Knife makers suffered a great loss this week, friends and family suffered a greater one. Mike was a close and dear friend for more than 20 years and he took me under his wing just like Matt, and probably around the same time. When I first started making knives in the early 2000s, Mike was a regular fixture on knife forums and always gave a wealth of information in his posts and replies. Back then we had a knife making Paltalk group where folks would hop on and voice chat, which was still kind of a big deal to be able to do back in the stone age. Mike and I made a quick friendship bonding over not just making knives, but many shared interests and common life experiences.
Mike was self-made with a bit of a rebellious streak, which is just how I saw myself as well. He’d been a career chemist for a large pharmaceutical company but held no degrees or titles. He just learned the work and got to be one of the best in his field. He encouraged me throughout my career to not let those same degrees or titles hold me back.
Mike sold me my first belt grinder, a Bader II and I drove up to IL from Jacksonville, NC to get it. Him and Nancy opened their home to me and we spent that weekend talking knives and going out to the knife show in Chicago. I went home with a fully loaded grinder, a box of “spare” materials from Mike, and a couple surface ground blade blanks. The materials alone were probably worth what he charged me for the grinder.
Mike and I would spend hours on the phone, sometimes 3 or even 4 hours and talked about all things in life. Not only did we talk about knives, but we shared in all of our great and small successes, failures, and personal loss. We had a shared love of music and would both turn each other onto new artists or talk about whatever instrument we were excited about that week. Mike guided me through my biggest job change and he's one of two people who's given me advice that I’ve carried throughout my career and applied to every job change. I have a thousand stories about Mike, which is probably about 1 for every hour we spent on the phone.
There wasn’t a thing that I couldn’t talk about with him and I don’t know how many times you get that in this world. It sure hasn’t been too many for me. I shed a tear yesterday and a few more writing this today.
I’ll miss you my old friend, more than anyone can know.
