Hat hangin'

With all this talk of houses I remembered having gone on a tangent on hats. Particularly, the ol' saying that home is where you hang your hat has taken on multiple meanings for me. For one, I've had a hard time keeping hats in my possession. It's as if my hat hangs at the last place I lost it. I miss some of those hats. RIP. So... I'm a man of many hats, in a matter of speaking. And I tend to like that diversity. I don't endorse particular products, teams, or bumper sticker philosophies for such extended periods of time like Nascar race winner interviews who switch multiple hats while drinking multiple beverages from their car's sponsors. It's hilarious that their victory speeches almost mimic their costume changes...."I'd like to thank Budweiser, my king, Jesus, my savior, my pit crew for the gas and rubbers, and the new blueberry flavored energy drink for the colorful pee stain down my pants, etc...."

But I digress....

Hats. Pictured on top is one of my fav's, still in my possession, perched atop Hope Peak, in Resurrection Valley on Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage, AK. Not a bad place to hang my hat if I do say so. If you ask me, and most people don't, I'd say it was 10 miles high if it wasn't 2. This incredible hike was payback for a crazy bike tour of Mpls that I gave Jeff (pictured) a few months earlier. While I apparently left him for dead (easy pickin's), this hike left me hobbling for a week afterward. I thought my knees were going to buckle every time I went down a flight of stairs....not from soreness or pain so much as a feeling that my muscles lacked the strength or stability to negotiate the weight. And this went on for a week...seriously. Needless to say that this experience sticks out in my head.

This is where I think the ol' saying lends more meaning than I had originally considered. Instead of picturing the typical finale to an 8 hour day culminating in the return to the nest like Mr. Rogers hanging his jacket in the closet, I'm extending the idea past simply answering the "where" you lay your hat to include the situation leading up to it, what has made it the place to lay your hat.

Honestly though, all my hats are on a hanger in my apartment and I don't often even wear a hat (albeit a fashion decision or for hair loss prevention), but when I do, it is humorous to conceive of how a hat's diary might read and tie that into what new meaning "home" derives from such background. While the Mr. Roger's example drowns in "normality", I'm stretching my imagination to find some unconscious corollary, that somehow the gesture of taking off one's hat marks a break in time, initiating hindsight and foresight after a period of constant now. It's works like removing a costume accessory to show one's true identity, taking a rest from an activity to view the accomplishment. In all of this there is a kind of positing of existence, the short term recollecting of thoughts and actions that have gotten you here. So yeah, here's one of my favorite hat hanging stories:

Going way back to my Xmas tree farm working days with Myron Jackson, one of the best mentors anyone could have, we took lunch on the ridge of the field of Xmas trees we had just shaped, half done and half not. Having arrived early enough to scare off some deer, we labored tree by tree only looking around to see how far down the next row the other guys were or which direction we'd send the leeder flying (a fun and exceedingly precision chop to complete a perfect tree trimming). By the time lunch came, the sun was reaching its apex, clothes were dirty, sweat mixed with sap over taut muscles, and the lap of machete cuts around a tree had become so effecient as to make John Henry proud. In times like this you relish the taste and purity of water knowing that its refreshing quality is more of a life force. It feels pretty good dumped over your head too, but you gotta take your hat off for that. Yep, that stinky sweaty hat. After shaking out your machete hand, taking the catcher's guard full of little nicks off my right leg (nothing makes you snap to attention like hearing machete slap against guard on a weak/off swing), grabbing sandwich and beverage out of the cooler before replacing the top to use it as a seat. And here it is....my dirty, sweaty hat is on the ground next to me, my legs stretched out to the sides, hunched over a bit, my entire posture revealing signs of fatigue and need for rest while my mind seems completely clear, alert, and open. With fresh air, blue sky, and the sounds of nature surrounding us, words weren't needed, especially between PB+J bitefulls, but in looking out over the field we see to our center and left all the gorgeous rows of perfectly trimmed trees that in a few hours time have turned from 6 or 8 yr old pine trees to potential centerpieces filled with magic for some lucky family's xmas celebration. Then, in looking to our right lies the other half of the field, untrimmed....waiting, but not for long.