Minimalism isn't good sometimes

I think I could make people believe I’m a minimalist if I can keep them from looking in my closet or garage.

I think my life seemed to part with minimalism about the time I got married. I had everything I needed in an 8-foot x 40-foot mobile home when I met the love of my life. I did own two vehicles at the time but that was the biggest extravagance. One of those vehicles was a pickup that was 25 years old, though. I think driving it enhanced my minimalist image.

As a young man I began backpacking and hunting and fishing. Take too many clothes or too much gear hunting and you risked getting teased. You didn’t want to smell too good in a hunting camp or folks started to doubt your worth in the woods.

Backpacking you had to carry what you brought on your back — nearly always uphill half the time. That made you become expert at reducing weight in your pack. I saw some people do some pretty crazy stuff to reduce their load.

Sawing off toothbrush handles, packing freeze-dried food, expensive high tech packs, sleeping bags and tents, the list went on and on.

When my snobbier backpacking buddies weren’t along, I loaded up a backpack purchased at K-Mart with canned goods maybe even a little bit of soda pop and just left the toothbrush and extra pair of jeans at home. I learned to pack a nylon hammock to sleep in and just hung my poncho over me on a piece of nylon cord.

I’ve always remained pretty thrifty about packing for a trip. I can count the number of changes I need and just take that much stuff. I have never had the luxury of staying longer than planned because I’m usually too broke. Packing light has bit me from time to time, however.

There was the time on the trip to Germany when my luggage went one way and I went the other in a thunderstorm. The good thing was by the second day without my luggage the other folks on our tour bus were giving me the three or four back rows all to myself. The bad side is that it’s trickier than you might think purchasing German underwear that fits right.

Another time packing light failed me was the week-long backpacking trip in the Gila Wilderness when the intestinal parasites or flu hit me. Two pair of skivvies proved not to be nearly adequate enough. Neither did one roll of toilet paper. A greater arsenal of medical remedies would have been handy on that trip as well.

Now as I prepare for a short trip with the wife for a little well-earned R&R, my little overnight duffel seems to pale in comparison to the huge bulging bag my wife is packing.

“Aha, that’s what happened to the kitchen sink.”

Hannibal was not a minimalist but they tell me he had elephants.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]