When I was a teenager, I spent two summers in a work program in Yellowstone Park, with a bunch of other teenagers. As soon as we could, we each went to the nearest gift shop to get snacks, t-shirts and knives. I watched all my new friends buy the biggest knives they could afford. I wanted to buy a big knife too, but I only had $20, and that happened to be the price of a Gerber LST.

I spent weeks watching everyone else throwing their knives into trees or the ground. They all had little side-pouches on scabbards with sharpening stones. They had fishhooks and string and matches in the handles. I had to keep my LST in my pocket, where I usually forgot about it.

After awhile working with their knives weighing down their belts, the fish hooks stabbing their fingers and the handles falling off, most of the other guys threw them away. My LST stayed sharp, because I used it to cut a few pieces of string, or carve a stick for marshmallows. I brought it back to work the next summer and I carried it for several years because it just did the job.

Now, I carry a swiss army knife every day, because I have a house that keeps falling apart. The burliest thing I end up doing in the woods is occasionally sawing sticks short enough to go into a folding stove. The rest of the time, it's just scissor work: cutting the top off of a food bag, cutting a cord, a ripped nail...

If I could find a small SAK with just a saw, scissors, tweezers, toothpick and maybe a short blade, I'd buy it and face the wrath of my wife. On trips when fires are banned, I'll bring an Ambassador (a little bigger than a Classic).