Survival kit

  You know how you are cruising along, minding your own business, when suddenly you remember a thing from way back when? The survival kit, that's what I can suddenly now remember. Or maybe I forgot that I remembered it. Either way, its a fresh memory right now. But I digress....

  Mom and Dad had built a house in the mountains. It was the late 70s. The hippy, live in a commune, fuck the government phase had past. Now the  isolation, live in fear, fuck the government phase had begun.

  Life was chaotic, but we were taught to put on the happy face towards society. Not actively taught, more like.....well I don't know what its like. There was some shame, but I also thought it was all normal. I didn't understand why other kids had so much privilege. So pretend happiness was the order of the day.

  If your biggest asset is putting on a front that everything is OK, by isolating you can be "real" more often. Why pretend to be fine when you can separate your family away from society and be a jerk all the time?

  Isolation promises many things, it can't keep any of them.

  So here I was, a kid around 9 years old, Mom was investing heavily in alcohol futures, and Dad was disillusioned with his faith. My sister and I were trying to figure out who to please to make the insanity stop. Not that we knew that was what we were doing, we just thought it was normal.

  One day a survival kit shows up. Maybe it was a cub scout thing, maybe dad bought it somewhere, all I knew was this thing was way cool. It was an oval cylinder, perhaps six inches tall x four wide x two deep. It had everything! Space age blanket, fire stuff, fishing stuff, knife, coffee, water purification tablets, etc.....

  I would read the list countless times. Was this really all I needed to survive? It was an alluring proposition.

  In bold lettering the tin said that if you opened it you would never get all the stuff back in it. Oh how I wanted to see what was in there! I never did muster up the courage to open it up.

  We kept it on a shelf in the laundry area. Occasionally I would pick it up and read the label. Countless times. I might be projecting my current thoughts onto a younger me, but I think I took solace in the idea that the survival kit always had my back. If things got too rough, grab the kit, and head out.

  Being alone in the fields and mountains brought great joy to me. It was more than an escape, it was childhood. Yep, in spite of all the gunk, I got to be child sometimes also. So perhaps the survival tin was an extension of my desire for adventure.

  Either way, the tin had an impact. I am positive its creators would never have imagined that their product found leave such an impression on a young dudes life.

  Everyone needs a survival tin.