The Filson

This is my Filson briefcase.  Filson doesn't call it that, and during the 24 years I've owned this one, Filson has called them a variety of things. When I bought this one, 24 years ago, they called it the Bush Pilot's bag. That was an appealing thought, but I needed a briefcase, which is what I bought it for.

I've put the Filson to really hard work.  It's gone everywhere with me in 24 years.  I've carried it to court an uncountable number of times.  It's rode around in pickup trucks, cars, and airplanes.  It's been overhead stored and under the seat stored.  It's gone on cattle trailing events and it's been in courtroom trials.  The bag has been in almost every courthouse in the State of Wyoming, including the courts of the Wind River Indian Reservation and the Wyoming Supreme Court.  And it's been in courthouses in Colorado as well.

It's been revived on one earlier occasion. The bag pictured above is unique as it has a full saddle leather bottom. That wasn't part of the Filson design.  That was added by a saddlemaker locally when the bottom of the bag began to fail some years ago, after years of hard use.

But now the bag is showing its age and I need to retire it.  I'd hoped to avoid doing so, as I've used it so long, and to my surprise, it seems to attract the admiring attention of a fair number of people when they see it in use.

Indeed, I've mentioned to some of those folks that I need a new one, to which I almost always get the reply "no!"  But there's only so much a person can do.  I now have holes so large that I'm running the risk of loosing jump drives, something that didn't even exist when I bought it.  But a new Filson it'll be. Still, it's hard to justify replacing it, as a new one will likely be around longer than I will, so I keep holding off.