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06-28-05

Not long ago, Kathy Vilseck, The Scrubbie Lady, had mentioned how her dad was doing some work making knives out of a saw blade. That sure sparked some memories of long ago.

My mother's Dad made knives. He made lots of things in his garage workshop. Little shelves and tables and he sold them all. But he'd worked his entire life in the oilfield and still made his rounds of the sites. He would collect scraps and things to be thrown away. He could turn a piece of old metal into many knife blades and made handles to fit the size of knife he wanted. They were the bigger butcher knives and oh so sharp. He kept a small knife for cutting and cleaning his fingernails and for some reason, that was fascinating to a young kid like me.

When I got married, he gave me a BIG knife and said it was for protecting myself from the mean old world. He was a man of few words but his knives were special. The metal gleamed like new and the handles were stained a deep dark color and fit the hand just perfectly. To him, it was an art and he was surely a master of his craft.

So this is my tribute to Bertram Mangel. My grandpa. By Nita Holstine

10-21-05

When I read your article about Bert Mangel it brought to mind that I had gotten some used power hack saw blades at work that were being thrown away. I asked the management if I could have them and they gave me a pass to get them out and we brought them to Kermit when we came for a visit. He was soooo good with making things like that and fixing things I was glad to get them for him.

Keep up the wonderful work.

Mertrock