It was time to take a shower when my hair hurt, not a second sooner. I didn’t care if I had mud on my lips or had been sprayed by a skunk, I wasn’t combining soap, water and my skin until my hair felt like a brillo pad that would crunch and crack if I touched it.
The good news is that this moment wasn’t as infrequent as you might suspect. I wore hats for every second of my pre-pubescent life and my hair hurt frequently.
At first I wore hats because I wanted to look like my baseball heroes. I wanted to be Wade Boggs, Marty Barrett, Jody Reed and Roger Clemens. Since I couldn’t grow facial hair and my parents wouldn’t let me wear a baseball uniform to school, baseball hats were the closest I could get.
My parents warned me of the perils of wearing a hat 24 hours a day. They used to say, “You’re going to go bald by the time you’re 18!!” To me this was a misguided threat. The only people cooler than baseball players were basketball players and they made being bald seem cool. Charles Barkley and Michael Jordon were both bald and cool. Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, while my favorite basketball players, looked like normal people who hung out in my town. Why would I want to grow up to look like the guy who shovels my driveway when looking like MJ was an option?
My obsession with hats hit a new high when I realized one day that I was in control of how I looked (which somehow was important to me all of a sudden). Before I had relied on my parents to provide me with hats, but now I was the boss and I could wear a turquoise hat if I wanted. I could wear a white hat that had an off centered logo if I was trying to appear “casual” and I could wear a bright red hat that said “Pogo” if I wanted everyone around me to know that I was a good time.
For most kids, 13 is a difficult year because their body is changing, they’re discovering girls for the first time and they’re stuck in a world where they’re not quite ready to embrace the act of growing up. For me, 13 was an incredibly difficult year. I couldn’t find a fitted hat.
Growing up to me meant wearing hats that could fit your head and no one else’s. It meant showing people you had elevated yourself from a world of adjustable hats and was ready to wear a hat backwards without your hair sticking out. The problem was, it was difficult to find a fitted hat in the size “pinhead.”
While my friends noticed their voices were changing, I noticed my head went from a round pumpkin-like shape to something that resembled a lava lamp. Nothing fit my small, pointy head correctly. Still, I spent the entire year looking for a hat meant for a head like a parking cone.
A year or two later, I was once again ready to expand my hat horizon. Baseball hats were well and good, but they were too casual for a sophisticated socialite like myself. I tried to simulate my brother, who wore a barrette, but for some reason it was difficult to see “sophistication” in the mirror when the barrette was overshadowed by the replica basketball jerseys I wore daily.
When my brother informed me that a hat should accent and not completely contrast your style I went to the thrift store and bought a woman’s blouse, thinking it would match the barrette better. I still can’t decide if I was way off or right on the money.
Somewhere along the lines, my obsession for hats abruptly ended. I’d like to think it was because my social activities changed and I started going to fancy dinners and fooling around with girls. But I think the real reason is that I just grew up and didn’t want to look like I did when I was 12 anymore.
Every once in a while, when I’m way beyond bored or seeking for a slice of unique identity, I consider wearing a hat to create an identity. I think of people who made their hat an icon and wonder if I could do the same. It worked for Indiana Jones. It worked for Abraham Lincoln (which, by the way, that tall, lanky, freak of a genetic disorder guy wearing a tall stove pipe hat is as overkill as a fat guy wearing a meatball on his head).
I think to myself, ‘What about a dunce cap or a civil war hat? Wouldn’t those instantly create an identity?’
The answer is yes. They would, but they’d be forced. I will never be able to wear a hat so sincerely and with such pleasure as I did when I was nine so what’s the point. Maybe I’ll find a hat that works for me, but right now, they all just like things that will make my hair hurt. Besides, I don’t need to wear a fedora for people to know that I’m a dick.
1 Comment
July 23, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I too had quite the not-so-fun softball experience a few years back. Let’s just say it involved a 20-year-old player on my team throwing the 60-year-old umpire into the ground when he was called out at third. It was the decisive call in the game, as it was the last inning (due to it getting too late, not because it was the 9th inning – a good sign that softball shouldn’t be taken seriously) and the last out. We were only down 19-3, so who knows what would have happened if he would have been safe at third – probably would have led to a 19-4 loss and a 60-year-old umpire with 3 missing teeth. Needless to say, I quit the team immediately – I prefer to leave my 60-year-old pounding sessions to more special occassions, like Tuesdays.