At the height of the Cold War, my father was developing a prototype for a new kind of cutlery with the Chinese. From his diaries of the time, we have found these notes.
While politically incorrect in today's progressive society, it nevertheless offers us all some insights into the political situation of the day.
This project, initiated by myself and a Mr. Chiang Kai-Shek, was a world first for cutlery, and one which the People of Taiwan still celebrate today, every Meatfist Day. We believed that the harmonization of the East / West eating methods could result in better shared meals, and a two pronged (if you'll forgive the pun) attack on one of the fundamental, root causes of conflict: cultural disagreements on eating.
The Communists, at the time, were engaged in a great to-do against Kai-shek's forces. The very survival of man and his freedoms was imperiled. At a much later point in my life, I was to discover that the root of the Communist threat was, essentially, that they were, and continue to be, thoroughly beardo.
After all: What man believes he can tell another man what to do, say, or think? The Communist ethic is slavery, enslavement to a a mythical "State" - which is, in essence, a locus of beardo - Beardo in governmental form.
It was my exposure to the Chinese communists that led, ultimately, some 30 years later, to the discovery of man's greatest ill.
This is besides the point, however. The Advanced Cutlery Division, IV, had recently landed in Taipei, as part of the Fifth Ubiquity Expeditionary Force. The development of the forkstick proceeded at a rapid pace, fuelled by my own contributions as well as Ross Drago, Samuel Greene, and Ally McGill.
These three were instrumental in resolving the advanced metallurgy that was required to build such a device. The Kuomintang provided us with a small research space, as we theorized that the forkstick might be instrumental in combating the advance of the Communist forces.
We worked long hours, often 36, 48, 60 hours at a time with no rest, only a few minutes for tea and cucumber sandwiches (we had some standards to maintain, after all). Two weeks later, in a Taiwanese forge, lay the first tang of a new age of cutlery: The Crusader Class I.
