I was 36 years old and a new father when I realized I knew how to tie only one knot: the one you tie your shoes with. I could tie two knots if you count the “double knot,” which most seasoned mariners don’t.

I was never in the Boy Scouts. Growing up in central New York, I didn’t live anywhere near the ocean or, for that matter, near anything you could accurately call a town. My dad had been in the Navy, and he handled all my adolescent rope-tying needs. And with that realization, panic set in. One day my son is going to have two things he needs affixed to each other with a length of rope. What was I going to do? Use the shoe-tying knot? I didn’t even know what that thing was called.

A few minutes on the Internet turned up the definitive resource: “The Ashley Book of Knots.” I clicked, and a few mornings later the mail carrier delivered a large brown box. “I ain’t luggin’ this thing around all day,” she said.

Indeed, “The Ashley Book of Knots” was a massive, 620-page hardcover, twice as heavy and nearly as tall as our 18-month-old son. It contained descriptions and step-by-step illustrations of something like 3,900 different knots, along with history, stories and knot-related folklore. When my wife came home, it sat on the dining room table like a giant rectangular centerpiece.