Mehring Monday: Return to the Planet of Hats

This is an update on the Mehring Monday from before Christmas. It's an update because I didn't realize I had this many hats.

Eight weeks ago, I started posting one picture per day of my hat collection. This collection was found in a bag in my basement. I thought it would only take about a month to get through them and I could move on to something else.

How wrong I was.

Today I got up to Day 57 when I posted a photo of a cap I received as a present from my parents for a trip they took to Alaska a few years ago.

I'm not even halfway through this bag. I have a feeling that it is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

I'm not even to the dozens of hats that are in my regular rotation. Well, maybe not dozens, but I do have a bunch of hats that I will wear when I need to.

There have been a lot of memories from these hats. The oldest one that I have found was one from my old Pony League team. There are also hats from my varsity baseball team and American Legion team.

Some of the bars that I frequented and the colleges I attended are also represented. The bars outnumbered the colleges.

Places that I have worked, trips that I have taken, and games that I have been to with giveaways all were commemorated with hats.

A movie that could have got me into archaeology instead inspired me to add a fedora to my personal millinery.

But, the majority of hats are for baseball teams. I have several from my old Northern League days (Dukes and RedHawks). There are plenty of Brewers hats along with a surprising number of Cubs hats. I also have two Dayton Dragons hats. I would apologize for that, but one is blaze orange and I couldn't turn that one down when it was offered to me.

It is not surprising that Appleton Professional Baseball accounts for a lot of these hats. The throwback caps to the Papermakers, Fox Cities Foxes, and Appleton Foxes are in there, but I have so many Timber Rattlers caps it's a little ridiculous. There are giveaway caps, Brewers Sunday caps, and just normal game caps.

The big question is: What should I do with a lot of these hats when I am done accounting for them?

Several of them have been "smushed" from being in that bag for the last few years. Many are faded from wearing outside. A couple of hats have sweat stains from being a hat I wore when exercising (Please, don't laugh). One or two are missing fasteners on the back. A few of those hats probably should never be worn in public by anyone ever again.

I'm not keeping these caps for a plot point like in that one episode of Life, the underrated series starring Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi, that Ben Hill wrote about here and here.

I know I should "downsize", but - in case you haven't noticed from the last several years of these columns - I tend to be sentimental. Each of the hats in my collection has at least one story behind it along with some pleasant memories.

Best move is just turning over an entire room in the trailer to these hats.

Just don't get me started on my bobbleheads or t-shirts.