Personal Protection, Self Defense Products, Stun Guns, Pepper Sprays

Saturday morning with my coffee and compooooter
used to be a good time, until our local Wild Oats
Grocery was bought out by a national chain. One
of their “improvements” was to discontinue Green
Mountain Brand Columbian Whole Coffee Beans, and
me and the missus ain’t had a decent cup a joe
since. It’s gettin so I don’t even want to get out
of bed in the am.

But this morning’s Arizona Republic, Phoenix’s
morning rag, had a story that brought back a good
memory for me, about Nathan, a 14 year old boy who
brought a pocketknife to school, amembered he
had it in his backpack, then turned it in to his
teacher. Poor kid got 5 days suspension for that.

Turns out the lowly pocketknife is now considered
a weapon, rather than an indispensable
accoutrement of manhood. I amember the first time I ever
saw one. Must have been about 8 or so. Had my
own when I was about Nathan’s age.

It was my granddad’s, and we were out in the
woods next to our home, scoping out for wild fruit
trees. We grew up in eastern Ohio, in one of the
first houses in a growing residential area. It
was a kid’s paradise, trees everywhere, and one or
two vacant areas we could play football or
baseball.

My Nonno and me, nonno is Italian for granddad,
came upon an apple tree that he knew was there.
We were just there to see if it was time to come
pick them or not. They were almost ripe, but not
quite.

That area had about a dozen or so wild apple
trees and wild pear trees, planted long ago courtesy
of the birds. Peaches also grew well there, but
there were no wild peach trees nor any birds big
enough to shoot out a peach pit, thank God.

Nonno picked an apple that looked good, took out
his pocketknife, opened it up, quartered the
apple, and gave me a piece. I watched him work with
that knife very matter of factly, nothing special
about it, just a man and his knife.

Next Saturday we’ll come and get some, he said,
in his broken English. Course he meant with most of
my 5 brothers and 4 sisters, too. We’d all bring back
plenty of apples.

We finished the apple, he wiped his knife, closed
it, and we headed for a pear tree. No need to
check any other apple trees, they would be more or
less like this one.

This all happened more than 40 years ago, and my
Nonno’s been gone for about 35 years or so. I
amember him and his pocketknife and the home he
helped build, and I see them now with an older man’s
eyes.

My Nonno never learned to read or write, but he
acquired for himself and his family a home with a
huge garden that provided high quality
vegetables, peach trees in the back yard, and a free supply
of apples, pears, and blackberries. Not bad for
growing up poor in Italy and immigrating,
legally, to the US in his early 20’s.

He was a regular attendee at Sunday Mass and all
the Holy Days of Obligation, and he didn’t carry
no weapon, he carried a pocketknife, a tool. I’m
sure he would be saddened to learn of Nathan and
the consequences of his pocketknife.

One thing my Nonno was was interested in new things.
How do I know this? He used to ask my mother to make
him pancakes every once in awhile. The tv ads for Aunt
Jemima Pancakes really got to him, and his wife, my
Nonna, wouldn’t make them for him. She claimed she
couldn’t make this American kind of food.

But my Nonno wanted some, and my Mom would make
them for him.

I’m certain that if he were with us today, he’d be totin not
just his pocket knife, but a stun gun
and probably some pepper spray.

I still carry a pocketknife, and I do it mainly
cause my Nonno did. It’s a tool, it ain’t no
weapon. For weapons, I carry a stun gun and some
pepper spray. You should too.     

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 3:57 am and is filed under stun guns, pepper spray. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.