When I was a kid I always wore a hat. People said it would make me go bald, but that didn't deter me. We couldn't wear hats at school. I didn't wear a hat to church or the dinner table. Any other time I was wearing a hat. When I say hat I mean what some people call a ball cap. I didn't wear fedoras or any other type of hat with a funny name. I guess I got this from my dad. He always wore a hat too. Growing up in a farming community hats were as much a part of the male wardrobe as blue jeans or underwear. Farmers are notorious hat wearing people. They get them free from John Deere or the seed company or the rice mill or somewhere else. I say they are free. Last I checked a big John Deer combine cost a few hundred thousand dollars so free is a relative term.
I started collecting hats for some reason. It seemed like as good a thing as any to collect. Why are stamps and coins any better than hats. I got a hat from everywhere I went. I bought twenty different hats to wear. I was like a woman with her shoes. I had a hat for every mood. It was out of control. I never counted my hats, but surely I had 100. Eventually I threw them out and got my addiction under control.
I still wear a hat a lot of the time. This summer I am playing softball. I play co-ed church league which is not exactly at the top of the competitive ladder. It's still a lot of fun to get out and play. Of course for softball games I must wear a hat. After all it is called a ball cap. To be like his daddy Braden got his first ball cap last week. He wore it to my softball game this weekend. Surprisingly he didn't seem to mind the hat. He wasn't always trying to take it off and cast it away. He looked good in a hat, and I am sure he will wear them right along with me through his youth.
I only hope this early affinity for hats doesn't mean he will have an unhealthy obsession with them like his old man.
