One rule to remember when packing a summer backpack: Always be ready to get wet

A cap, a bandana, a hand towel, sunscreen, bug spray, rain jacket.

These are on the list when it comes time to assemble the summer backpack — to empty the bag, spill out all the old paper clips and near-empty ink pens, Band-Aids and over the counter pharmaceuticals, brush out the duff and repack.

I’m thinking of adding a dry shirt, this year. You might not have noticed this, but wearing a backpack in muggy weather when you go out downtown makes sweat stick your shirt to your back.

So by the time you speed-hike to say, Picasso’s for pizza, because you’re starving and it’s about to storm and you want to get a table in the sheltered patio, your shirt is plastered to your back when you take the pack off.

Now, I’m not saying it’s appropriate to stand up in a family restaurant and strip your sweaty shirt off to change. And I would not have done it there anyway, because we still had to hike down to the river Saturday and then up through the hamburger-beer festival and over to Kilwins for dessert.

I’m just saying that with the weather we’ve been having lately, especially these afternoon rains that turn the air to steam when the sun comes back out, having a dry shirt to change into might not be a bad idea.

And maybe some dry underwear, too. Heck, maybe an entire change of clothes.

My profession long has accepted that you have to go where the news is, no matter what you’re wearing. So you can get sent to a crime scene or wreck or fire, and you can be in a suit and tie — like the TV reporters wear — and if a thunderstorm happens to blow up while you’re a block from your car, too bad.

You’re soaked, inside and out: Inside from sweat, outside from rain. And you are expected to carry on, because that’s life. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes your wet socks squeak in your shoes when you walk.

When I was young, I thought cowboy boots were the footwear for crime reporting — stylish yet weather-resistant. They work fine on the street, but having been designed to slide in and out of stirrups with a heel to hold them, they’re a touch slick on the sole.

Come strutting in out of the rain onto a tile floor, and you’d better know how to ice-skate, because you need a figure eight to get back to where you started sliding.

That’s why I wear waterproof hiking boots now. They have traction and ankle support.

Speaking of crime and footwear, in court Friday I saw a guilty plea from a woman who got drunk downtown and started fighting with the police, injuring an officer by kicking him with her high-heeled shoes.

Now that’s just dangerous, wearing high heels downtown. The sidewalks are pocked with grates and cracks and gutters and other orifices a spiked heel would stick in. You’d have to walk looking down all the time or risk breaking your ankle.

Breaking a bone is no picnic, you know. It’s the opposite of a picnic, because you don’t go anywhere.

Last summer my backpack was stuffed with the detritus that goes with a broken leg — braces, bandages, painkillers, etc. All were added to the pack list, when finally I started leaving the house. For a solid week I never left an air-conditioned room.

I didn’t rely too much on the painkillers, lest I become part of America’s opioid crisis, so I just didn’t move around too much.

Now I feel like I need to make up for lost time, lest I become part of America’s obesity crisis, and when you need to get outside more, you need to be packed and ready.

Stop to pack, and you’ll get distracted. Find an excuse — like it’s going to rain — and you won’t go at all.

This story was originally published June 4, 2017 at 1:54 PM with the headline "One rule to remember when packing a summer backpack: Always be ready to get wet."