From: none@none.com99   
      
   On 8/24/2025 10:16 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:   
   > "Jim Wilkins"  writes:   
   >   
   >> Entertainers fail at basic life skills like marriage and children   
   >> yet "know" how the rest of us schmucks should live. They become   
   >> dangerous if handed a hammer or screwdriver, tools are weapons. I've   
   >> noticed that among city people too. I've heard a hammer called a New   
   >> York screwdriver.   
   >>   
   >> At a Massachusetts job I was briefly cut off from the Internet for   
   >> inquiring during lunch about parts for a chainsaw, a terror weapon   
   >> to them.   
   >   
   > City people in general.  My wife was one stopped by a Mountie when   
   > driving at night.  I don't know if it made any difference that the   
   > Mountie was a woman but my wife waited for a prolonged time in the   
   > car.  Prolonged because the Mountie had called in for backup.  Because   
   > she spotted a machete on the back seat of our car.   
   >   
   > Very rural area.  An axe, chainsaw, peavy, machete -- any woodsman's   
   > tool would be unremarkable, even in a little burb beater car.  Perhaps   
   > not in Toronto or Montreal but in rural Nova Scotia, yes.   
   >   
   > Well, they move Mounties' assigments around to give them varied   
   > experience.  This one had a lesson in Being In The Back Country. :-)   
   >   
      
      
   One of my mail carriers pulled up with a package requiring a signature   
   while I was pruning trees with a Condor parang, and with very large   
   eyes, asked, "Why do you need that big knife."   
      
   While a machete is a tool that I keep in my shop and in my boat for   
   cutting brush it is very much a weapon of war.  I mean actually used in   
   organized warfare.  I don't know if its still true, but when I was a kid   
   people seemed to show more fear of knives than guns.  The media has   
   probably shifted that fear a little.   
      
   I'm still deciding on what emergency gear I want to maintain in my (no   
   longer new) truck.  A machete may be part of that kit if I can find one   
   like the OLD US Army one I bought at Popular Surplus.  The Condor is not   
   hard enough and way to heavy.  The newer "surplus and discount store"   
   machetes has a thin painful to use handle and a springy whip like blade.   
     Yuck.  For now a small camp axe is part of the gear bag under the   
   seat, but I am thinking an upgrade to a middle weight like a boy's axe   
   might be better.  Even if I do add a machete.   
      
   --   
   Bob La Londe   
   CNC Molds N Stuff   
      
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