My history in hats

When I was riding the ferry to Vancouver Island earlier this month and again when I was in a gift shop in Nanaimo, I found myself looking at hats and thinking back to my own history with hats, which really started in the 1980s.

Brought to you by Ford
It really all started at a mini-basketball tournament in Grade 5, so that would have been the spring of 1980. Our team had a pretty phenomenal run, going undefeated in regular season, then winning this massive county tournament in Picture Butte, beating our archrival McNally in the final.

All that was left was our league post-season tournament, which was at McNally and we again faced them in the final. That would be the only time in the two years we lost to them. What I will always remember more than the silver medal, which had an actual chain, not a ribbon, was the hat that went with second place. They were blue, and most were from Sur-Gain, a farm chemical company. I received one of the only ones from Ford.

It was a nice hat I literally wore for decades working in the sugar beet fields, playing outdoors on the farm, and even as an interior painter at the University of Alberta the summers of 1993 and 1994. I thought it had died until I unearthed when I was cleaning out my Mom’s basement a couple years ago. It was greasy, and old, so I took a picture of it then put it out of its misery once and for all.

That piece began my history in hats.

Seeing red
Every summer we used to go to Whoop-Up Days in Lethbridge, and one of my favourite parts was the carnival games on the midway. One year, maybe 1982 or 1983, I knew I was still in junior high anyway, I saw some guys wearing Major League baseball batting helmets. They were actually just plastic hats, but they caught my eye.

I wanted one, and I found the actual booth offering them up as prizes. The one that really caught my eye was an orange one for the Houston Astros who, along with the Montreal Expos, were my favourite National League teams.

So, I tried to win that Astros hat. I did end up winning a prize, but it was not the Astros’ hat. The next one off the shelf was the Cincinnati Reds. Still, it was pretty cool. But that’s not the hat.

Instead, a couple years later, my Mom and I were at the SAAN store in Coaldale, and there were hats on sale for a buck or two. They were all pretty non-descript, but one was different – it was a Cincinnati Reds hat. It didn’t have the plastic thing at the back to adjust the size of the hat. It just had an elastic that stretched like a pair of pants on your head.

Being a bit of a completist, I bought that hat to go with the helmet. The original idea was to wear it underneath the helmet. That was something some of the major leaguers of the time did, such as Lloyd Moseby of the Toronto Blue Jays.

That hat sat in a drawer for a few years. Then, for some reason long forgotten, I resurrected it and took it with me to Edmonton in the fall of 1988 for my second year of university. I started wearing it playing basketball on the outdoor courts then, when I started jogging in the late fall of 1988.

Coupled with my glasses, that had “Harry Potter”-sized lenses, my friend James Taylor said I looked like Chris Sabo. He was the energetic third baseman for the Reds who was blonde and wore goggles on the field.

I could see the resemblance in the mirror.

I loved that.

Nothing at all
The first hat I really started wearing regularly, came to me in the 1987-1988 school year, my first in university.

Kim McDonald was one of my best friends at the time. We had met living on the same floor in res. Through a series of circumstances, she moved off our floor, 10th Kelsey, down to Fourth Kelsey. I helped her pack up and move her things.

This hat fell out of a laundry basket full of her possessions. It was white with black netting and no logo whatsoever. I kind of liked it, and thought it would be cool to wear a hat. She said it was from her baseball team.

She really didn’t have a use for it, so she gave it to me.

It also symbolized our friendship, which did change after she moved.

Incidentally, a year later, I was living on Fifth Kelsey. One of my floormates was named Peg and she noticed something. Back then, I wore this white t-shirt with three-quarter length dark blue sleeves and no logo or graphic of any kind.

One day, I was wearing the hat and that shirt. Peg called me “The no-name man” because there were no logos in sight.

I like to think I was ahead of my time, rejecting advertising and the commercialization of clothing.

Cor-vet not Corvette
That same year, 1988-1989, I lived across the hall from a guy named Lorne Zaparniuk. He said he was from Coronation, because that was where he went to school. Yet, as I got to know him, he revealed he was actually from Throne, a hamlet between Coronation and another community called Veteran.

Lorne’s dad Ed had a construction company. He had a sense of humour and, since it was located between Coronation and Veteran, he named his company Corvet Construction.

During that period, Lorne gave me a hat from Corvet Construction that I wore proudly.

It was the only denim ball cap I ever owned.

King Louis swag
That same year, I was the floor coordinator for Fifth Kelsey. One of my duties was to sit on Hall Council, which was made up of all the floor coordinators in Kelsey Hall. One of its main tasks was to organize King Louis, a week-long festival of events in January.

The hall vice-president, who was our illustrious leader, was Joselynne Scoble. She was an innovative thinker, and a great leader. One of her ideas was to have more merch or swag for King Louis. Up to that point, t-shirts were pretty much the only things, especially for hall events.

Joselynne changed that, adding mugs to t-shirts and – hats. The King Louis hat was blue with no stenciling but a patch sewn on the front with that year’s logo of King Louis, which was a lion. I ended up buying one and abused it playing basketball.

Hurricane force
Again, later that same year, after King Louis, I went home to the farm to see my family over either Easter or Reading Week. My brother was home too, visiting from Calgary. We both heard the Swift Current Broncos were coming to Lethbridge to play the Hurricanes. The Broncos were the best team in the Western Hockey League, and odds-on favourite to win the Memorial Cup.

My brother suggested we go to the game. So he drove us to the Sportsplex in Lethbridge where the Broncos were every much as good as their hype. They were strong, fast and talented, beating the Hurricanes I think by a score of 7-3.

Before the start of the second period, I had visited the souvenir stand and picked up a Hurricanes hat. It was white with the original ‘canes logo.

It was also the first, and I believe only, corduroy hat I ever owned.

Lime green Molson Canadian
By the fall of 1989, I was in my third year of Education and it was getting more serious, because the student teaching rounds were starting second semester.

I thought I would try and get more involved with my faculty. I had befriended a fourth-year Education student named Kevan Farrell, and he had heard about this Education slow-pitch tournament.

It was at a nearby diamond off campus and all we had to do was show up, after Kevan signed us up.

We got put on this team of others who just showed up. Everyone else seemed to know each other and had come organized in their own teams.

Well, we weren’t bad and won our first two games. In the second one, I had an experience I will never forget. The Dean of Education, R.S. Patterson was on the other team. Everyone was treating him with kid gloves, letting him walk or have more than three strikes. They called it dean’s rules. I thought it was garbage. Well, he got on base and was advancing to second. I played shortstop and was covering the bag. The ball came and, as I tried to apply the tag, he roll blocked me. Of course, they called him safe – he was the dean.

We untangled and he smiled, as there was a little break in the action. Some rain was falling.

“You should be playing football,” I muttered, mostly joking.

He said he liked football, especially when he was at Michigan State.

I asked him if he ever knew any of the Spartans.

He replied he taught a class with Bubba Smith in it. The big defensive lineman would walk in, wearing sun glasses, sit down and say, “Teach me something.”

We both laughed.

Anyway, our rag tag crew advanced all the way to the finals. On the other team, unbeknownst to me, was my best friend Chris Vining. He always had a habit of winning.

Kevan and I saw the prize table. The winners got these tiny trophies. The runners up got these lime green Molson Canadian hats.

I went back to our team, who pretty much all had seen the same thing.

We had this big guy named Joe, who looked kind of like Herman Munster.

“I think I’d rather have a hat,” he said.

We all agreed.

So, we did try, but we lost that final and got our wish – lime green Molson Canadian hats.

And we hoisted them just like if they were championship trophies.

Parting thoughts
Over the years, I have continued to accumulate hats. There have been a lot with special meanings of their own.

Yet, none compare to those first ones from the 1980s, because they got it all started.