Rags & Bags

After decades of traveling around the world you would think I’d have packing down cold, and I did. Until last year when ML and I went to Strasburg on what was to be a year long project. We departed with three large roller bags and personal daybags, prepared for dinner with the mayor and other dignitaries, snowdrifts, howling storms and the heat of summer. Folly, all folly.

The project went sideways and we departed for Paris and Italy with the luggage we could not send home or give away, which was still a pile the size of the Matterhorn. Getting on and off trains was a misery. The entrance to European trains is about chest high on a tall man, up four narrow steps. We lugged all that junk through Paris, off and on trains in and out of cabs, unable to move freely or stop for a Pastis. When the train arrived in Bologna I positioned myself at the door prepared to hand down our bags to ML on the platform. Unsuspecting, I was body blocked from behind by an Italian woman about five feet tall and weighing at least 250 pounds, maybe 275. I’m sure she could find a place on any NFL team. In order to avoid sending her flying out onto the platform I took the hit and was knocked sideways for a four foot drop onto concrete. Pain. Back spasm. Remorse for all those bags. Never again, I swore.

This year we departed with one small duffle shared by ML and I, and each of us with a daypack. It was still too much. I’m scheming to get rid of that wretched duffle.