Knives and Sheaths

[bladegrinder]

I lived in Clearwater, moved there in 1979. I was 3 miles from the beach and two blocks off the main drag going there, when I bought my house there it was mostly older folks in the neighborhood.

That changed, folks either died off or moved away and a lot of those houses turned to rentals and more recently Air B&Bs. the last few years living there I hated it, crime and unbelievable traffic, I couldn't wait to move. two years before my retirement I put a house and shop on 30 acres I bought twenty years ago for hunting on and moved right after I retired three years ago.

I go down there once a year for a fundraiser show for the Safari Club and set up a table with my knives and some leather. I get there two hours before the show and I head straight North at sunrise the next morning, I don't miss anything down there.

 

[Brokenolmarine]

Dad was in the Blue Angels in the late 60s when they flew F4s. He left the Navy with 23 years active duty, and six months later started across the hanger as a civilian, managing tools and test equipment for the training squadron.  Thirty two years later, retired again and went to work as a starter/maintenance guy at a private golf course there in Pensacola... He couldn't really retire.

They bought the first house in a new subdivision a few miles off base in the late 60s, very nice neighborhood.  The last time I visited, most of the homes were rentals... My folks had bars on the doors and windows and the alarm was ON 24/7.  They could no longer sit on their porch in the evening, due to hearing gunshots in the area every night, but refused to move.  This was in spite of their granddaughter, a career federal agent, begging them to. 

 

"We've lived here more than sixty years, we'll die here."  Dad passed in December.  One of my stepsisters moved in with my 87 year old stepmother.  "You can sell it all when I join my husband," she told her.  That generation doesn't scare easily.

[DoogMeister]

Very nice work.  Like you, I am a retired Marine, and have taken to making knives the same way - buying the blades and adding scales and making sheaths.  My wife keeps asking me what I'm going to do with them. 

Need to re-size some pics so I can upload.

[bladegrinder]

I’m North of Tyndall Air Force base now and see lot of cool stuff fly over, Chinooks, Ospreys, fighter jets, last year I was out and heard a loud rumbling coming my way, it was an A10 Warthog. flew right over my place just over the tree tops going really slow, man that was awesome!