Grandpa’s Jackknife
by Gentry Cutsforth
Canby, OR
Early Oregon farm stories tell us of all the wonderful things Grandma did with her long apron. Useful things, like gathering eggs, vegetables and kindling chips, dusting and polishing the furniture, using it as a pot holder, wiping the baby’s nose, and shooing the pigs out of the garden.
But what about Grandpa? Did he have a “jack-of-all trades” tool? Yes, indeed! Grandpa had his jackknife.
I remember Grandpa sitting in his favorite chair, his jackknife in hand, whittling toys and whistles for the grandkids … or using his trusty knife to fix Grandma’s electric iron, toaster or other gadgets … stopping now and then to whittle off a chaw from his plug of “tobaccy”.
Around the barn, Grandpa’s jackknife cut the strings on the bales of hay and straw, cut the leather hides into strips to fix the harness and saddles, or cut out leather half-soles to repair the family’s shoes.
At lambing or piggy time, the jackknife was sharpened and held over a match to sterlize it before using it as a veterinarian’s instrument to castrate the young males.
Grandpa always carried the short stub of a flat carpenter’s pencil in his shirt pocket and kept it meticulously sharpened with his knife. Knives were never invented to be used as a toothpick, but he didn’t know that. And if Grandma hadn’t shortened those new bib-overalls, he would get out his knife and cut off the legs before stuffing them in his rubber boots.
It was his skinning and butchering tool at slaughter time. It cut the pork fat into cubes for rendering into lard. He used it to trim and fillet summer caught salmon that would hang in the smoke house for days. That old knife opened filberts and walnuts, peeled and sliced crisp fall apples, sliced smoked ham, bacon and shaved deer-jerky into tasty slivers for everyone to sample.
He used a kraut cutter to shred cabbage for sauerkraut, but his jackknife was used first to cut and trim the excess leaves right in the garden and slice the cabbage cores into thin slabs that were cool and tasty.
On a weekly basis he cleaned and trimmed his fingernails, toenails and corns with great care and dexterity. Of course he never cleaned the knife after each use, but we tried not to think about that!
I don’t know what Grandpa would have done without his jackknife on those yearly deer hunting trips to Eastern Oregon. It cut the kindling for the early morning bonfire that kept the big camp pot of black coffee steaming hot. It cut the long willow sticks, sharpened to a razor point, for roasting marshmallows, hot dogs and toasted bread.
No matter where he went, Grandpa always carried a small box of wooden (farmer) matches, his carpenter pencil, a small whetstone, and his all-time, all-purpose instrument … his jackknife. The only other tool that had so many uses was the wooden-handled claw hammer that hung at his side. But that’s another story!
