August 16, 2005

• I used to carry one of these around for years, picked up from an army surplus store. Very useful. (course, I used to go hiking and camping a lot)
• I remember somehow obtaining one as a kid, and not having the faintest idea of how it might work, yet somehow knowing it was useful. If only it had come with helpful military spec diagrams!
• Why how else could one knock on doors pray tell?
• Stirring coffee? I think I'd use my finger before dunking a grubby old can opener in it.
• wus
• That list does look as if it was compiled by two different people. One of them guts fish, cleans his boots, and then picks his teeth with it. The other likes to clean his nails, lift the key on flip-top cans and open letters (so hard on your fingers!).
• I first discovered one of these when I was about ten and on vacation. We used one to turn soda cans into drinking glasses. There's something very satisfying about digging that little blade into aluminum.
• Some of us just don't like eating dirt.
• You need a good beetrooting, you do.
• oh, baby!
• Ooh! *hunkers down with P-38 and can of Beanie-Weenies*
• You love it. the pair of you
• "Henry Miller, Gizmos & gadgets" I would have thought ol' Hank would be good for another 30 uses, at least.
• Do they sell these by the pound?
• I would buy that for a dollar.
• Camping with cans would be really heavy. Dried food is easier. And then you don't need a can opener.
• I like the way they call it the 'P38', so it sounds like some cool piece of millitary hardware. "American troops armed with P38s are believed to have penetrated the canned goods area west of Baghdad" But why did they call it the "John Wayne"? Was he famous for his tiny but versatile tool?
• Cos he's seen opening a can with one in some info film the army made, or something...
• I love handy little widgets like that.
• I like the way they call it the 'P38', so it sounds like some cool piece of millitary hardware. Well, it is a piece of military hardware,issued with C-rations.
• Now I miss my P38. Hadn't missed it a bit for years. I used to wear it on my dog tag chain. It's handy that way. When I came home & gave up wearing tags, I put mine on my keychain, too. But, it was just unwieldy on a hard ring with a bunch of other stuff to get in the way. &, as jb mentioned, "Dried food is easier." So, one day I dumped 'ol' reliable' & didn't miss it a bit until I read this. Now there's a certain nostalga for my youth...
• Apart from that whole war thing.
• Camping with cans would be really heavy. Yeah, C-rations weighed a ton. But they contained cigarettes! which curiously, did not provoke outrage Back In The Day when I bought them at the army surplus store. A day trip down the storm sewers became Adventure if I had a box of C-rations in my rucksack. Of course I would open those C-rations with a P-38. Which I still have in a drawer somewhere. /also nostalgic
• There's no need to be nostalgic for a mis-conceived war of hegemony, Chyren, we've got a nice fresh one going. I sure don't miss C-rat cigs, goetter. The only time we smoked them was when we'd been in the field long enough to run out of our own cigarettes. A true bummer all the way around. Sometimes those C-rat cigs would be so old & dried up you had to handle them very carefully to get them lit & smoked. One wrong move & that precious red dog would dump the dry tobacco right out into the mud.
• "C-rat cigs" - isn't he our new pope?
• "our"?
• Head of the Catholic Church then, FFS!!!!! Sheesh!