May 15, 2010: "You Know What You Need For Your Boy, There..."

This morning we were out for a drive, and we saw that there was a big garage sale at the local Legion. So, my girlfriend and Lucas and I decided to drop in and have a peek, and it was exactly what you might expect. Old trinkets and knick-knacks, glassware, plates, cutlery, and all of the usual suspects.

It was interesting because it was like stepping into a time warp. I saw computer monitors that looked like they might have first been used with a Commodore 64. There was an old set of skis, and a set of golf clubs where the woods were still actually made of wood. Cassette tapes, ancient cooking books, badminton rackets...it looked like 1978.

I saw more VHS tapes than I care to remember, including a number of 1992 Toronto Blue Jays World Series Champion tapes, and...I'm not making this up...a VHS entitled "Torvill and Dean: Ice Dancing Seminar Highlights." And if you wanted to watch the magic of Ice Dance over and over again, there was a VHS rewinder.
And all of these things were ridiculously overpriced for a garage sale. Seriously, if I'm going to buy a VHS rewinder (and I'm not), I sure as hell am not going to pay $5 for it. There was a pasta set with one large bowl and 4 small bowls that I expected to be on sale for about
$5-10, but the crudely written price on the shorn piece of masking tape said "$27.50"! Plus, there was a dollar store poker set in a metal case that should have cost no more than $10 brand new, but was listed at $40.00.

It was all kind of laughable, until we walked by this old man at a table near the back. I don't even know what he had for sale in general, but when we walked by, he piped up. Now let me preface this by saying that he was about 80 years old, was wearing a plaid shirt, fishing hat, and vest. He looked like a character from a Red Green sketch (international readers click here to get the joke).

So as we walked by he leans forward and says "Hey!", to get our attention. We stopped and he gets this eerily creepy smile on his face, like something you would see in a Stephen King novel from some mysterious character telling you that you had to stay away from something. He then says "You know what you need for your boy, there?"...and proceeds to lean forward and say, excitedly, "A Jackknife!"

Man, how times have changed.

I had a jackknife when I was a kid. I had it in my fishing kit. But I can't fathom for the life of me how I would ever get one for my son now. And I don't think that he needs one, as this old codger was trying to tell me.

Parents, am I wrong? Am I just an overprotective dad, or am I right in my assessment that eight-year-olds don't need weapons?