Rural Heritage December 2025/January 2026

The Pocketknife: Use & Care OLD-TIMER TIPS JUST PASSED ALONG Idonotpretendtobesomeguru-of-the-horse,someconveyor-of-original-wisdom.Virtuallyeverything we know about horses or do around them has been known and done before. But it’s of no use to us if someone else knows these things and we don’t. — Dick Courteau

strongly toward yourself. Should the knife slip and fall through, you might be badly cut. Keep your knife sharp frequently using the whetstone. Rest the blade against the stone at a very acute angle, almost parallel to the stone. Apply a little pressure and with a circular motion grind the metal to a cutting edge. Instead of the circular motion, one might draw the edge against the stone. “You shave the whetstone,” is how one Montana rancher expressed it. Lubricate your knife occasionally, applying a drop or two of light oil at the point where the blades hinge with the body of the knife. And lastly, here’s a small bit of what may seem

by Dick Courteau “I’d as soon be caught without my pants as caught without my knife.” That’s how Carl Vanlandingham put it. Carl, an old farmer/logger here in the Ozark Highlands of Arkansas, had a knack for putting a kernel of country wisdom into a nutshell. The knife, in fact, is the most basic and the most commonly used of all tools. Gardeners use the knife to cut strings and sharpen pegs. Cooks use knives at the campfire or in the kitchen to slice meat or peel potatoes. Horsemen (horsepeople) use them to cut leather and rope and for a thousand other uses. The Case brand of pocketknife has for generations been the stockman’s first choice. Use your knife with caution. Do not handle it near your face nor the face of a friend.

like mean-spirited advice — lend your knife out only with great reluctance. The borrower might use it on a job forbidden to its keen edge, like scraping

If using the point of the blade as a drill (there is probably a better tool for the job, like a leather punch), do not push too hard in such a manner that the blade might close and

cut your fingers. In an action requiring much force, like cutting a small tree branch in two, push the knife

grease from a metal housing or corrosion from a battery terminal. It might come back with its tip bent from opening a

While the Case Stockman pocketknife comes in a variety of colors, from blue to yellow to chestnut bone as pictured here, it always features three blades.

a w a y f r o m you. Do not pull it

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