Beat to Hell

~ Kana Smith

It’s only natural that most of us try to keep most of our possessions in unspoiled and “like-new” condition for as long as possible. We don’t like it when our phone-screens get webbed with cracks, or the paint chips off our cars, or the knees go out in our jeans (well, maybe that’s still fashionable for a younger demographic—but this old lady prefers her pants not missing pieces). We don’t like it when our things have to be glued, taped, wired, lashed, or held together by bungee cords.

So we take care with our stuff, and take care of our stuff. We cover a scuffed shoe with polish, use stain remover on a sweater, wax a vehicle to protect the paint. And I put the military-grade lens protector on my phone camera—because if the camera-lens were cracked, Mrs. Shutterbug here would have no further use for that phone.

There are some exceptions to the keep-it-pristine rule—and everybody probably has their own list of what falls into that category. The ratty sweatshirt that’s the most comfortable thing you own. The truck you use for working, not showing. The boots you’ve broken in so well they slide onto your feet as if they were buttered. The wedding band that’s scuffed and scratched because you’ve worn it through a marriage.

There are, of course, things that aren’t meant to stay unmarked. A journal is waiting for your entries. A sketchbook is asking for your drawings. Some things transform by our use of them—and in my case, that includes books. I underline and annotate even novels. The more I’m engaged with a book, the more my reading of it transforms it. I own some books that barely have any margins left. Ahab’s Rolling Sea, by Richard J. King. Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Melville’s Moby-Dick.. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

And then we have the category that got me started thinking along these lines in the first place: things on which visible “wear and tear” is a positive. What do I mean by that?

When I was at University of Hawai’i, spending my weekends diving and sleeping on beaches, my dive buddies and I used to scoff at the tourists who’d paid $400 to go on a boat to the same spot where we’d just walked into the water from the beach.

the writer underwater, SCUBA diving

We scoffed at their immaculate, color-coordinated gear, looking in most cases like it had never been used.

the writer and friends, walking into the water wearing SCUBA gear

And looking at the beat-up bottoms of our own dive fins, we agreed that it was very cool to have well-used gear.

It meant that we got to do a lot of diving.

It meant that we were serious.

My university classes’ labs involved diving and surveying the Puako reef, so I was diving for “work” as well as for weekend-play in those summers. My scuffed-up dive fins were the visible manifestation of what my Dive Log could attest: I did a LOT of diving.

I don’t still have the set of fins I used in college—the buckles finally gave out on those, and I had to buy new. And I felt almost embarrassed, wearing those pristine new fins the first time!

Hawai’i’s volcanic shoreline quickly took care of that, so they are properly scuffed up again. Not beat to hell like the originals, but at least respectably well-used.

And I just packed them…

the writer gearing up to dive on a beach in Hawai'i

10 thoughts on “Beat to Hell”

  5. Kana,

    I’ve got a lot of catching up to do on your posts. For some reason they were being delivered to my SPAM box, (and I don’t mean Spanish American SPAM War LOL!)

    I have a 50+ year old pair of combat boots that I brought back from Vietnam in 1973 when I left there for the last time.

    These were the same boots that I had been issued in 1969 when I arrived for my first tour. They are no longer black, more of a gray patina.

    I first served in the Mekong Delta in the Plain of Reeds, and the soil and water were so acidic from rotting debris that they virtually stripped all of the black from the boots. But these old boots became a symbol – we were ‘Delta Rats’, warriors wearing something distinctive that set us apart from other serving in Vietnam in non-combatant roles.

    One time I was in Saigon at a bar in one of the Batchelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) and this ‘Saigon Warrior’ a Major was sitting with our group starting to brag about his combat exploits. The guy sitting next to him tapped him on the shoulder and whispered to him that he should look at our boots. His were highly ‘spit shined’, ours were polished but gray. His stories stopped immediately – he found himself in the presence of ‘warriors’ and not ‘staff pukes’.

    On my final tour in 1972-73 I made sure that I had those boots with me. I initially served as an intelligence analyst in Saigon, but when I took over my field duties, I made sure that I wore those old boots to the field. It was a mark of being a seasoned professional with combat experience in the field.

    I still have those worn-out boots on the top shelf of my closet. To many memories, to many stories, too much pride in where they’ve been! Can’t imagine ever tossing them out!

    Regards “Hardcharger”

    Like

    Reply

    1. That was very intuitive of the guy who told the braggart to look at boots! And yes, you know exactly what I mean about the beat-up fins. (Though I confess I did toss mine out when the straps broke. Would never have replaced them just for aesthetics, though!)

      Like

      Reply

Leave a reply to Kana Smith Cancel reply