Chad's Intergenerational American Male Incompetency Gradient

A couple knives built by my father, who is not a knifemaker but a consummate tinkerer, one of that generation who truly could (and still can) build, repair, or do just about anything with their hands, a generational trait that is, in most areas save perhaps advanced smart phone operation, sadly falling out of favor these days. In fact, some time ago, while trying to gauge exactly how much more capable in all manly things my father is than I, I actually formulated a theorem to that effect, called "Chad's Intergenerational American Male Incompetency Gradient," which states,  "Each succeeding generation of American male is, on average, 25 percent less competent in the manly arts than its immediate predecessor."

Then I realized that, if I'm being honest, I am much more than 25 percent less competent than my father, so I had to revise the gradient to reflect the rapidly accelerating rate of incompetence that began with my generation, and which, judging by the kids I see these days, has now reached Warp Speed.

But I digress. The knives: The one in the foreground was, in a former life, a blade made by the German firm Klaas. My father simply fitted the blade to his own shed antler crown handle, complete with handmade bolsters, spacers, and pommel. The finished product is, hands-down, the most comfortable and attractive handle of all the knives I own. I have large hands and it fits them like a glove. The knife itself does not see much use, not only because it's pretty, but because I simply don't use large blades that much. Neither does my dad, to be honest. He just got bored one day in his shop and made it for the hell of it. But is sure does look pretty sitting on top of my bookcase on a piece of walnut burl in front of a skull-mount buck I shot a couple years back.

The other knife was, in its former life, an old planer blade that my dad shaped into a very thin, very plain, but beautiful recurved trailing-point design, again with an antler crown handle and homemade bolsters and pins. I don't know what kind of tool steel that old planer blade was made of (01, maybe?), but like most tool steels actually used in tools, it's extremely hard, probably extremely brittle, takes an absolutely wicked edge (he convexed it) and holds that edge like a miser holds a nickel. Too thin and brittle for general use, but I do actually use this one to help cut up deer.

These are the first two attempts at knifebuilding my father ever tried. Like most men of his age and generation and social class (working) my dad is always making or fabricating or building something. I, on the other hand, have trouble opening a box of cereal. Oh, I can usually figure out how to do most things, but like the cereal box I sometimes make a damn mess doing it.

Could I do anything like this myself? Probably not. Because I am, according to Chad's Intergenerational American Male Incompetency Gradient, approximately 50 percent less competent than my father, a man who once, on a trip to Seattle, refused to enter the Space Needle. Why? Because my dad, a retired pipefitter and lifelong welder, had been inspecting the base of the Space Needle as we waited in line to enter, which is always a bad sign. Inspection complete, he then declared, "I'm not going up in that thing."

"Why, dad?" I asked wearily, knowing full well that my perfectionist father had probably found some alleged deficiency somewhere. I was, of course, used to it, because finding deficiencies, in both things and people, occurs quite frequently with my father.

"Because those are some of the shittiest welds I've ever seen," he replied, pointing out a weld that didn't pass muster. "Just look at that. Who'd the hell they get to build this thing, the local vo-tech class?" Eventually he was persuaded to - reluctantly - enter the Space Needle, but not without griping, endlessly, about the shameful decline of the American work ethic. You know, typical father stuff.

Luckily for him, since he lives in Montana and I live in Oklahoma, my father doesn't often get the opportunity to see his oldest son's sometimes, uhh...questionable  handyman handiwork. But one of these days, just for fun, I'm going to get him in my truck, get out on the highway, and as the speedometer creeps up to about 75 or so, I'll say, "Dad, you're gonna be proud of me! I just changed the brakes in this truck all by myself! I learned how to do it on YouTube!"