Garden & Gun

Cutting Wisdom

Until the summer before last, it had never occurred to me—I declare it hadn’t—that carrying a pocketknife made me unusual. Saying “I declare” in that way does make me unusual, and old, but I accept that and don’t do it regularly. Carrying a pocketknife, on the other hand, is like carrying a wallet and keys to me.

And nobody has ever at my carrying a wallet and keys. (Not yet, anyway—no doubt the time will come.) Summer before last (couldn’t have been last summer because, you know, the COVID), I was at a picnic with some New York people I didn’t know well, and this one woman couldn’t get the string loose from a package of deli meats.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Garden & Gun

Garden & Gun3 min read
The Tao of “Woo!”
Spring has sprung and the grass has riz, which means it’s bachelorette party season—the time when brides-to-be join forces with their besties to storm the streets in matching pastel outfits, feather boas, and tiaras increasingly askance as the night
Garden & Gun4 min read
Choo Choo Charmer
Chloe Wright and Ryan Smith’s first project, the Rosecomb, opened in the North Shore neighborhood of Chattanooga in the summer of 2021 as the oakleaf hydrangeas in the front yard bloomed. The pair, who have since married, decorated the garden house b
Garden & Gun4 min read
A Wide Net
Wayne Edens fell in love with fishing as a young boy, prowling the salt water and fresh water of his home state, Florida. The sport was “a joy,” recalls the seventy-three-year-old retired insurance executive, who lives in New Smyrna Beach. A way of f

Related Books & Audiobooks