I have become my father.

It was confirmed in the last two years when I purchased two different knife sharpening systems. My entire childhood I witnessed my father's fascination with knife sharpeners. He had an obsession with sharp knives. Or at least it seemed like an obsession. Looking back I don't think it was an obsession but more of a continual need. Because for all of his attempts to sharpen knives none of them were ever sharp. But they changed shape quite often. He had various hones of undetermined grit were dished so deeply that it would require a full week of flattening on a DMT. He would have been envious of the edges I now put on knives. It just took two generations to get there.

Conventional wisdom says that a young man wants to be like his father and marry a woman like his mother. That did not work that way for me.

I turned out to be more like two of my uncles. One of those uncles was my mother's brother. I inherited his appearance and his craftsmanship and interest in electronics. He was an electronics repairman for Sears back when that was a good thing, but he could repair anything. Then the uncle who married my mother's sister taught me how to fish and play golf and also gave me an interest in business. He is a also the uncle from who I got two vintage razors.

One thing I inherited from my mother was my desire to hoard things. She grew up during the Great Depression when you never threw anything away, but figured out how to repurpose it. She is the inspiration for my collecting razors, hones, etc. But I also love taking items designed for one purpose and figuring out how to use them for another purpose. For example, I found a dog toy at the pet store that was made out of polyester fire hose. I removed the stuffing, inserted a wooden board and use it as a razor strop. I have a friend who is a volunteer at a fire museum. He has agreed to take me out to the museum to see if we can find some old linen fire hose laying around that I can convert into a hanging strop.

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Originally Posted by Marshal

My estranged father called me on the phone a few years back, and it was a bit surreal. Sounded like I was having a conversation with myself. Right down to the same slight southern drawl. Accents aren't even genetic, how the heck did that happen?

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I hope the conversation helped to patch things up. I have an estranged son. He's bitter, I just don't care about his bitterness any more. Recently patched up with my daughter. Divorce is ugly and has a cost.

My own father passed in 1978. He never saw any accomplishment in my life except HS graduation. I wish now he'd been around. Mentors are not the same as a dad. But yes, I'm just like him today.

You know I never carried around that type of bitterness. Yeah it kinda sucked that my parents divorced and he moved halfway across the country. My grandfather filled in where he was absent. And I figured out early on that being bitter and resentful wasn't gonna help either one of us. I think he might resented himself for not being around more than I ever did. But it was interesting despite the distance and separation how alike we became.

He was a civil servant repairing military vehicles and electronics. I'm a mechanic repairing civilian vehicles and their electronics. He was into computers and computer programming. I took a few programming courses, and I build my own computers when it's time to upgrade. Funny how I started down the same path without even realizing I was doing it lol.