A Story About A Hat

[emptysea]

I was not sure whether to post this in the General Discussion area, the Gear area, or even the Seat Time area. I opted for General Discussion, but if the powers that be feel like it should be moved, they should feel free to do so.

This story was originally a Facebook post from January, 2013. I have made some amendments and additions to the original and I thought you, my fellow CB riders, might enjoy my story about a hat.

Do you have a Hat?

______

Here's a story about a hat. I thought I had lost this hat, but today I decided to purge the dozens of hats, caps really, that were littering my closet, our coat rack, my work area, even the laundry room. These hats had served their purpose and now were just collecting dust over the sweat marks and paint and grease splatters. They were just hats. In the course of The Great Hat Purge of 2013, I narrowed my collection to about ten caps and found THE Hat, which had been missing for months.

The Hat has NSI (an insurance company) embroidered on it. I'm not sure if you can tell in the pictures, but the inside is close to its original color, navy blue. The outside, is weathered, faded, sweated, and aged to a silver-gray. Only the stitching on the seams retain something close to the original color.

[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/486127_10151358767253672_2110262437_n_zpsbc226695.jpg.html]
[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/556377_10151358767428672_1240822365_n_zps0145b489.jpg.html]

The Hat has covered my own fading and aging head on numerous family camping trips, with my brothers and sisters in law, nieces and nephews, to Wisconsin and Michigan. It has been to Florida for a multi-family spring break This hat has been fly fishing in southwest Wisconsin with my fishing guru and friend Andy, on motorcycle rides with my wife and sailing with family members on Green Bay. It was on perched on my head when my daughter scored a goal against her biggest rival in water polo. But mostly the hat is The Hat because it protected my head on a week long kayak/camping trip with my son, Justin and other Boy Scouts and dads in the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior and again with mostly the same young men on a Boy Scout sailing trip called "Sea Base" in Florida.

The Hat has been on my head at some point on nearly every extended motorcycle trip I have taken. It has traveled under my bike seat or in my tank bag on some of the greatest roads in the United States..Stagecoach Trail in Illinois, C9Y in Iowa, Kettle Moraine Drive in Wisconsin, KY89 in Kentucky, US129 in Tennessee, Cherohala Skyway in North Carolina. The Hat accompanied me on 3 all-day Solstice Rides, on the Moonshine Lunch Run, On a group ride to the Smokies, for lunch with my friend Kelly, and for my solo ride back to Chattanooga for his funeral. The Hat has traveled through at least 16 states, all but a handful on motorcycle trips.

[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/1549389_10152290444253672_9009092066332497177_n_zpsd8b2e7ba.jpg.html]

[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/10174837_10152340564398672_3148877922690563730_n_zps355982a2.jpg.html]

[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/10177481_10152340565963672_7628880518080110917_n_zpsaab33848.jpg.html]

[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/10258752_10152323083563672_5819047633239894978_n_zpsec88a666.jpg.html]

[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/Bristol45_zps029d4e90.jpg.html]

The Hat reminds me of family, friends, teamwork, watching my son become a man, and most of what is great about my life. What the devil it was doing wedged in the back of my closet is beyond me.