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Here is my father, Robert Knight, circa 1958.  He was nineteen years old at the time, serving in the United States Navy aboard the U.S.S. Northampton (at that time the flagship of the Seventh Fleet).

I’ve sometimes wondered about what it must have been like for him then, at that age, leaving the family farm to serve in the armed forces.  It couldn’t have been easy for him.  Dad volunteered for the Navy because he knew there was going to be a great chance he would be drafted anyway, and he wanted a measure of control over his life.  I think Dad also saw the Navy as being more “hands-on” technically than other branches, in terms of maintaining machinery, as that’s what much of his life experience had already entailed.  Much of his time in the Navy was spent in the engineering area of the Northampton.  And he must ...

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Today is Father’s Day.  And more than usual I’m feeling melancholy.  This is the eleventh Father’s Day without Dad.  There’s not a day that comes and goes, that I don’t think about him.  He always had great advice.  What he liked to tell me often was “Always think positive!”  He told me that even though he knew I was struggling with a mind turned against itself.  He may not have understood what it meant to have that but he still abounded in empathy.

Thought I’d share some photos of him.  This first one dates to November 2006.  It’s of Dad in his favorite place: his beloved knife shop.  It was really rainy and cold that day and I went by the shop to ask him something.  This is how I found him: reclined back in a chair with his pipe, thinking up new projects.  It’s classic Dad.  Click to enlarge:...

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It was about this time, ten years ago today, that I held your hand.  That rough calloused hand that could never be still enough to heal.  You were always doing for others, especially in your shop whenever you decided someone deserved to own one of your handmade knives.

We held your hands as you slipped away from the body that had become a prison.  I knew it was the right thing to have done, to sign the paper that would let you go when it was time.  But it made it no easier.

I would have given anything to have you back, healthy in body and mind.

I’ve needed you.  I hope I’ve been able to make you proud.

I miss you, Dad.

...

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To those of you arriving at my blog today from American Thinker, greetings!  And I have something to show y’all a bit further down.

Yup, my fourth article (so far) for American Thinker is published today.  “The Pursuit of Happiness in the Trump Economy” is some musing about how the biggest payoff from the decreased taxes and rebounding manufacturing is that more Americans are already enjoying more money and just as important more time for leisure activities.  Which can mean their families or their hobbies… or activities toward improving their circumstances.  And that is where the true progress of our culture comes from in great part.

And if you’ve read it already, you know how much I share about my late father, Robert Knight.  And how he found his true calling as a knifemaker.  Since he’s written about so much in the piece, I thought it would be neat ...

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This past day was a bittersweet one.

My sister and Dad’s sister and her husband and I set to work on cleaning out the basement of my parents’ house.  Just something that has to be done, sooner than later.  The entire house is being cleaned out, top to bottom.  Because in a few months the house that my family has called home for all these decades will be ours no more.

On a more personal note, I will be looking for an apartment soon, depending on where the Lord leads me.  Which, could be literally anywhere.  For the first time in my life I am truly on my own.  I did everything that I could for Mom and Dad.  Now is time at last to see what’s out there.  I can go anywhere, do anything.  It’s a very thrilling time in my life… and I’m feeling younger than I have ...

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It was three weeks ago today that Dad passed away.  I’m still in a great state of grief, more than that even, about it.  There’s a real shock that comes with seeing someone so close to you suddenly leaving you like that.  But I still believe that there was something of God’s hand in how things played out.  If the circumstances had been slightly different in any of a thousand different ways, my family would not have had those sixteen days to be with him.  In the end, if God had to take him after so long a bountiful, fulfilling and loving life, it came about in what I can only call the best of all possible outcomes.

That said, I still grieve.  There is no small measure of confusion about certain matters.  And I would be remiss if I did not mention that there have been a number of ...

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On the night after Dad’s passing, Anita (my sister), my aunt and uncle and I went through a ton of old photographs to use in the video that the funeral home would put together for the tribute that would play during visitation on the following night. Wilkerson Funeral did a very solid job in doing so and I wanted to share it on my blog.




I don’t want to say which one, but there is one photo in here that seriously broke my heart to include. It was Dad’s favorite photograph. It hung on the wall of his knife shop. Heck, it was the knife shop, the heart and soul of it. We knew we wanted it in the video, but it honestly hurt me to take it down on the morning before the visitation that night. It was like taking out the last lingering vestige of Dad’s presence from ...

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I don’t know how else to put it, but there are some things that happened at Dad’s funeral that despite the occasion were an amazing delight.  And I truly believe that Dad would have had no small measure of pride if he could somehow know that this celebration of his life brought so many wonderful people together to celebrate not only his own life, but also of the most precious things in all our lives.

During the service I spoke a few words about Dad and since the other ministers were sharing stories from his life, I did likewise and related some tales of how forgiving and relenting – even if he didn’t understand what the heck I was doing – of the many stunts that I pulled during the life that we shared.  One of them was during the filming of Forcery: my first (and Lord willing still ...

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Yesterday was supposed to have be one of the saddest days of my entire
life. Yet here I am after Dad’s funeral and I cannot help but
feel like the most blessed, most overwhelmed with joy, most hopeful
man in the world.

Mom and Dad’s grave site,
the morning after Dad’s funeral

This entire time, I believe Dad would have felt
honored by every aspect of it. Anita and I had Dad dressed in his
denim bib overalls, with a red plaid flannel workshirt beneath and in
his right hand, just as it was often poised in life, his smoking pipe.
He had often told Anita that if she had him wearing a tie he would come
back to haunt her, LOL. Last night during the visitation we had a table
set up displaying some of the many knives that he hand-made over the
years. That was my aunt’s idea, ...

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It would not at all be inaccurate to state that more than any other time in my entire life, I have not been as scared as I have been for more than a week now.

It would be just as rightfully said that in that same span of time I have witnessed nothing short than a miracle.  Maybe even more than one.

Dad had a stroke on Tuesday of last week.

It was incredibly fortunate that it began in a physician’s office.  That it was recognized in the earliest stage possible and that as a result 9-1-1- was called and Dad was immediately taken from Reidsville to the best hospital in Greensboro.  If it was meant for Dad to have a stroke, well… he could have been out on his tractor plowing a field when it happened and nobody would have known about it until it was much too late....

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