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6:54am July 11, 2014
[Image: My dad with one of his famous hats, holding me as an infant on his lap.  It must’ve been important, because he had his hat on.] Here is what my dad writes about his favorite hat (he sent me this in response to my old post about how I learned the importance of hats, from watching him): My favorite hat of all time is one which I selected to wear on a 210 mile back packing trip.  I sat down with catalogues, looking for the most durable hat with the broadest brim I could find.  I needed the broad brim to keep the high altitude sun from frying my face and damaging my eyes.  The one I finally ordered was an Australian Army hat.  I wore it on the long trip down the cascade range in Oregon and it served me well.  I had to modify it to keep the back of the brim from hitting the backpack.   I used my hat to keep moisture from condensing in my boots at night.  One night while laying in my sleeping bag on the Montana side of the Bitteroot range, I watched in amazement while my hat slid off of my boots and continued sliding uphill.  I rolled over to come face to face with a porqupine who had taken a fancy to my sweaty leather chin strap.  I rescued my hat and finished the afternoon snapping pictures of the prickley bandito.   I used my hat to fan life into campfires and to shade my eyes while napping beside trails.  Once while fording a spring thaw swollen creek, a branch flipped my hat off and into the rushing water.  I threw my pack on to the opposite bank and ran down the bank.  Just as the hat started to sink under a roaring rapids, I swung my ice axe and rescued the hat by snagging the chin strap and hauling it out.  Somewhere in the Grand Canyon, I lost the hat band and the hat seemed to loose some of it’s character.  As soon as I arrived back home, I fashioned a new hatband out of nylon rope.  I decorated the hatband with feathers from a hawk which was killed by another hawk in a redwood forest.  The hat now had even more character than before.  Over the years and many miles in the mountains, the hat wore out and I replaced it with a new one of the same type.  The old hat still hangs on the wall just outside of my ham shack.  I put it on from time to time and look at myself in the mirror.  The memories come flooding back.

[Image: My dad with one of his famous hats, holding me as an infant on his lap.  It must’ve been important, because he had his hat on.]

Here is what my dad writes about his favorite hat (he sent me this in response to my old post about how I learned the importance of hats, from watching him):

My favorite hat of all time is one which I selected to wear on a 210 mile back packing trip.  I sat down with catalogues, looking for the most durable hat with the broadest brim I could find.  I needed the broad brim to keep the high altitude sun from frying my face and damaging my eyes.  The one I finally ordered was an Australian Army hat.  I wore it on the long trip down the cascade range in Oregon and it served me well.  I had to modify it to keep the back of the brim from hitting the backpack. 

 I used my hat to keep moisture from condensing in my boots at night.  One night while laying in my sleeping bag on the Montana side of the Bitteroot range, I watched in amazement while my hat slid off of my boots and continued sliding uphill.  I rolled over to come face to face with a porqupine who had taken a fancy to my sweaty leather chin strap.  I rescued my hat and finished the afternoon snapping pictures of the prickley bandito. 

 I used my hat to fan life into campfires and to shade my eyes while napping beside trails.  Once while fording a spring thaw swollen creek, a branch flipped my hat off and into the rushing water.  I threw my pack on to the opposite bank and ran down the bank.  Just as the hat started to sink under a roaring rapids, I swung my ice axe and rescued the hat by snagging the chin strap and hauling it out.

 Somewhere in the Grand Canyon, I lost the hat band and the hat seemed to loose some of it’s character.  As soon as I arrived back home, I fashioned a new hatband out of nylon rope.  I decorated the hatband with feathers from a hawk which was killed by another hawk in a redwood forest.  The hat now had even more character than before.

 Over the years and many miles in the mountains, the hat wore out and I replaced it with a new one of the same type.  The old hat still hangs on the wall just outside of my ham shack.  I put it on from time to time and look at myself in the mirror.  The memories come flooding back.

Notes:
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