I Lost My Hat!

If you know stuff about me you may know that I am a big fan of hats, especially what are commonly referred to as baseball hats.  Maybe it’s because I don’t have much hair left and need to protect my noggin from the effects of the hot Florida sun or maybe it’s that I like to make statements about my allegiances.   Or maybe it’s because I love my dog, Gunner, so much that I like to give him expensive chew toys that smell a lot like me. 

Anyway…like most who have an affinity for their fashion accessories, I do become attached to certain hats and they for one reason or another become a favorite.  There are a number of factors that play into a hat becoming a top hat in the rotation:

1. Comfort – it must be comfortable.  That’s first and foremost.  To paraphrase OJ’s Dream Team lawyers, “If it don’t fit, it ain’t sh**.”
2. Style – it has to have some sort of style.  To me, that means color, logo or team, embroidery, and size of the cap itself.  None of us want to look like Fred McGriff in that famous informercial of a bunch of years ago.
3. Appropriateness – it has to be appropriate for the occasion.  I like the woolen fitted baseball caps a lot, but it is too hot to wear to a spring training game. 
4. Coordinated – it has to be coordinated with whatever you are wearing.  I like green hats, especially the well-worn cotton ones, but putting a green hat on with a red shirt makes me look like Christmas.  It just doesn’t work.

So, what does all this have to do with FoodProductLaunch.com.  Well, everything and nothing at all. 

The hat in question was a Nike Featherlight, not the most expensive hat I’ve ever had and definitely not the least expensive.  As far as the above criteria go, I would give it a 10 for comfort – they don’t call it featherlight for nothing, a 7 for style – it’s actually kind of fugly, a 9.5 for appropriateness - I was wearing it on a cruise and needed something exactly like this hat, and a 10 for coordinated - because it matched everything that I wore or would be wearing on a tropical vacation.

What made this particular cap so special? 

See those vents in the cap?  One day a few years ago, I decided to take a few knick-nacky pins that I had lying around the house and pin them to the vents on either side of the hat.  There were about 6 or 7 small pins including: a Norge pin that I had gotten in Norway (there’s a joke there having do with plumber’s crack), a Buffalo pin, an insignia pin for the unit my father served in during WWII - the 14th Armored Division (AD) - and last, but certainly not least, a service pin that I had gotten from a three letter acronym agency I had worked at for over 20 years. 

I have not worked there for a long time and I’ve had recurring dreams that I am stuck inside that Agency’s more than four walls and I cannot get out because I no longer have an identification badge.  How I get in, I never know, and in my dream it’s like the Hotel California.

I was on a cruise to Mexico with my wife and my sister and my brother-in-law a little bit of time ago and I took to wearing that hat every day. As luck would have it I had taken the 14th AD insignia pin off the hat and had given it to my sister that morning at breakfast.   The only pin with any other real significance left on the hat was the 20 year service pin, which I was very proud of.

We got off the ship and went into town (town is a loose term meaning a place consisting of only tourist traps) and had a nice time avoiding all the people trying to sell us stuff.  (Where is that sarcasm font?)  On the way back, we hopped into a cab and were left off at the docks where our cruise ship was.  The cab then vanished amidst all the other yellow colored sedans.

On the way to the ship, I realized that in my search for my cruise card to get back on the ship, I had not only lost it, but I had lost my hat.

My hat!  My f***ing hat with all my cool f***ing pins.  Dagnabbit.

I was so mad.  I was spitting fire and smoke was coming out of my ears.  I ranted all the way in to the ship.  I was snapping at my wife and my sister, but not my brother-in-law because he’s still a weightlifter. 

After I calmed down about 3 weeks later, I realized that there was a reason that I lost THAT hat.  It was meant to be lost.  It was supposed to be gone.  It had tangible evidence of my former life.  One that I am no longer even loosely affiliated it with.  I am a foodie.  I’m an entrepreneur.  I like to help people get through the process of going from Kitchen to Market.  I’m not that three letter agency guy anymore and I never will be again. 

Maybe it took me losing that hat to realize that important fact.

TJ Gallivan

© foodproductlaunch.com 2014 All Rights Reserved.  We encourage you to repost this blog in its entirety.  If you choose to use portions of it…give credit where credit is due.