Working as a construction laborer allowed me to travel to different places. Never any place very interesting, at least not to somebody with my quirks and personality flaws. Everything had the unique color provided by the filter of my self-doubt. I couldn’t imagine a place where I could be happy. It just couldn’t exist.
We were working in a town slightly less than a hundred miles from our home. I was almost broke, hungover, and out of pot. It was hot, and a thunderstorm with torrential rain late the night before had fueled an inhuman humidity and covered the job site with a thick layer of sticky mud. It would cling to your boots, work its way up your pants until you looked as though you were in a science fiction B movie from the 60s, “Attack of the Endless Mud.” By lunch I was miserable, so I quit.
It had been relatively cheap, but when I got to the bus stop, I found out it had taken enough money I couldn’t afford the fare. My plan was falling apart faster than it had hatched.
It wasn’t long before a beat up, rusted red, pickup truck with dual tires in the back stopped and asked me where I was going.
“North Platte.”
“We’re going to Gothenburg. Want a lift?”
Gothenburg was about 35 miles from where I wanted to go. It was a small town a couple of miles from the interstate. it seemed as if it might be hard to catch a ride there.
“Can you drop me in Lexington?” It was fifteen miles before Gothenburg, and the largest town between where I was and where I was going. Plus it was right on the freeway.
“Sure, you’ll have to ride in the back.” He nodded to the woman and child sitting next to him.
“That’s cool.” I rode in the back of a pickup with an overly friendly, panting, slobbering Labrador retriever named Oscar, we became good friends, and he sat on my legs for about twenty miles. Bits of straw floated through the air, and things seemed to be looking up. I was making progress.
He dropped me off, offered me a baggie of homemade cookies and left. I waved and thanked him.
I sat there for a couple of hours. Cars drove by kicking up little clouds of stinging dust and sand. The sun was a bright, merciless, an obscene ball of malignant energy, and the pavement of the ramp had little shimmering devils dancing in celebration. The sun pushed down, and the earth pushed back and my whole world was condensed into that little box, that space in time, and I was certain I was going to die setting on the shoulder of that endless road.
I walked over to the truck stop and had a cup of coffee that tasted like it was leftover from breakfast and a donut that was probably from the Korean War. I bought a pack of cigarettes and went back to the highway. I still had almost twelve dollars and a small bag of cookies. I went and waited. In those days the worst part of hitchhiking was waiting, and I waited, melting in the sun, and filled with doubt and regret.
A dented old Pontiac sedan pulled up. It was so faded it was hard to tell what color it was originally. It was now several shades of pale gray. I told him where I was going.
"I'm only going to Brady, interested?" He said.
Everything seemed hopeless, and I was willing to do almost anything to get out of there. I thanked him and climbed him.
“Do you want a cigarette?” He asked, over the sounds coming from the Aerosmith eight track tape, the open windows, and the repetitive thunk-ka-chunk of the engine.
“No, thanks, I have some.”
“Can I have one?” He asked. It was odd, but it was cheap for 40 miles worth of gasoline and 40 minutes of Toys in the Attic.
We smoked without saying much. Then he reached over and opened the glove box and pulled out two joints.
“Do you want to get high?”
“Sure,” we rolled up the windows and he turned on the air conditioning, more of a polite imagination tied to a button and sliding lever, than it actual refrigeration. It didn’t seem cold, but it seemed cool and after the day I had it was heaven, and blissfully quiet.
He drove past Brady.
“I think I’ll go to Maxwell, instead. Do you mind?”
I didn’t. It was only ten miles, and I could call somebody to come get me. If that didn’t work I could walk, I would be home before dark.
He dropped me off, I had a cookie, picked up my bags and started walking into the small town. I was trying to decide who I should call.
As I walked into the gas station parking lot, toward the pay phone, the Pontiac came back, honking and waving.
“I can take you to North Platte. What I was going to do kind of fell through, and I’m in the clear.”
“That would be nice.” We smoked a joint, ate the rest of my cookies and he dropped me off at the house of friend. I never saw him again, even though I will never forget the day, or that car, and even though I’m not an Aerosmith fan I smiled every time I heard that album.
My friend had just gotten some mushrooms and I spent two days in a hazy, gauzy, happy fog. There is no more efficient method of convincing yourself you did the right thing than a couple of days of low level hallucinations, cold beer and snack food, even when you know it was unfair to your employer, your coworkers and an act of short sighted stupidity. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be my last.
When it was over, I had to go get a job. I moved back in with my mother, one more thing I will apologize for if I am lucky enough to run into her in the hereafter.
I kept that bag, the one that cost me a bus ticket. It became my travel bag, my bicycle bag, my walk to the grocery store and bring home some food bag. When I traveled I would buy a patch to commemorate. “Estes Park” “Memorial Stadium” “Worlds of Fun” and sew it in slow, painful, amateur stitches onto my backpack. I started buying patches of places I wanted to visit. I started adding concert patches, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Grateful Dead. It was getting to be quite a sight.
I bought a patch while I was traveling through Garden City, and the counter person was impressed by the number of patches on my bag.
“Sewed ‘em all on by hand.” I boasted.
“Oh, you don’t have to sew them on, they have an aggressive heat activated adhesive. You can just use a hot iron and they should last forever.” She explained, looking at me with skepticism over her glasses, I think she wondered
There were a lot of memories fastened randomly to that bag. Then, one day, I went to look for it and I couldn’t find it. Nor could I find my shore bag. They are probably in a box, in the basement, behind or under something. C’est la vie, I guess. The end of an era.
My wife and I went to a county wide yard sale last summer. We didn’t find much, but there was an estate sale in an old, clean, well-maintained house. As we wandered through the rooms, we came across a shore bag, of the same type I had. It brought back many memories. It was a little frayed, and had a name stenciled in fading letters across the side. He was only asking five dollars. Pay the man. Surplus used to be cheap, but now it’s fashion. No well-dressed prepper, or paramilitary militiaman would be caught dead in civilian garb.
I was doom scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across a website that would sell you a backpack complete with patches. You just pick the color and the patches and give them your credit card number, and they would send you a bag adorned with memories. Tempting, but not the same.
Over dinner I told my wife about the site, she asked where my bag was.
“Who knows.” I was surprised when she told me how much she liked the looks of the bag, how she felt it was such an expression of who I was. It made me love her even more.
We went to see Dead and Company in Cincinnati. We walked through Shakedown Street, enjoying a cold beer, the sights and smells and sounds, I bought a couple of bandanas. We came across a stand with some boonie hats, beaded bracelets and stickers, pins, and an amazing assortment of patches.
“You should buy some. Maybe you could start a new backpack. There is no surer way to find your old pack than to make a new one.” My wife told me, grabbing my elbow in that way she has of telling me she had made up her mind.
“That’s a great idea.” I was surprised at how pleased I was by the idea. I wasn’t surprised she had thought of it. That’s who she is, how she operates, her mind is always working, calculating, wheels turning. Once she has an idea, it’s locked in. She will track it down across the empty landscape of time. She is relentless.
I found three I really liked, snapped them up, and felt pretty good about myself, mostly about my wife, though. After all these years she still surprises me, always a little ambush, walking through a flea market, or a thrift store, supermarkets, bodegas, or garage sales. Seemingly out of the blue, she will access a memory, a dream, and the kaleidoscope begins.
In an odd turn of events, several weeks later, we ended up at a head shop in a small city in Southeastern Ohio. We didn’t know it was a head shop, we just saw a store with some colorful t-shirts, Baja jackets, walking sticks, posters and bumper stickers. On the shelf behind the counter was a Dia de los Muertos backpack. The bag had a “made in Nepal” tag and a small note thanking me. It had a black front and back panel with two maroon pockets, the larger pocket on the bottom had a calavera skull embroidered on the large pouch on the bottom. Wrapped around the sides was an orange, red, white and grey Dhaka patterned cloth. It was a little soft, and baggy, with an endearing fragility. It was perfect.
Its softness was a bonus. If it became frayed or worn, I would just add another patch. It could be a masterpiece. An evolving piece of art, a growing pattern of places and things. It made me think of the Cat Stevens song, Oh Very Young:
“And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your dads best jeans
Denim blue, faded up to the sky
And though you want them to last forever
You know they never will
You know they never will
And the patches make the goodbye harder still”
It has plenty of room for all my essentials, and even a few extras. I don’t have many essentials. It is perfect for patches and pins, and personalization. It is the perfect thing for this point in my life.
I’m coming to the end. The end of this marathon story, the end of my career as a paid employee (we are so close to retiring, but that’s another story), and eventually the end of my time “in this place of wrath and tears,” though I’m in no hurry for that.
My first bag ended up being the balm I needed, then. I was confused, alone and searching for something solid, sturdy, a blank canvas for a life that needed to be filled in, defined. This bag is already colorful and garish, rounded and soft, it will need to be reinforced and require extra attention. It has a small, simple personality, a unique sense of identity. Kind of like the one I always wanted.
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