This was my grandfather’s double-edged safety razor. When I first happened upon it, it was in the cabinet behind the mirror in my parents’ bathroom. I was 16. My father, despite the fact he was never much for non-electric shaving, had held on to it for more than three decades since his father’s passing. I started using it a few years later. I continued to use it for several years, until it mysteriously disappeared about ten years ago.

I experimented with several other shaving systems, but didn’t care for any of them as much as I did the old-fashioned stainless safety razor my grandfather once used. I even picked up a cheap, slightly more modern version of it in a drug store, but it just didn’t seem to work as well as the original. So I gave up hope.

Then, out of the blue, my father found it the other day and passed it along to me again. I tried it out again yesterday. About a half dozen nicks and scrapes later, I realized my safety razor technique had become somewhat less safe. But I’m thinking I’ll give it another go. I’m hoping I can relearn the skill I used to have down pat.

The desire to go back to this practice may have more to do with my having so few direct links to my paternal grandfather, who exhaled his last breath 16 years before I drew my first. Maybe his safety razor is one of those rare links. Or maybe I just liked using it that much.