My original thought was that I would find a cool Middle Ages sword or dagger. I learned from Duncan's mom (my sister Jeri) that he was interested in knives and swords, so it was just a matter of finding the right one in stock somewhere.
We were in the mountains of CO in Silverthorne the few days just prior to "Duncan's Passage", and being a tourist destination we figured there had to be a knife shop near by. Nope.
No problem. We'd still have a couple days back in Denver, so there's no reason to panic.
On the way back down to my folk's house in Littleton we stopped in the old mining town of Idaho Springs, where we enjoyed some fantastic pizza at Beau Jo's Pizza. On the way in we saw a Cleverly named knife shop called The Knife Shop, so we made a mental note to check it out when we got finished with lunch.We spent about a half hour playing in the Knife Shop, and all of us left with matching knives, but not a single thing for Duncan. Again, no biggie because we would still have half a day to shop in Denver.
As we pulled into town Seth started Googlin' and calling knife shops, asking them if they had swords in my price range in stock and he finally found one called Dave's Knives & Mercantile on Broadway in Englewood. The gal who answered the phone said that they had several non-fantasy swords available, so off we went. When we arrived we noticed a striking man standing in the open doorway. It turns out that Dave is Dog the Bounty Hunter's long lost twin; with a long, flowing blonde mullet That was more mane than hair. Try as he might, Dave (now dubbed Dave the Bounty Hunter) just couldn't deliver on the promises of his phone staff.
While the were enjoying chatting with Dave (TBH) I started having second thoughts about getting Duncan a weapon at all. My topic was a Real Man Rejects Passivity, not "a real man accepts aggressiveness", and the more we looked at knives a swords the more this was beginning to bother me.
We left Dave's place empty handed and now I'm starting feel a little pressure. As we drove down Broadway I noticed off in the distance a large "Antique" sign in front of what used to be a large grocery store. On impulse I decided to pull into the Colorado Antique Gallery, and for the next two hours my son Seth, my brother-in-law David and his adult son Brandon and I walked around looking at thousands of items, and nothing seemed to do the job. This was starting to get depressing.
Why was is that everything we saw that remotely related to manhood fell into one of five categories: Drinking, Smoking, Sports, Philandering and War; none of which would be a good match for the gift I was looking for.
The came the announcement: "Attention shoppers. The Colorado Antique Gallery will be closing in 15 minutes..." We were only a little over halfway through the place and I was starting to full-on panic and it was apparent to Seth that I was stressed. I stopped and encouraged Seth to link-up with David and Brandon to ask them to split-up and speed-up the search. With 5 minutes to spare Seth called me over to a booth with a "Homer! I found it!"What he found was a small cast iron statue that mimicked a Guard from the Terracotta Army which was found in China in the 1970's that dates back to 210BC! What makes this choice so significant is that it was the Guards charge to protect the Emperor with their own life in necessary; not to go into battle. Therefore they had no weapons but their body and their brain.
Like these men of honor, we are called to Reject Passivity and to stand guard over what is Good and Right. We are called to protect our Families, our Neighbors, our Culture, our Faith and our witness.
More on Rejecting Passivity in a future post. The lower pic was from a return trip to the Antique mall to buy another statue for Brandon's Passage.
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