Monday, March 25, 2013

The King of All Hats



My dad is a do-it-yourself-er. Always has been. He spends a lot of time outside and has found that his ears get sunburnt quite easily. So he wears a hat. A baseball cap (I'll call it that, but it was mostly a farming supply company hat... I can't recall him ever wearing a hat with a baseball team logo...) doesn't protect his ears. So he has switched to a straw hat. He picked up his latest one from Ace Hardware for $4.99.

About a month ago, my dad spent the afternoon working on the roof. His back was to the sun, and he ended up with a bad sunburn on the back of his neck. He thought that what he needed was a Legionnaire's style hat, one like he has seen the road construction crews wearing. Not being one to invest good money in a new hat, he decided that he could engineer an adaption to his current straw hat. 

For the fabric that would hang down the back, covering his ears and neck, he chose a very worn undershirt. I'm sure it had a hole, as well as yellow deodorant stains. He cut a rectangle from the shirt and proceeded to attach it to the hat. He felt that it would look a bit tacky, to have the yellowing holey undershirt attached to the brim, so he used his staple gun and attached it to the band.

Proud of himself, he went to find my mother and show off the new hat.

"That's great," she said, "but it doesn't cover your neck."

Alas, the piece of undershirt was not cut long enough.

Not wanting to waste a good scrap of used undershirt, my father cut a second piece to be used as an extension on the first. He then got out my mother's sewing machine. He was going to use it himself (no he has never sewed anything in his life, but it is a piece of machinery - how hard could it be?). My mother would have none of that, and said that she would sew it.

She was about to change the thread and bobbin color to white when my father said that it didn't matter, he was okay if the thread color did not match the used and stained undershirt extension. So my mother left in the navy thread, and quickly zipped it through the machine. The new hat, with the two pieces of used undershirt hanging off the back, was now perfect.

And he wore it proudly for a few weeks. But then the straw was beginning to fray and break off. He removes the hat by grabbing it at the same place each time, and it was developing a weak spot. This too could be re-engineered. So my father added a strip of packing tape to the brim of the hat, to reinforce the cracking straw. He thought, for aesthetics, that clear packing tape would look best. I am so glad he took that into account. However, the packing tape did not hold up very well, so he went back to the drawing board. It worked in principle, but just didn't attach itself very well to the hat. So he asked himself, what is the best adhesive he knows of... and the answer to this, for my father, is and always has been caulk.

With aesthetics once again at the forefront, he proceeded to add a layer of clear caulk to the brim of the hat, to reinforce the fraying sections. This also served to keep the packing tape attached. It is not a fine bead of caulk, mind you, but he smeared it over the entire surface of the brim of the hat.

Now, his hat is set. He is proud. But he is a bit concerned about appearances, so when he goes to McDonald's for coffee he will tuck the used and worn undershirt up into the top of the hat. That way only the brim (with it's packing tape edge) and coating of caulk can be seen.