My Go-Bag Has Got To GO

V2

It started with a really cool suture stapler that I got when we shot a commercial for a hospital and since they couldn’t reuse or keep the disposables surgical tool kit, the nurse let me take some unused, but perfectly cool, stuff home. I thought, it’d be great to have one of these perfectly designed low-tech tools around I ever needed to suture a wound. I knew from many past experiences how to make and use a butterfly bandage but I didn’t know how to use the suture stapler, but it was an awesome foundation for my first aid kit.

I would add wound cleansing stuff to that foundation, sepsis being the greater fear than ugly scars. And first aid kit was getting big, bigger than it’s allotted space in a Manhattan closet, and I realized most of the stuff was only necessary if I couldn’t get to an emergency room. Nevertheless, I dug up an old backsack, and plopped in most of the first aid kit. I left out a handful of bandages for the real emergencies in life.

As soon I began adding other emergency items. A couple of body-sized handwarmers I had laying around, and some batteries wrapped in two layers of plastic baggie. I had a 50 foot hank of climbing rope I never used anymore, and Samwise the Hobbit’s words of wisdom when packing for adventure came to me, and in the bag it went. A pile of old tools soon found a home, wire cutters, leatherman multitool knockoff from a wedding gift bag, screwdrivers, a big old folding knife, and a two piece handsaw! All these things, weight notwithstanding, I could imagine coming in really handy in a pinch. I imagined having to pry open doors, or scrounge materials, I imagined creating impromptu security using zip ties to hold a door closed! Many zip ties! In went two plastic ponchos, in went a flashlight, in went a pair of whistles on lanyards, in went a camelback reservoir, in went a pair of 5 mile range walkie talkies (the hand held CBs I had were really bulky, but they were clamoring for inclusion.)

Then I took bought MREs, just two as if some big emergency might at some point require two meals, don’t want to starve! And I bought something I had always wanted as a kid, a bar of magnesium with a metal sparking edge. This water- and fool-proof tinder is the ideal fire starting kit, that is, after a bic lighter or a book of matches. I loved this little kit so much when I got it that I didn’t want to put it away into the pack.

The pack now had a name. In the feverous creation of the post-9/11 world, the idea of a Go-Bag became popular. And as much as I despised the fear-induced haze that was settling on the world, I came to realize I had a Go-Bag. I even took a one day introduction course to survival, taught in Central Park. And the first thing the instructor, a young wild eyed man, said was, “If you’re taking this course to know how to survive in case of a big emergency in the city, then you’re not going to learn much here. If there’s a big emergency, big enough that everything is falling apart, then your problem won’t be how to make fire or shelter. Your problem will be the other 8 million people running around in a panic.” I looked around at the young couples, the mom with her 11 year old boy, the pairs of women friends ranging from young to old, the single males of varying weight groups and cubicle sizes, and me, just curious to learn ancient technology. We were all in the same boat, really, a boat that was an island, surrounded by water and what-ifs.

Whence came this fear? It predates September 11th. 9/11 was just the straw that broke everyone’s backbone. Watching the towers burn and fall from our stoop, north we could see the Empire State Building, south were the Twin Towers, my wifey said, “The world will never be the same again.” And thus began the era of taking nail clippers away from airline passengers.

A couple of years ago a rally of bikers came down the west side highway, and enveloped a car. The driver in a panic tried to get away from them, and inadvertently created a situation wherein the bikers made a roadblock, leading to a confrontation where the driver plowed through two people and bikes. The motorcyclists immediately gave chase, ending with the guy getting pulled out of his car and beaten up. A friend said, “I would’ve done the same thing (meaning run over the bikers) that guy had his wife and child in the car. Those guys could’ve killed them all.” Except that they hadn’t, they easily could’ve broken glass and raped and pillaged. But they didn’t. And so the driver of the car, instead of sitting tight, calling the police, or maybe even apologizing for endangering the bikers in his panicked maneuver, chose to run down two people. Another friend objected to this comment immediately, “What about the rule of Law? What about Society? Aren’t we supposed to be law abiding citizens?”

We didn’t know that as the towers fell, that so too would fall our confidence in our world, our society, our mission to exist and bring about a better future. A dystopian image of the future had been building up for years. Worse Case Scenario books had fed into our McGyver ideas that somehow we could survive our worst nightmare situations, like standing in quicksand, or being in a pilotless plane. Mental fuel, it seemed, for a false sense of security in the always changing world. The Go-Bag is another blow to our sense of confidence in society.

I believe our world needs direction, and that direction is towards a better society, made of better humans, engaged in being better and better to each other. This belief is shared by literally millions of people across our country and world. I’m not alone, and neither are you. But the next step, as with every step in Life, and as it’s always been and always will be, takes Courage. Courage in the face of the Unknown, Courage in the face of the Known. We cannot change and control everything out there, from litterbugs to asteroids, something is always out there trying to kill us, and we can’t change that. We can only change how we act, who we are, how we’re going to live, and how we treat our fellow humans. 
 Step one- The Go Bag has got to go.