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.