A Man of Many Hats.....well, one or two, and a few ball caps

What started as a comment on my wall on another blog site, then noted by my "lady" mentioned a couple of lines down, is to be the subject of this blog. Someone observed the hat that I wear in the profile photo I have posted on both blogs and inquired as to its origin, current fate, and any "comical" stories????? about it. So here dear girl, is the "story you recommended I make it into.

While my day to day attire normally includes a gimme, bubba ball cap from Costa Rica, or South Padre Bank, or my black, jalapeno print cap from Marble Falls Marine, I do indeed still wear my "Pat Hat" as my lady refers to it, quite proudly, on many occasions from dining in or out with friends, to the occasional Jackson Browne, David Gray, or Jimmy Buffett concert. When I am not wearing it, it becomes the headwear for a wooden bear carved from a tree with a chainsaw, that I purchased from a roadside vendor in Colorado years back, that sits in a display case full of various Gulf rig coral, antique mike nelson scuba gear I have retired, various collectible musical instruments, antique glass insulators I unscrewed from pole lines I dismantled with the death of the railroad communications system many years ago, and a host of books and atlases, and last but not least, the one eared teddy bear my folks bought for me before I was born, almost sixty years ago. No, I don't think I have ever written a piece on that hat, just as I have never written a piece on my favorite old purple and black ski parka, or my last cool pair of shades I bought, when I could still see without prescription spectacles. I have had a few compliments on it, when on the town, but this is the first time anyone was ever really focused on it as an "inquiring mind", looking for some in depth info on it....... It was a gift from a dear friend who on occasion, wears one similar to it, and bought it for me after he saw them on some old Portuguese guys on a European vacation, and deemed it something that he thought I must have. He is an old wordsmith, and retired newspaperman, who has likely forgotten more about story telling, old time printing, journalism and newspaperin' than most modern "journalists" will ever learn. "