On knives….
My friend Ron was 30 years older than me and grew up in Charlotte, a few miles from the SC line. He was 16 when he went with some older boys to SC to an underground bar.
He said one of the guys he went with got into an argument with a local and it turned into a fight. The SC boy beat his friend pretty bad to the point he was on the floor holding up his hands for the local to stop.
Ron said his friend said “ok ok, you win” and the local guy said “no you Charlotte prick I am going to make an example outta you” and drew back to hit him again.
Ron said his friend already had his very normal pocket knife in his hand and when the local guy said that, his friend came up with a razor sharp surprise. It went in the guy’s thigh, continued up cutting his leather belt in two, and went on into the guy’s abdomen spilling his intestines.
The guy lived, it cost Ron’s friend’s family almost everything including part of the farm to keep him from prison.
Ron said that knife didn’t seem to even slow down on its way up and it cemented in his mind a fear of knives that never left him.