That butter knife trick is gold, I still use one from my grandma's old set.

A typical cheap spade at the hardware store runs around 15 to 20 bucks now. That's not a ton of money but it adds up if you're always replacing stuff. The thing people miss is that a forged head from 20 years ago is way better metal than the thin stamped junk sold today. My grandpa used that spade for decades and the crack was my fault for being careless with a rock. Reinforcing it with brass actually makes that spot stronger than it was before, not weaker. A new spade would probably snap in half the first time I hit a rock with it.

Buddy of mine found a stack of old gas station maps from the 70s in his grandpa's attic. One had a hand-drawn route to a fishing spot that doesn't even exist anymore, just a big empty field now. He tried to follow it last summer and ended up on some dirt road that dead-ended at a pond full of geese. Spent the whole day there anyway, said it was the best fishing he's had in years.