Jay Lloyd's Getaway: Great Holiday Gift Idea For Travelers
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By Jay Lloyd
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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Looking for a holiday gift for your favorite traveling companion? A ditty bag may be just the ticket.
What's that, you say? A "ditty bag?"
Sure. Today's sophisticated folks know them as toilet kits or, more politely, shaving kits.
But in the days of iron men and wooden ships, it was a plain "ditty bag." Some say the word came from an Anglo-Saxon term for tidy.
A ditty bag was a handy canvas sack for a sailor's small things: sewing and shaving gear, soap, a knife -- stuff that would get lost rattling around in a duffel.
Nowadays, the retooled toilet kit looks something like a miniature country doctor's bag. But for the practical traveler or sailor, the modern ditty is still canvas and compartmentalized with a handy hook for hanging. so
Sold at outdoor gear stores for $20 to $40, ditty bags are a tidy guy getaway gift!
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