My EDC circa 1987
Revel in childhood, its memories will sustain you for a lifetime.
I grew up in a small town in Ohio. The town was near Dayton and Cincinnati. It had about 25,000 people many of whom had originally worked in the automotive industry. It was not a thriving town and it is still not a thriving town. We lived in a small neighborhood that, thankfully, abutted a giant state park. It was not a park open to the public, per se, but a fish hatchery. There were no parking lots or crowded visitor areas, just a huge, unbroken expanse of wildlife (which, coincidentally, is what we called it). In the summer, as the sun crested the horizon, I was out the door. When it retreated, I might have been on my way back. In between there was all sorts of adventuring. I worked on a giant map of Wildlife made on a cut up paper grocery bag so it both looked “map-y” and so it was big enough. I trudged through mud, waded through streams, and crossed ravines on fallen logs. It was, so far as I am concerned, about as close to the Platonic idea of childhood adventuring that I could imagine.
All of the adventuring took a huge leap forward, at least in my mind, when I started to assemble a “toolkit.” True to my current tastes, I eschewed the trends of the time, and avoided the hollow handled survival knife (though at least three of my childhood friends had them, including one deeply embossed with “Rambo” on the blade near the guard ::wince::). My kit was pretty small and versatile. And, interestingly enough, it is still all readily available.
Knife: Victorinox Tinker
Flashlight: Maglight Solitaire
Sheath: Victorinox Zermatt Medium Belt Pouch
That little pouch made my feel like I could survive the apocalypse in the woods (though, at the time, we thought it would be a Nuclear Winter-style apocalypse and not one of the zombie variety). The Tinker was a purchase from the only real outdoor store near my childhood home, a place in Dayton called General Surplus (if it is still open, someone drop a comment below). I had visited General Surplus one month and then took meticulous notes over the coming days about what I would need. If something came up more than once, it got a tally mark. I then used that to determine what implements I would like. Tally in hand, I walked in to General Surplus and the Tinker fit the bill.
For all of that seeming detail, I am sure the notes were things like: “Need to make spears—blade needed” or other insights like “Want to poke holes in rusted steel drum—awl needed.” It was not scientific, though it very much seemed like it to my 10 year old mind. Once I had the Tinker, the rest of the kit fell in place. I thought the regular Maglight was too big, so on a trip to either Farm and Fleet or the newly opened Wal-Mart in town I grabbed the Solitaire. Then, later, I got my belt pouch and the kit was complete.
Unfortunately I no longer have this kit. The strange thing is that unlike with a lot of childhood items, I distinctly remember when I lost it. I was visiting my paternal grandmother’s house in Pittsburgh and somewhere around Zanesville I realized I didn’t have it on me, despite always carrying it. The ride home was about 6 hours of agony and by the time I got there and called her—no luck. Even as we passed through Columbus, I felt like it was too late (no cellphone). Somewhere in the ether that kit probably was picked up by any one of a number of my relatives. That house, my paternal grandmother’s house, has been the indefinite home for four generations, multiple cousins, aunts, and all my uncles lived there (including my cousin Sam who actually renovated the house and lived there until it was crushed by a tree in a storm). In all the comings and goings I am not surprised that it vanished and I hope that one of my relatives loved and used that kit as much as I did.
Using the original kit as my template I have tried to reconstruct it from my current roster of gear. In the end I think I came pretty darn close both in terms of the “spirit” of the kit and the size. This stuff is much more functional, but that is just the evolution of technology and good design.
Knife: Robert J. Lessard custom Alox Pioneer (with clip, scissors, and HAIII deep blue anodizing)
Flashlight: Surefire Titan Plus with Prometheus Lights clip and lanyard delete
Sheath: Scout Leather Co. Pocket Protector
The SAK is not all that different than my original, just a bit nicer and more convenient. I have been obsessed with pocket clips for a long time and so that upgrade alone would have probably sent my 10 year old self over the edge. I would have very likely not even bother with the belt pouch. Of course, the Alox scales, in deep blue, would have also been pretty exciting, as I have always had a preference for blue. The idea that I could have picked which implements go into the tool, that would have been the dealbreaker. Even at 10 I was fretting over the implements. Some just didn’t seem to pull their weight and others seemed to be missing. Alas, this is the dilemma that has spurred Victorinox’s business model for years. If they offered fully customizable tools on a wide scale, their business would end in about ten years as everyone would buy exactly what they wanted and never need a new design or a replacement. The fact that I have never even looked at a SAK after I got this tool proves the point. Interestingly, Victorinox released a production knife very similar to my modded version called the Pioneer X. It is a Pioneer with a pair of scissors.
The Surefire Titan, once shorn of its lanyard point, is really the Solitaire but better in every way (perhaps that could be Surefire’s slogan….). Its brighter, it has multiple modes, it is tougher, it has a better beam pattern. Its basically the Solitaire if it lived a thousand lives like Billy Murray did in Groundhog Day. The similarity in the basic design is telling. I have been looking for a Solitaire that actually works for decades.
I am probably not old enough to do the belt pouch thing. It seems like it is acceptable when you are 10 and then acceptable again when you are 55. Either that or your a police officer, then you can load up on belt pouches without getting a side eye. For the rest of us non-law enforcement, non-10, and non-55 year olds, the Pocket Protector just works better, sliding into the pants pocket and locking in place nicely all while protecting your stuff. I usually carry my Indian River Jack in there, not the SAK, but either way, it works nicely.
Trying to recreate my 10 year old EDC was incredibly fun. It also taught me that really, what I like hasn’t changed all that much since I was 10. I never like the flash fancy stuff whether it was a hollow handled Rambo knife or a massively overbuilt TFF with Moku Ti inserts. Finally, this little thought experiment has also made me realize how amazing it was to a have a whole wilderness to explore all by myself at age 10. I’d be pretty happy if I could take a week off and do exactly what I did when I was 10–catching crawdads in the streams, jumping off a 2x8 we trudged back into Wildlife to make a diving board at a particularly perfect swimming hole, and making “spears” with my SAK. Oh wait, that is called bushcrafting. And now the circle is complete.
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