In September 2002, as I was beginning graduate school, I officially retired my trusty burnt-orange backpack that I had purchased 20 years before and then taken with me through high school and college and around the world as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
I’ve had a lot of backpacks since then. Messenger bags, too. And GORUCK packs. And packable sacks for traveling or popping into the market.
In 2017, I needed a new daily backpack. When I learned that the Synapse 19 (from Tom Bihn in Seattle) came in burnt orange, nostalgia struck and I ordered one. The next day, a message came from the company to regretfully inform me that when they went to box my order, they’d just run out of the orange. I shrugged and replied that I’d take the Synapse in black.
This backpack has served me well for eight years — it’s just back from my trip to Minneapolis, where Joel and I attended the Vikings football game and the Golden Gophers men’s hockey game — and it is time to replace it.
I’d seen that Tom Bihn was expecting a new bundle of this backpack in the burnt orange, and that’s what I ordered last week and finally received today.
No telling where this backpack and I will go together.
© Anton Zuiker