Some sit at the feet of well-groomed professionals crammed

aboard commuter flights. Others rest atop polished boardroom tables where

executives conduct multimillion-dollar business deals. Wherever there’s

important business, you’ll find briefcases and attachés, along with computer

cases and more casual, but fashionable, messenger bags. The mystique

surrounding these worthy companions leaves many wondering, “What’s inside?”

Robert L. White III of Litchfield, Nelson & Co., a

Naples financial planning and management firm, puts it like this: “Once you

reach the briefcase stage in life, it becomes like an appendage—you seldom let

it out of your sight.”

For nearly 18 years, White carried a large document case

until its condition was so tattered and torn that a replacement was inevitable.

“My mother came to visit and when she saw my briefcase she was shocked and

astonished that I was carrying something so ratty,” White says. “She ended up

buying me a new one for my birthday.”

Even so, White still found it hard to part with his old

sidekick. After all, it had been a faithful companion for him during his

travels. Clients and colleagues would tease him that he could live out of the

case for days. White carried everything from dog treats (his two golden

retrievers often accompany him to work) to a cell phone, pens, pencils,

notepads, a hairbrush and Tic Tacs. The rest of the four-and-a-half-inch wide

Italian leather attaché held an abundance of paperwork. Now, he says, “It’s

having a well-deserved rest.”

With the smaller-size case, White has been forced to whittle

down the contents—at least as far as paperwork. The bag now contains no more

than one night’s worth of work. “We used to have a long-standing debate here in

the office as to why I would take so much stuff home from work,” he says. “Now

I take only one or two items that I know I’ll complete. That way I feel like I

have accomplished what I needed to do instead of feeling that there still is a

pile of work to finish.”

Dawn Litchfield, a colleague of White’s who often appears as

a financial commentator on local FOX News affiliate WFTX, bought an Italian

leather case for her daughter 10 years ago, but it wasn’t her daughter’s style.

Litchfield ended up adopting it, exchanging her old, plastic briefcase for the

soft, luxurious attaché. Now, Litchfield is attached to the case. “The latch is

broken and it needs a little saddle soap, but it still works,” she says.

Litchfield stores some unusual items in her attaché.

Attached to the handle is a small can of mace and a plastic box called the

“screamer.” Inside, there’s a sewing kit, a first aid kit, an old address book,

a battery (in case her garage door opener needs a replacement, she says), a

tool kit, a bottle opener and a “wine opener, of course.” Because she doesn’t

carry a purse, she packs her makeup bag, hand cream, perfume and wallet inside,

too. She even has a photo album with pictures of her boyfriend and a five-leaf

clover laminated for luck. As she continues to pull out the case’s contents,

she finds a Zone bar and a permanent marker.

Along with her briefcase, Litchfield totes a large, plastic

file box tied to a luggage cart. This serves as her traveling office, saving

her the trouble of lugging paperwork from her car to her office or home.

Chuck Mohlke, chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee

of Collier County and a longtime Naples resident who was instrumental in bringing

public transportation to the area, has three briefcases. Each serves a special

purpose.

A transparent binder with folders allows him to find what he

needs without digging through “a bottomless briefcase.” A dark green canvas bag

carries bulky items. His black briefcase, which is expandable and has a strap,

“works best particularly if I’m traveling overnight because I can put it over

my shoulder when I’m schlepping through the airport,” says Mohlke, a partner in

the Naples marketing research firm Fraser and Mohlke.

Dr. Janet Childs knows the burden of carrying her life in

her arms. She and her husband Brian, both dentists in Naples, juggle operating

a busy practice with raising three boys. Their shared briefcase reflects their

shared responsibilities.

“For years I carried a purse and as many things as I could

fit in my arms.” says Janet Childs. “I

usually would end up making multiple trips from my car to the office. The girls

[who work in the office] got tired of seeing me lug stuff back and forth, so

they gave me a briefcase last year for Christmas and now I can’t go anywhere

without it.”

E. Barry Marley, sales manager for Germain BMW in Naples,

traded character for functionality with his recent purchase of a Tumi bag. When

his beloved leather Hartman was forced into retirement, he embarked on a quest

to find a worthy replacement. “The reason I got the Tumi is because it has a

built-in suspension to protect my laptop,” he says. “It is also very roomy so

now I only have to carry one bag.”

Marley prefers the style of the Hartman to the Tumi but the

tweed Hartman he wanted was discontinued. “To me, a briefcase says something

about you. I like something elegant and with character,” he says. His new Tumi

holds a brochure on Cabbage Key, “in case you want to go buy a boat,” and

pictures of his wife and his boat. A pocket PC travels alongside the laptop,

allowing Marley to download all his contact information from his desktop PC to

his pocket PC when he’s on a business trip.

Lance Donavan, a Southwest Florida real estate agent, is

content carrying only a Palm Pilot. The pocket-sized contraption has an

Internet connection through Avantgo.com, which allows Donavan to have access to

the daily bank rates and nearly 5,000 contacts. He also checks out the

“joke-a-day” and Maxim online. The New York Times Book Review, Planet F-1.com

(for Formula One racing), the Smart Stock trader and The Timberjay, an obscure

publication in northern Minnesota where Donavan and his family own property,

are all available at his fingertips. “I carry this everywhere and anywhere in

any condition except underwater,” Donavan says. “I don’t even have a watch

anymore. I only have two things—my car key and this thing.”

Dr. Jeffrey E. Fabacher, a Naples psychiatrist, still uses a

bag from a four-piece luggage set that he converted to a briefcase nearly 15

years ago, shortly after he completed his residency. “It’s like an old

shoe—it’s frayed a little bit, but it still works,” he says. “I like it because

it’s soft and has a lot of compartments and it doesn’t look like your typical

Yuppie briefcase.”

In the bag, Fabacher carries an application for an MBA

program that he thinks he’ll take someday and a gift certificate he has yet to

use. He also has a 20-year-old address book as well as pictures of his family.

He even has information for a trip he plans to take to Honduras to help build

homes for the homeless. “The irony is I schlep this stuff home every night even

though probably 29 nights out of 30 I never do anything with it,” he says. “But

invariably when I’ve left it, I’ve needed it.”

A Brief History

Originally traced to ancient Chinese boxes of ink and quills

and later designed to accommodate lawyers’ briefs, the bags are now as varied

as the professionals who carry them.

There was a time, however, in 19th-century England when the

only way to get a “brief bag” was from a king’s counsel, who passed out the

then-purple brief bags to rising juniors whose bundles of briefs were getting

too large to carry in their hands.

Taking the once-conservative briefcase into the future,

high-tech advances include bags made with nearly indestructible “superfabrics”

and an array of cases with inserts that can be customized to accommodate a

laptop or notebook computer.