New Equipment

My daughter, Alvilda, has been preparing to join Shiva and me on our up-coming trip to PNG, and has just presented me with various "necessities" discovered in the camping equipment stores in Brussels.  Marvelously useful things that didn't exist fifty years ago: a mosquito-repelling shirt and bandana! I'm trying the shirt on for fit.

I confess to being a bit put out by all the fancy labels.

Alvilda: "It's a different experience."  

Me (grumbling):  "Advertising hype!"   

Alvilda: "But it REALLY IS a different experience!"

Well, the adventurous spirit was always there,  even if the words did not appear on any label.

Fifty years ago my mother and I had sewed the skirts and simple shirts that then served me so well.  And I used my climbing boots, already well worn from hiking in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, although, as it turned out, spiked golf shoes were better for walking across slippery log bridges of highland New Guinea.

P.S. The climbing boots had been bought in the late 1950s at REI when it was still on the second floor of the building at 523 Pike Street in Seattle.

<<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><<>>>