Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Goodbye Old Friend

It's no secret that I can be an overly-sentimental and emotional person, so of course the event of me getting a new back pack is going to evoke a long post in which I get all steamy-eyed and nostalgic. I mean when have I ever done that, right?

As I said in that previous, snack-sized paragraph, I replaced my old backpack yesterday. The reason I poked fun at myself getting emotional about my old Dakine bag is that because for a long time it was one of my oldest possessions. It accompanied me through the latter half of high school, held my skateboard on numerous trips around the city looking for places to hang out and skate, was on my back all through university, came with me on multiple trips to New York, was my partner during every Pouzza Fest and was put to use during all of my summers at Ontario Place (Christ, I always come back to that, don't I?).

So obviously this backpack was something that I came to attach tremendous sentimental value to, as it was (is) put to use during a real coming-of-age time in my life. I thought I would list a few of my favourite times with this bag, just as I ran through a few of my favourite memories in that post about my favourite t-shirt linked above.

So here it goes:


I bought the backpack in 11th grade, because my old one was really hurting. Dakine bags were all the rage at the time, as even people who had never stepped on a skateboard were buying them. Getting a bag upon which I could attach my deck was of the utmost importance to me because skating all over the city was, and still is, one of my favourite activities. I attached the Suicide Machines patch shown above right away and it didn't come off the entire time I owned it. As you can see in the picture, there is a big rectangle outlined by weathering right in the middle of it. In the words of Damien Stillwell: "I don't think I've ever seen it without it." Honourable mention also goes to the Operation Ivy patch on the side and the blink-182 patch on one of the straps, both of which were attached not long afterwards and stayed there until the end.

I know some of my punk friends may roll their eyes at this, but living in residence during first year university was a huge learning experience for me. It was my first time living on my own and though one of my best friends lived in the same residence as me, I was mostly surrounded by complete strangers. So not only did this backpack carry my laptop so I could play Tetris in European History, but it also came with me pretty much every other place on campus. One of the catalysts in meeting one of my best friends, Brian, in first year was that he was 19 and could thus buy beer for all of us underagers. Pat, Brian and I would make runs to the LCBO every Friday it seemed so that we could buy liquor for almost all of our friends. We had no clue how to use Guelph Transit at the time (To be fair, back then the system was a total disaster.), so we would walk about 40 minutes each way to the store despite having a buspass included in out tuition. It was on these trips that I discovered my backpack could hold exactly 24 355mL cans of beer, and that is exactly what I filled it with almost every week while having a ball with a ton of new friends.

I've spoken about my old summer job as a lifeguard at Ontario Place a whole bunch on this blog and even now I still get pretty nostalgic about it because it was pretty fun and lead to a bunch of great stories and friends. Going to this job I had to leave early in the morning and would end up coming home late at night. Doing this required me to bring all of my uniform, enough food for 2-3 meals, sunscreen, water and well....y'know. It was almost like going to camp each summer and my old backpack was partner along the way.

The trip that I took last May with my brother to New York will forever be one of my favourite memories. The initial purpose of the trip was for me to see The Arrogant Sons of Bitches play a reunion show, but we quickly planned an exciting trip around it. We went to a ton of cool bars, caught a great start by Johan at Citi Field, ate great pizza, saw one of the best shows I ever have and showed my bro around the city, as it was his first time there and is a bit of a home away from home for me. For this somewhat lengthy trip I brought only my modestly-sized backpack, which my brother found completely astonishing. What can I say? I'm a light packer.

That's it I guess. It's hard to articulate the importance of something that you come to take for granted because you use it everyday. It's less that I did specific things with this knapsack and more that it was something I picked up and used almost every day of my life for about 8 years of my life, without really thinking about it. It's going to be weird not having the flattened shape of that backpack on my floor all the time; it was one of those things that you get used to because it's always there.

Fuck, if I'm getting this nostalgic about my bag, may God have mercy on you all when my skateboard finally eats it.

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