Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Have you met a Leatherman?

by Julie Carter

Back in 1975, a man named Tim Leatherman was traveling through Europe on a shoestring budget in a cranky car with leaky pipes.

It was during this trying time he birthed the idea of pocket survival tool. That tool today is known simply as a "Leatherman."

By 1977 the tool had taken on a rough form and in 1980 "Mr. Crunch" was patented.

Through the '90s and with more than 200 employees, new and better designs were released setting the standard in the all-purpose pocket tool industry.

For those of you that are still in the dark ages, the Leatherman tool is a fold up tool that incorporates all the following tools in one handy frame: Needle-nose pliers, regular pliers, wire cutters, hard-wire cutters, clip-point knife,serrated knife, diamond-coated file, wood saw, scissors, extra small screwdriver, small screwdriver, medium screwdriver, large screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver, can / bottle opener, wire stripper and lanyard attachment.

In the West, the land of "real men carry pocket knives", the Leatherman phenomenon was at first slow to catch on. A Leatherman was deemed pretty pricey for a pair of pliers, and "I already have a good knife" made it easy to blow off the multipurpose handy for anything tool.

The tool would sometimes show up under the tree for a Christmas gift and promptly end up in the drawer next to the initial embroidered hankies and ugly boxers.

In the meantime, the world knew something we didn't. Other tool companies began manufacturing acceptable, affordable imitations of the revered original. Gerber, Seber, Sears and an assortment of companies not proud enough to even put their name on the tool, flooded the market in every shape size and color.

Someone even put a teensy version on a key chain, handy for nose picking and nail cleaning.

Then it happened. Some "real" man dared to show up in the branding corral with one of the versions of that "fad" on his belt, neatly snapped in a little case.

He used it to pull cactus out of a horse's leg and change the needles on a vaccine gun. He loaned it to a kid to use for a cooking utensil while they cooked calf fries on the branding iron burner. He twisted and tightened the wire on a gate that was doubling as a hinge. He tightened a screw in the emasculators and popped open the lids on an assortment of things.

That amazing day of demonstration opened the eyes and the dresser drawers of those "real men with pocket knives." No longer did they break the good blades on their high dollar pocket knives prying and digging with them.

No longer did they have to stick their heads under the seat of the pickup breathing unmentionable kinds of dust to find that pair of pliers or a wrench they knew was there somewhere.

Today it's standard equipment on more belts than not. The women wear them or carry them in their purse. You will see the daintiest and most delicate of well-coiffed, finely garbed ladies slip a Leatherman from their fine leather purse and go to work with the tool like she'd been doing it forever.

The list of uses is as varied as the number of tools all hooked up into that one handy dandy tool.

There are stories of lives being saved, babies being birthed and legendary feats all because of a Leatherman.

Tomorrow when you strap yours on your hip, know it just might go down in history next to Smith and Wesson.

Julie can be reached from comment at jcarter@tularosa.net