I ordered a new pack basket this week to replace the Chinese made facsimile that I had been using for several years. I used it as if it was the genuine black ash or cedar strip version. It has now become barely serviceable despite several attempts to repair and strengthen it. The new one, which has yet to arrive via parcel post or UPS, is made of some space-age material and comes with a lifetime guarantee.

I took notice of the lifetime guarantee on two accounts. First off, my present basket is at the end of its days, and I am not at the end of mine. (My current basket also didn't come with a guarantee of any length.) Secondly, as my 67th birthday approaches later this month, a lifetime guarantee doesn't have the same saleable commodity as it did when I was, say, 45. Maybe there is a way to add significant value to such a guarantee. I have two grandchildren, who will be celebrating their first birthdays later this year. Talk about a lifetime guarantee of investment grade quality. I could claim that everything that I purchase is really for a grandchild, and that I am simply holding onto the item, until he or she grows into it.

The old basket has used primarily to pack supplies to and from the sugarhouse early in the syrup season, when the road in is impassable. It has carried its share of water, fuel, tools, lunches, extra clothes, and trash. I am not sure how to lay the old one to rest as I transition to the new one. I suppose I could simply hang it on a nail out at the sugarhouse. If it should end up in the firebox of the evaporator one day, that would be a fitting end, in my judgment. More than one pair of gloves, which no longer served their intended purpose, have ended up that way. Come to think of it, the firebox on a large commercial evaporator could even accommodate an old syrup maker should the question of what to do with one, who is no longer able to serve any useful purpose--flannel shirt, bib overalls, and packboots included.