You might think it’s a bit strange posting a picture of a knife. I found it while going through stuff in the house to get rid of or keep. Remember I said before that I have a lot of stories? This is another one.

I have always loved camping. Like most families of the time it was how we went on vacation. RVs were not as common as they are today. We had a big canvas room tent that always got wet inside when it rained. Cotton and flannel sleeping bags, Coleman stove and lantern – it was Norman Rockwell in the forest.

My friends and I used to camp in that same tent as teenagers. I have slept in a sleeping bag on the shoulder of a backroad in Branson, MO, followed by the next night of sleeping in my car in the driveway of a cabin in downtown Branson that some girls had rented. I have slept in a three-foot-tall metal calf shed in winter with sleet on the ground…and any firewood we could find. It was so bad we couldn’t build a fire even with a gallon of gas and had to scrub the mission. I’ve slept on picnic tables in rest areas, and was so tired when I pulled into one rest area to sleep a bit I didn’t turn the car off. We woke up with the heater blasting…and the doors wide open because it was so hot inside! 🤣🤣🤣

Good times.

Back to the knife.

When I was a kid we had this old Dodge US Forest Service pickup truck. I wish I had it now. We had sold our house in KC and were staying at my grandparents house while building this one.

My cousin was there and we decided to “camp” in the back of the truck in the driveway in an old neighborhood in the ‘burbs. No way I would sleep like that in that area now!

So we finally go to sleep under the stars. It was a beautiful clear night, but typical camping night tossing and turning because you just can’t get comfortable. We get up the next morning and go in the house to get some breakfast. Everyone started asking us if we heard anything last night. We hadn’t heard a thing and wondered what they were talking about.

Apparently, in the middle of the night, the guy across the street had gotten drunk and went for a stroll at 2 AM. Someone in the house had heard something outside through the open window
(it was summer) and went out there to investigate.

There was the drunk neighbor. In his underwear. Holding a knife. He walked right next to the truck we were sleeping in the back of – no camper shell to hide us! As he walked someone got the knife from him and escorted him back home across the street & tucked his old drunken ass back in bed.

We just kinda looked at each other a bit freaked out – he is 12 and I am only nine years old. After a few days it didn’t bother me as much, though. We never heard a thing and he didn’t know we were there I guess. We were pretty fortunate to not have any something happen.

I had not seen the knife for many years – actually many decades – but I am pretty certain that it is the same knife. I saw it once several years after that happened. I picked it up to look at it since it was unique and one of my relatives said that was the knife from that night. I really don’t recall seeing it that night the more I think about it so that was the only time I had seen it.

It’s going in my kitchen. I sanitized both it and another knife with boiling bleach water so it’s ready to use.

That wraps up today’s episode of “Storytime with Shawn”. There’s plenty more tales that I will post as we go.

See you again soon.

Shawn