Promise you won’t laugh. The piece of equipment I feel the most sappy about, and that I’d be the most devastated to lose or break, is a pair of pot-gripper pliers.
But they’re great pot grippers! Not those wimpy, untrustworthy tweezers you get when you buy a set of nesting pots. These are one-of-a-kind, last-a-lifetime bomber grippers that grab your attention the first time you lift a twelve-pound stewpot off the stove. I’ve never seen another set like them, and everyone who uses them takes a hard second look and asks where to find a pair.
“What are you going to do when you lose those things?” Marypat once asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I might have to quit camping.”
I found them in an army-navy surplus store in Cincinnati almost thirty years ago. It was that period in my outdoor career when I was just beginning to amass my gear and had almost no discretionary income.
Crammed onto a shelf full of dusty canteens, mess kits, shovels, and canvas gaiters was a little cardboard bin full of these pliers. They were very light, but they felt sturdy and had a hooked handle with flat-surfaced grippers that seemed like they’d work well for lifting pots. They cost 59 cents. Even I could afford that, so I bought a pair.
One trip with those pliers and I realized what a find I’d made. Why didn’t I buy a dozen? Ever since, I’ve searched surplus stores in vain.
Almost three decades later, I’ve gotten so attached to the silly things that I won’t let anyone under age fifteen handle them. They have their precise storage niche in the equipment room. On trips a specific pocket in the kitchen pack is reserved for them. When I get around to making my will, those pliers will have their own category, and choosing a beneficiary will be excruciating.
I’m not a gear freak. I don’t spend my time poring over equipment catalogs and reading up on the latest materials and design breakthroughs. I do, however, feel sentimental about some pieces of the outfit. When we’re young we have our favorite blanket. When we get older we have our cherished pot grippers. What can I say?
My first sleeping bag is the same way. I bought it about that same time, through a college outdoor program that sold them at cost. A down-filled, three-season, contoured model. Pretty cutting edge for the time, but back then I snapped it up just because it was a good deal.
Thirty years have gone by. That bag has been all over the continent, stretched out on desert hardpan, alpine tundra, unstable talus slopes, Arctic riverbanks. It has kept me cozy through raging thunderstorms, two-day deluges, freezing nights, and sandstorms. Over the years it lost some of its loft—about half in fact. After two decades the zipper gave out. It got so I could take it only on trips to warm places or during one or two months in the summer.
Then I thought about seeing if the company would recondition a bag like that. I packed it up, wrote a note saying how much it meant to me, and sent it off. Three weeks later I got the bag back. It had been absolutely restored: cleaned, patched, refilled with new down, outfitted with a new zipper. All for about $30. So now I’m stuck with the bag I love, and it might well outlast me.
My wind shirt rests in this hallowed category too. It’s nothing special to look at, but I’ve worn it for twenty years now. It’s been pretty well everywhere and is the piece of clothing I pull out of the pack more than any other. It’s 60–40 material, with a fitted hood that actually fits my head, a cargo pocket at belly level that my hands rest in nicely, a Velcro-closed chest pocket for a map or journal, and a drawstring at the waist. It keeps the bugs at bay, sheds wind, and provides that in-between layer when a jacket or rain gear is too much and a shirt too little. If I had to pick the single invaluable piece of outdoor clothing in my gear room, it would be that, hands down.
Years ago, when the material had faded to a dusty shadow of its original red, pocked with ember holes and various abrasions, Marypat took it on herself to make me a replacement. She’s a talented seamstress. She made me a beautiful shirt. To all appearances it was an exact replica of the original. But it didn’t fit the same way. It just wasn’t right. Something intangible didn’t work. I wore it for her, but she could tell something was wrong.
Then, in a true outburst of love, Marypat painstakingly took apart the old jacket to make an exact pattern. She made me a new one, copying the original down to the last feature. The only piece of the old jacket she retained was the hood. Somehow, she knew, the hood was the key, and almost impossible to reproduce. And it worked. It feels just like the old one.
OK, I won’t take this much further. Just one more special piece of gear.
When Marypat and I moved in together, a long time ago now, she introduced me to the fine art of garage-saling. Even then she was a veteran. She could go into a driveway full of clutter—boxes of old clothes, rusty tools, broken lamps, scratched records—and zero in on the set of glasses we needed in twenty seconds flat. She could sniff out a dud sale in less than a minute and be on her way. And she was a master at bargaining—Turkish carpet salesmen had nothing on her.
One of the first Saturdays in my education, we pulled up at a subdivision house with the usual scatter of junk strewn around. I was still navigating the fringes when Marypat called to me from inside the garage. She had found a vintage two-burner gas stove. She talked to the owner and assessed him as one of those meticulous types you cherish when it comes to secondhand stuff. He wanted $12. Seemed like a good deal to me. We got it for $7.
It’s now seventeen years later. That stove still goes on our portageless trips (see this page–this page). It’s got its quirks, but what camp stove doesn’t? It cooks like a champ. Hasn’t ruined a meal yet.
The author with his sentimental collection.
Not long ago I was camping with some friends who had a brand-new model. I kept comparing it with our old one. I watched carefully in terms of performance, upkeep, sturdiness, reliability. I wasn’t even slightly tempted to turn ours in.
This sentimental business is mysterious. I don’t know, really, why I get so attached to one piece of equipment and couldn’t care less about another. Time has something to do with it—sheer number of days out together. Reliability certainly does. Gear that lets me down is gear that gets left behind. Shared experience. The places we’ve been together.
I don’t understand what it’s all about. Just don’t get between me and my pot grippers.