Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Gear post: Possibles bag for modern life

Click to embiggen

Mountainmen of Old usually carried a bag filled with anything they might possibly need. Not their shooting bag, which carried support items for their firearms, but a separate bag for everything else. We call this the "possibles bag". I learned the benefit of having such a bag long ago, and have adapted this to the modern world. Some hurtful people have called the possibles bag a purse.

My mountainman possibles bag would actually be a nice thing to have in any difficult situation, but there are some modern problems it wouldn't be ideal for solving. So I took a bag which had belonged to an ex-wife, added some inner pockets, and made it my modern-life possibles bag. I have other bags and pouches I can carry in other situations, but they don't get carried regularly (other than the one I carry when I walk to the post office so I don't need to carry the mail in my hand and hang on to it in the wind).

The possibles bag is made of commercially tanned leather and measures 8.5" wide by 7" tall. It has a button made of buffalo horn (probably water buffalo) secured with a thong of braintain buckskin (for durability and strength). The strap is 2" wide and adjustable, but I haven't changed the length in a long time.
The contents are more variable than any other EDC I carry, and I don't actually always have it with me. Just if I go to the next town by car, or sometimes if I know I'm going to be out of the house for a while.

The picture reflects where in the bag the stuff is kept, separated by the specific pocket it is in. If you look hard, you can probably see how it fits in each pocket.

Top left: home-assembled magnifying glass-- USB cord-- Swiss mini-tool-- cheap folding knife-- Sharpie-- pencil.

Middle left: bullet mini-light-- P-38 can opener-- hair clip.

Bottom left shows how the inside of the bag looks currently.

Top right corner: paper clips-- short USB cord-- USB-C adapter in bag-- back-up battery-- notepad-- wet wipe-- 91% alcohol for hand cleaning and glasses cleaning.

Middle right: lighter-- hair ties-- lip balm.

Bottom right is the contents of the main compartment. Moving sort of from the left to the rightish: a bottle handle/strap made of paracord, and another little bit of paracord-- a rag made from a sweatshirt for cleaning glasses-- a bag containing earbuds-- some little emergency flashing lights-- dental floss-- USB car adapter-- more floss-- leather thong-- 2 types of gum-- medicine vial of coffee substitute-- Maglite (LED)-- prescription sunglasses in their case-- another rag made of cotton shirt. (I carry a lot of things for other people, since I can't seem to get them to be responsible for themselves.)

Now, this will probably be the last regular EDC post unless someone asks about something else. I'm not going to go into defensive tools I may or may not carry, nor a few other "tactical" things I may or may not have on my person at all times. Anything else would just be the clothes on my back or trinkets I wear. I hope you've enjoyed the tour.

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