Hat People

I have noticed that there are basically two types of people who enjoy the out of doors. Hat wearer’s and everyone else. I am a hat wearer. When you come into my house you will see hats. Some are worn and faded, showing the wear of many miles covering my head and shading the sun. Others look as if they just came out of the box, and probably have. The signs of wear does not necessarily denote their age. Like people from certain parts of the country, some just carry their age better than others do.

You see when you are a hat wearer you are not simply someone who wears a hat, not at all. It is part of your persona. It is who you are, you are a hat wearer, and you have hats for every occasion.

I for example have a few hunting hats. There are those that are orange for safety, ball caps mostly, and they usually denote some sort of logo or name to show all your buddies that you bought something from McAllistar or Orvis. This gives the illusion that you are more than a hat wearer, but someone who makes a statement with his hat. This if the truth be told that is exactly what we hat wearer’s do. We make statements about things that are near and dear to us.

But mostly we are just a superstitious lot. We have the hat we were wearing when that big striper took your spoon and now is on your wall. That is our lucky fishing hat. Never mind that you have never caught another fish while wearing it. It will always remain your fishing hat. Covered with two cycle oil stains, tattered and worn, covered with dried scales permanently embedded into the cloth. And a smattering of sunscreen that kept the bill from fading, but never kept you from getting burned. Nevertheless, the trips you take without it somehow just aren’t the same. It does not matter how many fish you catch, you always say. “if I had my fishing hat, I might have not lost that big one.” And the day is ruined before it even starts as soon as you realize that you picked up your lawn-mowing hat instead of your fishing hat.

You see a true hat wearer has a hat for everything, each hat unique to its function. It is not just a collection of ball caps; on the contrary, hats are a function specific item. No self respecting hat wearer will have an all for one hat. Why would one wear a tidal flats hat while fishing for trout in the Rockies? What need is there for that four-foot bill with the neck cover when you are at nine thousand feet? Likewise, the hunter will not wear blaze orange in a duck blind, nor will he wear his filson in the dove field. It just isn’t done. It is a perversion to those who paved the way for all of us. Hats are meant for the out of doors, a hat wearer is always conscious of his appearance, never does a hat wearer keep his hat on while inside. (unless you just came in from hunting camp where you haven’t washed your hair in a week.)

The good thing about a hat is that you can find them everywhere and they are seldom so expensive that your wife actually asks how much it was. I have found some of my best hats at surplus stores, and some of my worst at custom shops.
I have ordered them and I have found them at gas stations. But there is one certainty about a hat. A true wearer knows the instant the hat hits his head whether or not it will become one of his tried and true, or just another in the assorted pile. You see there is no such thing as “one size fits all” there are no heads the same, I as a matter of point have a head that falls exactly between a
7 1/8 and 7 ¼ . That makes me exactly a 7 3/16. There are no hats made that are 7 3/16. No amount of adjusting will make a 7 1/8 stretch to 7 3/16. And no amount of washing will make a 7 ¼ stay on my head. So I have to try it on, and when I do, I know. It is as instant as seeing that first girl across the room when you realized they were different from boys. You just know.

My wife has bought me hats, pretty hats, hats with class and demeanor. Hats that sit my closet shelf and gather dust because they are a 7 ¼ and I need a 7 3/16, or worse yet, hats that denote their size in small, medium and or large. How can someone know if a 7 3/16 is a small or medium? Does that mean that a 7-71/8 is a small and that 7 1/4 – 7 ½ is a medium? If that is true, I would hate to see those heads that would hold a large! The few heads that are larger than 7 ½ do not need hats, they need flower pots or buckets. Heads that big never looks right with a hat on their head. It comes closer to resembling the stem on a pumpkin. You know what it is there for, but it just does not look right.


I have sections for the different categories. I like to keep my fishing hats in the storage building so that my hunting hats do not smell like pork rind and plastic worm oil. But my hunting hats are also segregated. There are the bird hunting hats, usually orange, some are ball caps, others are full brimmed. One is from my father who never hunted in it, but I wear it for the reminder that it was his. On those days I don’t care if I kill a bird, or hit a target, that is not why I wear it.
Then there are the big game hats. I have a bonafide cowboy hat purchased in Cody, WY. That is my “picture taking hat” the one I pose in when I stand on a bluff overlooking a draw or when I am sitting by the fire. I would never think of actually hunting in it. That is what my hunting hats are for, I have too many to mention, but since you asked. There is the one I killed my moose in, that one is retired until my children want to hunt. They will start in that beanie hat. It is for them. Then there is the array of Gore-Tex hats with built in earflaps. This does not include at least one in every style of camouflage available. In every style, and at a definite 7 3/16!


There are those already mentioned, then I have in my room, piled onto posts of my dresser mirror. The list is long, and assorted including my leaf raking hat, lawn mowing hat, and car repair hat. Then there are the golf visors that I wear on both occasions that I play golf each year, and the play in the yard with the kids hats, the Indianapolis Colts hat that is reserved for watching the Colts on TV. My fly-fishing hats, one for using dry flies, and one for wet, and then there is the third for saltwater. It just stands to reason, that it is in our blood, like women and their shoes. Men who wear hats, have a hat for every occasion, and un-apologetically we wear them with pride, so long as it is the right hat for the right occasion.