Thread: Musing on the Razor

I was in class tonight, (yes, I’ve gone back to school) and it happened to be my writing class. One of the assignments for the duration of the quarter is to occasionally take a random thought and let it go off on its own. I wasn’t really sure where else to put this, but thought I’d share this particular one with the group and then let the moderators deal with the placement. In another thread, I was talking about a razor that was given to me by my great-grandfather, which after many years, has disappeared and now has to be replaced. The musing that follows came about as a direct result of that thread.

Carl… Parker… Thanks for the seed that you both planted.

We joke about the razors talking to us… But… if they could really talk…

So… there was a mention, several actually, of an individual who has razors that talk to him. I won’t begin to be disparaging of either the individual or of the razor’s choice of conversation partners. It’s not as if the razor can actually pick who it’s going to spend the rest of its life with and I’m quite sure that there are times when the boredom of sitting there on the stand, or laying next to the sink, or even (God forbid) tucked away in some cabinet becomes overwhelming and it simply must talk with someone. And in some respects, I can view these conversations with both a bit of trepidation and even some small bit of envy. I have this one that was my great grandfathers and I know that it has had to have been around to see a lot. I’m sure it saw the election of multiple presidents, the beginning and the end of two world wars, the beginnings of computers, man walking on the moon. It has been there for these men through both happy times and tragedy. But through it all, it has always remained a sharp, strong, and solid companion. It's really a shame that we lose the memories that this razor has shared with the three generations of men that have used it. It's watched these men grow from the light fuzz of youth to the grizzled wire of mid-life and then the soft down of venerable wisdom. Now it has been passed to me when I was younger and it now watches over me. I guess it does talk to me occasionally... In the voices of my predecessors, reminding me of them and of the conversations had with them, of different times, and sometimes just too simply to say “pay attention to the blade.”