Pickles by Brian Crane for April 04, 2024

I learned to sharpen a pencil with a knife. Didn’t use a conventional sharpener until I was 11 or so.

Earl the knife? Doesn’t have the same ring as ‘Mack’.

In grade school, sharpening pencils was a great way to stay awake

I use a knife (from my pocket, almost always) to sharpen our pencils. Because a good mechanical pencil sharpener needs to be well mounted and moderately expensive… and Spouse refuses both options. So we have a little plastic thing in the desk drawer whose purpose (based on outcomes) is to break pencil leads while jamming itself.

Rules to live by. 1) Never whittle toward yourself 2) Never Pee into the Wind

Earl doesn’t have any electric pencils to sharpen.

If scars from knives make you manly, then I’m very manly.

I disdain mechanical pencils and electric pencil sharpeners. Tradition!

Grandson is in the right. I have scars on my hands from knife cuts, and I am not some 6"4 250 lb hyper masculine man.

Never trust the shop teacher who is missing two fingers….

I don’t think Sylvia will appreciate your teaching him this, Earl. Especially when he cuts himself.

But they are only manly after you take off the Owwy Bandades.

Earl isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer!

another way .. sandpaper. Learned that if Drafting class.

Plus, you get to wear those cute Hello Kitty bandages.

I’ve used a handheld sharpener purchased in a dollar store. Works!

My 80 yo pal trims his fingernails with his pocketknife.

Don’t listen to him!

How about a regular nonelectric hand-crank pencil sharpener?

In my mechanical drawing classes, we used a sanding block.

If you want be extremely manly, Earl, show him how a pencil can be sharpened using a machete.

“Nelson, go get me 5 band-aids please.

Lesson #2 , How to sharpen Blades , the duller the blade the worse the cut !

Some of the people who once used knives to sharpen pencils often went on to small carvings and interesting projects and were surprisingly good at it. I never carry one anymore [have one in the car in the tool shelf] but used to have a ‘pen knife’ on a key chain for pencils or other minor needs.

Scars are tattoos with better stories.

I keep telling my wife that “chicks dig scars”. Also the nice Nurse Practitioner at the ER. She kept trying to tell me that since I already had my “chick” and didn’t need any more that maybe I should stop getting new scars.

Mark Twain had something to say on the subject in “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” which was written at a time when making fun of women was generally acceptable:

“Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth.”

absolute truth! did I ever show you the scar from when we played Mumbly Peg?

Holy moly! Over 50 comments today elicited mostly by what I thought was an obsolete practice…using a pencil. And they’ll have to pry one out of my cold hands if i die doing a crossword puzzle!

With respect to Earl, he displayed his way of sharpening a pencil which shows the mentality of manliness.

I used a little kitchen paring knife for as long as I can remember. I would still use it if I had any pencils! I prefer the point from the knife.

My Grandpa would sit me (as well as sibs & cousins) on his lap and trim our fingernails with his pocket knife (while Mom & aunts cowered in terror…..). Yeah, he kept his tools sharp!

I have more than my fair share of scars, but none are from that.

A knife nick is certainly more macho than a paper cut.

You can get more manly scars by using a dull knife. I have a real beauty on my left index finger from my mom’s dull paring knife.

The surgeon apologized to me for the big scar my triple bypass left. I told her I was grateful to have it and that scars are manly.

Knife scars … must be how he attracted the attention of Opal.

Yesterday on SiriusXM I heard an old favorite song ♪ “The First Cut Is the Deepest” ♪ .

Wounded inaction.

I still use my scout knife…………still sharp!

tale as old as time: chicks dig scars.

He’d faint from the gory story and scars I have from the premature detonation of an electrical conduit fire cracker in my vise, c. 1959.

AND EYE PATCHES DON’T FORGET THOSE!!

Personally I tended to use mechanical pencils, especially the .05 mm ones.

Battle scars from teeth are far more impressive than ones from a knife.

If you’re a carpenter on the job, a knife is the only option. Plus sharpeners don’t work on carpenter’s pencils.

And to really appreciate carpenter’s pencils, check out the YouTube video, “Why is a Carpenter’s Pencil Flat?”

“So, grandpa, who picks up the shavings?”

“I don’t know. I just sneeze and they go away.”

Not too bright.

The kind of manliness that gives men a bad reputation.

Hello? This is CPS. Did you tell your grandson that he should sharpen pencils with a knife and that, let me see here, “scars are manly?” He’s what, 7 years old, if that? Yes, you should show me the knife.

yeah…I mean, who wants ta be a “girly mahn”!

Yup. Quills got dull and needed to be resharpened. With a penknife.

What a stupid example he’s setting for the child!

He must have been a fifth grade teacher.

Don’t get the shavings on the carpet.

Recycle your pencil shavings!I always put mine in with my boss’s pipe tobacco.