One of life’s lessons is that all good things must come to an end. Country singer Hank Williams, Jr. sings, “If heaven ain’t like Dixie, I don’t want to go.” But, alas, go he must. We accept change, but we don’t have to like it.

Another country boy, one that I know better than I do Hank, has taken a good thing to the end of the trail. Tony Roberts, an avid outdoorsman from Diamond, Missouri — a one-horse town not far from Joplin — sent me a note the other day.

It read: “Paul, There will be no more sharpeners made. We can’t afford to keep making them. Not enough orders and cost (increases) for materials. Thanks, Tony.”

Tony is the same guy who fabricates those handy little knife sharpeners that I have been peddling over the years with an ad in the Northwoods Sporting Journal. You may have seen our ad. Perhaps you carry the Tony Sharpener in your fishing chest or hunting backpack. Or you may have bought some as gifts to give over the years.

Anyway, Tony is hanging it up. A sad day.

It has been well over 15 years since I started buying Tony’s sharpeners wholesale and reselling them in Maine at a modest profit. For whatever it’s worth, I have not, insofar as I can recall, endorsed any other outdoor products.

Tony’s ingenious device caught my eye at a Sportsman Show. I bought one. Later, during my first elk hunt in Colorado, it really came in handy when my knife dulled up fast while cutting my way through tough elk hide. From that time on I have always carried the sharpener tucked into my knife sheath.

Light and compact, the sharpener can be tied to the outside of a backpack or tucked away into a knife sheath or just carred in your pocket like a Bic lighter. In the age of high-tech outdoor widgets and assorted need-to-have gadgetry, I just liked the simplicity and quick accessibility of the sharpener — a breath of fresh air in this era of gadget overload!

It was nice to make a buck or two on Tony’s product, but, honestly, I was equally motivated by a conviction that this device truly belonged in the hands of serious outdoorsman who care about a well-honed blade whether they are filleting a salmon or skinning a buck.

There is more to Tony’s story.

“I’m 77 and just getting burned out on doing the Sportsman Show circuit selling my sharpeners,” he said.

A big, bearded Missourian who has hunted hard all over, Tony, a former body and fender man, created his sharpener mostly out of neccessity. “I wanted a sharpener that was light and accessible for the field when I hunted.”

He has been fashioning them at his home shop and marketing them for 18 years. “I’ve made and sold more than 300,000 of them,” he noted.

The sharpener is pressed out of aircraft aluminum and then a highgrade carbide “tooth” is inserted in a groove between the two pieces of light metal, making a kind of sandwich.

Tony has been trying to sell his small business, but has had no takers. He has the presses and the dies, as wel as a mailing list, and is willing to train a successor.

If you are interested in carrying on the tradition and making the Tony Sharpener available to sportsmen in the years ahead, give Tony a call at (417) 850-7856.

Meantime, if you are lucky enough to own a Tony Sharpener, hang on to it. It could become a collector’s item, not unlike so many other truly useful outdoor products that have faded from the scene.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM-FM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected] and his new book is “A Maine Deer Hunter’s Logbook.”