would need money and if not, well Gold can be melted and spent. It might be an expensive trip then again I might not need it if something went wrong. I took nothing else. At 5 AM on April 18 2006 I clutched the machine with my left hand and turned the handle (with effort ) one complete turn. Nausea and vertigo turned to blissful unconsciousness. I awoke to a crisp New York Spring dawn in my back yard still holding the machine and looking for the first time at what my house originally had looked like 100 years earlier.

I quickly secreted the machine in some rocks which thankfully had not changed at least in the 100 years since I had viewed them yesterday. I then looked around but not for long I scampered on the railroad tracks and headed off to Walden to the knife companies and the history I had sought all my life. If I was correct it would be April; 18 1906. As I came into the village on my right was the Col Bradley house he had sold New York knife 3 years before however there it was resplendent while it was still there in my time, here, it was alive and vivacious. I had no patience’s I wanted more I gulped it in like a drowning man finding air. A right just past the Colonels (Bradley) house down the hill and there was Walden knife if it was 1906 it had been sold to E C Simmons . In 1903 George Schrade sold his interest in Press Button knife ( a division of Walden knife ) however they continued to make them until 1924. I had been in the building (which remarkably still had the same general outlines, many times. In the present at least what had been the present until yesterday). However the building had been a supermarket for over 50 years. Now finally I stood outside of how it had been. I went to the front door and feigned interest in hiring on. The nice fellow who was named terwilliger ( I am sure I know several of his grand or great grand children ). Said no but Offered me a tour however his pad of day passes was empty. He looked over grabbed a used pass and said that this person had left and that I could use it since if stopped no one ever looked at the name and besides he would guide the tour. It was amazing to much to explain perhaps the most overriding factor was the pride of craftsmanship that everyone exuded. Then it was into the section where the pressbuttons were made. Hundreds of knives hunters with spear blades and saber blades hardly ever found today a myriad of the items I have scoured the globe to find in the present era, as common as pennies. They are just another tool ( was what I was told ) and rightly so if only they knew the idiot rulings which would become laws 50 years later regarding these simple tools. He pointed out a craftsman who had been one of the original cutlers who had quit NYK ( the upper shop just a ½ miles or so up river to start Walden CO OP now Walden knife. when the Colonel ( Bradley ) had forbidden them to play baseball due to a fight having broken out over a game during lunch break ). I wanted to ask him so many questions , He said he could not talk he was working however here is a present to remember him by and gave me an original Walden CO OP knife box he said it had been laying around for years. 1870 until 1874 it was old then in 1906. I thanked them all and left.

I ran up Oak street and down to Main and then saw New York Knife. Towering above the Wallkill Gorge (You entered from the top floor ) many years later this fact and building appeared in Ripleys for that fact . Again I was warmly greeted and while not given a tour I was asked into the main office there above a desk was a giant photo pic of NYK . NYK had been sold in 1903 to the Fuller Bros who had owned the Electric Knife Company in Newark NJ. They explained how the photo was famous for it size since in 1903 a coffin glass plate photo had to be brought from NYC to take it. I chuckled since 100 years later that very picture would hang in my house. I saw a Kent patent sharpener in the office and mentioned I had one and the nice lady in the office offered me a tin of the very cleaning powder they used in there’s.

Time was passing very quickly and I want to try to be back by nightfall. My next stop was cross town to the then new Schrade factory. It was here that I had my greatest surprise for upon my entrance I was introduced to a large man with a handle bar moustache who was introduced to me as Mr George Schrade. He eyed me keenly and then remarked that he had been expecting me I was dumbfounded he laughed and said that he was a friend of a Mr Edison who had said to expect me. He said he wanted me to have a gift. ( The very first proto type of a new inletting devise for shields in knives.) He said to me that there were many things in this world that we would never understand nor was it always our destiny to know what they were. He then said that he was leaving for Germany and had to go. I gulped and told him don’t go he said that destiny for every man is preordained. Then he did something very strange he shook my hand and said Thankyou for keeping our memory alive.

I left a bit shaken but I had one more thing to do . I had to stop at the Union House located next to the railroad station I went in for a beer. I had to have a beer in 1906 in one of those big nickel beer goblets. I paid with an 1881 twenty dollar gold piece and bought a round for the house. The owner was so happy being paid in gold he gave me a souvenir knife .

It was getting dark and I still had 3 miles to go to get back home and by now had quite a bundle in a paper sack given to me at the bar. I got back to my yard and by now the stars were quite visible. I looked over at the Wallkill river and thought how little it had changed and I thought but I bet the fishing is better in 1906. With that I spun the handle of the machine and awoke on the floor of my barroom apparently back in 2006.

I was a bit dizzy and looked around there on the bar was the empty bottle of Crown Royal I had polished off the night before. As for the artifacts well as you may have guessed I had them all along. I laughed at my dream and went upstairs to lay down then I reached into my pocket and that was when I started to wonder for there in my pocket was the used day pass from Walden knife. Well as Old George had said destiny is preordained, I wonder, Rich Langston PS I have attached pics of the artifacts I mentioned to serve as proof of my amazing tale . Perchance we will meet again but i have tried so hard and so long to save history that perhapes now I can by being part of it. By the way if i do not make it back I am leaving my entire collection to AGGGH to late it is beginning again.

[El Lobo]

H. G. Wells would be proud.

Bill

[jonet143]

great story, LT! a fun surreal trip back to the future.

[ea42]

Excellent story LT! .............LT?..........LT!?

[Gunsmoke47]

I loved it LT! Thank you!

[knife-nut]

Great story! I want to go with you next time!!

[upnorth]

Indeed, I was transported back a hundred years!

Boy you must be in good shape, to do all that running, LT !

[edgy46]

Great story thank you.

[orvet]

Excellent story.......that is if it is only a story.
Taken as truth it explains many things.

(Have you never wondered how one man could have so many great old knives)?

Dale


Something about his writing reminds me of Hemmingway.

[W5RWU]

Very Very interesting, we have ways of making you talk!! Can I have the movie Rights!
Randy

[Rusty1]

good story LT, what years would you really like to visit given the chance?

Rusty1

[lt632ret]

Hello you do not know me I am a friend of LT, I am contacting you through his computer to see if anyone knows of his where abouts. I received a call from him asking me to keep an eye on the cats and feed them till he returned. The house is unnaturally quiet. Nothing has been disturbed but it seems quite strange. There was a note on the dining room table thanking me and well to be quite honest a note I found rather unusual . It seemed to be an itinery sort of check list. It had things to do places to go. 1, Roswell AZ 1946, 2 Dallas Tex 1961, 3, The Holy land ( about 10 days before the first Easter ) 4 Talk EVE out of eating the apple and step on any talking serpents. There was a whole list of this kind of stuff any ideas what it means? Personally I think the long winter alone and all that CR he sucks down finally got to him. He also said to tell Dale that his publisher said that LT also reminds him of Hemmingway ( not so much in the way they both wrote but rather a similarity in there drinking habits . ). Oh well pleae let me know if you hear from or see him.

[El Lobo]

Well, I hope he checks out the Schrade-Walden post before he leaves.....he is a very Mercurial fellow.

Bill

P.S.

[CCBill]

I made a trip to Walkill, looking for LT. The last person known to have seen him was a Mister Terwilliger, who said he saw him riding, South, on a sandbar stag, with a bottle of Crown in each hand and a big Cuban cigar in his mouth. He said he was repeating, over and over, "I think I've inhaled too much whetrock dust" and had something strapped on, behind him that looked a lot like a Kent patent knife sharpener, then(POOF!) he suddenly disappeared. The only trace that was left was the ash that fell off of his cigar.
Sorry I'm not much help but if there are any more LT sightings, please post them.
...Mild(not wild)CCBill...

[orvet]

If anyone sees LT, please ask him for me to stop by La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana in late 1960 or early 1961 and pick up some cigers for me. Ask the bartender for 10 boxes of H. Upmanns Toros or Coronas, unless they have Double Coronas.

Be sure to tell him that they must be from the tobacco crop of 1959. They should be available in late 1960 or early 1961. The 1959 crop (as he no doubt knows) was the best crop Cuba produced in the last century or even yet in this century.

Thanks,
Dale

[Rusty1]

LT thank goodness your friend Charles Babbage was able to send a message to us folk out here, keeping us up to date with your travels.

Rusty1

[lt632ret]

Just popped back home . the cats were on duty they got a grey mouse. I awarded them the French Rattatoue medal of courage. Speaking of French while on my last journey I ( wanted to meet Teddy and in fact did end up in havana.) Sorry Dale your cigars were many years in the future however I did pick up a French import knife being sold there . Oh well got to be off again. By the way Teddy was a pisser and drank like a fish so did I or he would have never gotten me to go up that damn hill with him but, as he would say it was Bully. LT

[Paladin]

I heard that he had stopped by the Alamo, just before the fall and was seen talking to Jim Bowie. I'm betting he will be able to give us some REAL info on what that knife looked like and, once and forever, who really made the thing!!

[lt632ret]

Funny that you heard about that most folks don't know but Old Jim had a spare that was the one he gave me in fact I just got done mounting it on a plaque when your posting came in. I relly enjoyed meeting Jim we didn't have a lot of time to swap stories there was a lot going on. We did get to have a couple of libations and the talk went to bar fights we had been in I really did not understand much of what he was saying but he kept bringing up a fight he had once in Videlia a place called the sand bar. I told him I had never tied on on in that joint and he just sort of chuckled. I told him that he was in for a tussel and his answer was well " I never did figure on getting out of this world alive " I told him that if I knew I would have been arriving there I would have brought him a gift a thing that in my day we called Mr Thompson Mr Thompson had a loud voice and carried a lot weight in an argument mostly in 45 caliber he would have made that ALAMO a fair fight instead of 200 against 5000 then again it was almost fair as it was I mean after all they were Texans. LT PS he also gave me a small picture he had of himself that I could show people, so that they would not think I was telling a tall tale ( not that I ever would). PPS I wanted to stay since it looked like they could use some help but Jim put that machine in my arms and gave her a spin and off I went the last I heard he was yelling at me go find your own fight heck there aint enough here for me and my texacan friends.