Knife Safety: Lessons in Attentiveness from a Teen-Aged Girl

Safety is key in almost everything you do, especially in bushcraft and survival. So is attentiveness. I learned those lessons as a teenager. (That was last year. If you don't believe me, ask my 21-year-old daughter. She will attest to it!) If your attentiveness fails, it is very likely your safety is compromised, and 16-year-old girls are easily distracted, especially by 16-year-old boys.

There are all kinds of rules for knife safety and whittling. Keep your knife sharp. Face the blade away from you. Take it slow and steady. 

Watch what you are doing should be high on that list. Maybe my dad thought it was so obvious it didn't need saying. I was his first (and only) daughter, so he didn't have the prior experience with raising teen-aged girls. 

Not the knife in question,
but this is one of my favorites now.

Both my parents grew up camping and generally being outdoors, so it was important that my brother and I had a similar childhood, right down to the whittling lessons. Gifted with a new pocket knife, I couldn't wait to impress my dad with natural talent at anything considered a "boy thing." I was big into the "anything a boy can do, I can do better" movement for a brief time. Then I realized there were more fun things to do with boys. (I might still be into this a little. I love the outdoors, guns, knives, and muscle cars. Also, high heels, Coach purses, make-up, and Eyeore.)

Which brings us back around to pay attention to the knife, not the boy.

The whole family was camping in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. There were a few other families in neighboring campsites. I'm fairly certain anyway. I'd been a bit fixated on the cute boy one campsite over so I wouldn't swear to anything in court. We were sitting around the camp fire when I decided to put the new pocket knife through its paces. Yes, I was trying to impress him. I didn't know if knife skills were what boys were looking for, but hey, it was worth a try.

Knife and stick in hand, I started whittling away, then I caught his eye. It might have been the knife that caught his eye, but I like my version better. Cue the smiles, embarrassed glances, hair flips, and Murphy's Law. I had flipped around the knife to trim off a small branch (I know, I broke another rule.) and the knife jumped on the tiny knot and right into the knuckle of my thumb.

The ensuing commotion was a sight to behold. I screamed, my mother screamed, my father yelled, my brother laughed. I lost track of the cute boy when my mother whisked me off to the station wagon to patch up my thumb.

Mom had plenty of experience patching up my brother, so she had the wound closed up pretty quickly. The ER doc was sufficiently impressed that he didn't even undo it and sent me off to nurse my wounded pride. I never did get to meet the boy.

To this day, despite mom's best ministrations, I have a 1/2 inch scar on my thumb to remind me of two things: Always point the blade away from you and pay attention to your knife, not the boy in the next campsite.