“What did you go into the wilderness to see?”

“A man dressed in soft garments?”

I actually thought about that line this morning after doing something I have never done before in seven years in the wilderness: I dropped in to visit Darrel the Former Cop.

Regular readers may recall that DtFC suffered a heart attack a couple of months ago, and I thought at the time I’d seen the last of him. But he showed up back home in a surprisingly short time, though I don’t see him out on his tractor like I once did. I ran into him at a get-together at S&L’s Saturday evening, and we got into a discussion about belt kibble. I’ve got a Gerber Freeman Hunter that’s been my everyday blade for a surprising number of years now……and as often happens I like the knife but hate the sheath. Always have, and always meant to get a better one made, but where does a hermit go for that?

Well, it seems that before his difficulties Darrel was really getting into knife-making, and has had a little experience with leather sheaths. And he said I should drop the knife by and he’d be happy to make me a replacement sheath.

That was Saturday, and I waffled. Darrel and I have a – well, kind of a history. We’ve never directly clashed, but we’re not what you’d call the best of friends. Still, he’s lightened up on the authoritarianism in the past couple of years, and has even made some friendly overtures such as this one. “Don’t be a dick” would be one of my mottoes, if I started having mottoes.

I’ve been near his place twice since, on my way to shit-shoveling. Finally today I turned right instead of left. Door opened before I could knock on it.

Poor guy looks like he’s six inches shorter. To me, wearing sweatpants in the middle of the day is a sign of illness and/or misfortune, but that was what he was in. He looked quite happy to see me, or to see anybody. Got to wondering who was doing whom a favor.

He showed me some of his previous work, blades he’d made when he had shop access, and I left him my Gerber. “Kind of nice to have something to do,” he said as I was leaving.