On Saturday I went to the Fort Wayne Gun & Knife show. Bought five bayonets for my collection, which now numbers 43. Added bayonets from Chile, Egypt, Italy, Siam, and Spain (though I already had a couple Spanish bayonets). I now have bayonets from 23 different countries, nearly 20 of them from the 1800s. My first one was Grandpa's Civil War bayonet.

It's a fun hobby. I like bayonets because there's nothing fragile about them. You can drop them, or even throw them, and no damage. They're made for the battlefield, after all. And you wonder: what kind of action has this blade seen?

My favorites? The pristine Danish sword-bayonet with the leather sheath, dating to 1860. The US Spanish-American War bayonet, with six notches on the wood handle. And the mammoth Swiss sawtooth bayonet. Oh, and the little Uzi bayonet...and the German WW1 sawtooth...and the French Lebel.... Oh, they're all neat.

It was interesting, at the Gun & Knife Show, to see two booths for political candidates. Any guesses no who those two candidates were? They were John McCain and Ron Paul. The McCain booth was makeshift, but the Ron Paul people really had their act together.