Ratty Hatty

Every real man I know, has at least one--perhaps more--ratty hats..or rat hats for short. You know what I speak of...the ones that make our wives cringe when we wear them outside of the house. Dirty, torn, faded, perhaps even odorous. Oh, how we love them.

I just found a website the specializes in new hats that look worn. This is one of their items to the left. Now, come on, that's cheating. Like taking steroids. One has to buy the hat new and it must travel and travail through life before attaining the ratty hat status. No short cuts! It must be properly aged like cheese.

When I graduated from Temple with my Ph.D. last Spring, I thought it might be a good time to update my Temple hat. I looked and looked, and could not find anything to my liking at the bookstore. Now, I have been searching the Temple Bookstore website and I am convinced that they only put stuff that won't sell at the store on there. Kind of the scratched and dented can section of the store. Secretly, I think I am pleased to wear my old one. It shows that I have been around, paid my dues, been wearing the same hat for a decade.

Hats are the one piece of clothing that I deliberate upon purchasing, like a woman with shoes. I still don't understand how my wife says she has no shoes to wear when there are like 40 pairs in the garage and elsewhere in the house (for the record, Asian cultures leave shoes at the door on a mat or out in a garage or some other non-lived in space). There is more to a hat than just a hat to a man. We project a message, an identity, with what we wear. Hats are hierarchical.

Worness is a sometimes a sign of something that deserves veneration. It is said that a sign of a well-lived life is a well-worn Bible.