First Time Out

   On my kitchen counter there are many things that anyone visiting take no notice of; one corner though is the repository of all the things that collect at the end of each busy day.  Stuff from pockets, bills, loose change, unwanted advertising, tools, hardware and a vast array of pencils and pens that commonly have broken points or are out of ink.   Next to all this miscellaneous "stuff" is the coffee pot, and my most cherished possesion, and the thing that most often catches a visitors eye.  An old dented, shopworn Stanley Alladin thermos jug, with a platic handle held on with a velcro strap on one end and a hose clamp on the other... People usually comment on its condition, wonder why I don't get a new one, and I just smile. 
     When I was fifteen years old (forty years ago or so) Christmas was coming, and my little sister had a terrible case of the flu.  She couldn't leave the house, so she was terribly distressed that she couldn't shop for her big brother.  Our mother, always practicle, came up with a solution.  She gave my sis a large tin cookie can with some kind of Currier and Ives motif on the front, filled with
Top Value stamps that we got from the local Grocery store every time we shopped, and some coupon books to paste the stamps in for redemption.  Suz (my sister's nickname) probably wound up in bed for an extra week due to the dehydration she suffered from licking all those stamps, but eventually she filled enough books to redeem for a Christmas present for me.
    When Christmas morning came, Mom and Dad were drug from their bed at the crack of dawn, and after all the normal morning chores were finished (coffee for Mom and Dad and I, chocolate milk for Suz; dogs out/dogs in, cats both directions at once, Tree lights on, Christmas music playing on Mom and Dads record player) we were finaly allowed to start the great unwrapping event... .  I still believe that Mom and Dad took particular pleasure in dragging out the process as long as possible.  We kids took great joy in our haul, but the real excitement  was seeing how our gifts were recieved by each other.  I remember being very excited by the weight of this long square box that seemed so heavy. My mind raced as I tore the wrapping paper off..My sister was only nine...what could she have possibly gotten for me, as sick as she had been?  I, of course, had a long list of neat things that I just knew I needed or wanted, but I couldn't imagine anything that would be this heavy.  Suz had taken her usual joy in wrapping thoroughly, but I finally got it open and there was the Thermos, shiny and new with a fine little stainless steel cup that screwed on the top over the stopper.  It was beautiful...
a perfect example of a manly present... functional, practical, and obviously not breakable like all those countless glass lined small thermos bottles that came with kid's lunch boxes.  Of all the "stuff" that I got that Christmas, the thermos was the prize...partly because it was such a fine thing, but mostly because I realized for the first time how intent my sister must have been to get this special present for me.
    It is many years since; the thermos went on every Boy Scout outing, every day's chores at the stable where I worked part time, school in the cold winter months, my aborted college career, years as a young carpenter and then many deployments during my career in the Marines.  It
still goes with me on road trips and my sister smiles when she sees it in my car next to me.  It's pretty ugly now;  It has lost its' sheen and the cute little cup is long gone, and under my kitchen counter in that corner everyone has that is full of "stuff" we're just not sure what to do with is a new thermos just like the original, except it has not a blemish, and still wears its shiny stainless steel cup.  My Mom bought it for me years ago... she probably got a deal on it and figured I'd eventually loose the original .  We found it when we cleaned Mom's house when she passed.    When Suz saw it she set it aside for me, and told me I could retire my old one. 
   I can't; I have no desire to... that old thermos is a reflection of all the stages of my adult life, and the love of my sister.  It is a treasure I cling to, something that is old and just does exactly what it was designed to do,  in a world that I despair is becoming increasingly disposable and replaceable