It was a hot day, I was working construction the summer before I left for university. This particular day was hotter then all the rest that season. A day in which sweat would more than mark the brim of my faded blue cap while I toiled beneath the hot sun, installing ten year old cedar trees along the back fence of a typical suburb yard with a very tempting pool. There was a thermometer along the fence that read that it was near 50 degrees Celsius. We all knew this couldn't be true, but recognized that it was hot enough to skew Canadian Tire's most trusted products. As the day came to a close, I put all the tools back onto the trailer and climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, and we tore off down the road, happy that another day and all the heat was behind us. I was dropped off at home, ready to go in and enjoy the air conditioning and some popsicles, when suddenly I realized something missing from the top of my head. I scoured my book bag but all that was left was empty plastic bags and a water bottle. I quickly thought to when I last had it; I'd laid it down on the trailer right before we drove off to wipe off my brow in victorious fashion for surviving the day. Oh shit I thought, and ran after the guys before they got too far. No luck. We'd driven across the city and although I could map out the route, what was the likelihood that the hat was not destroyed by the incoming Toronto workers speeding to get home? I ran in the house and called up one of my dearest friends, only a man of his calibre would be enough to give us a chance in finding my cap, plus he would've arriven home from work and had a car. So Corey quickly came by to pick me up and we set off. We went back to the dreaded house with a pristine oasis in the backyard that had tempted me to the day's end. Nothing. So we set off on a slow enough pace that had either of us seen something in the road, we'd be able to recognize between a garmet and one of the countless fallen birds with West Nile that were afflicting the area that summer.* There something was, about two kilometres from our starting point, sitting near the curb on Upper Middle Rd, at this time one of the busiest streets in Oakville. Corey made no hestitation to stop traffic completely while I got out to investigate. I held up the hat in victory. Neither crushed nor bent, it was in the same sweaty condition I'd left it in.After that adventure, I'd quickly come to realize the importance of this hat. Admitedly for the first while, I was slightly ashamed of the emblem emblazoned onto the back, an eagle with wings wide open. But nolonger do I feel that shame, I simply recognize that this hat, and only this particular unique one, was the single greatest product this company had ever made. It was like making 1,000 batches of creeps, tearing and breaking every one, for the one perfect 1001st. Recently, I found out that the wonderful girl I was dating at the time when the cap and I found eachother, didn't care for it at all, but even she quickly recognized the connection between man and trusty bearer-of-the-sun. The hat and I had met its double only once since we'd left the store. I never much cared for the gentleman that owned its evil twin, nor the shape that his hat was in. It was displicably hardly worn, I would've believed that he had bought it just that day. Still its original colour, the fabric still taut. After years of my owning the superiour original I'd completely forgotten which hue that was, but I realized now that the aging of this hat was similar to the aging of a fine scotch; terrible in year one, more than worthy in year six, only to get better as time goes on. But, there was a benefit of meeting this knowledgable man in his all too crisp brim. He asked me, Do you know what the phrase means? I was at a lose, what phrase? What on earth is he talking about? I had bought the hat completely because of the flag behind the words, the Union Jack, during my phase where I was appreciating my own great country a little less and my ancestors' deep roots a little more. I'd never thought The Hairy Dog Pub could mean anything more then a trendy idea of American Eagle's to sell pub and surf shop inspired clothing. It was hear when he told me, as I'll explain with wikipedia's words now, "Hair of the dog is a colloguail English expression predominantly used to refer to ingestion of alcohol as treatment for a hangover...It is a shortened form of the expression 'the hair of the dog that bit you.'" As much as I hardly remember his name and never wonder what it'd be like to speak to him again, learning this from him made me more happy than any other stranger has ever made me feel. Not only did this hat hold great meaning to me, it was also hilarious.
That was four years ago during my first year of university. Though I don't know when we first found eachother, the hat and I have been together for atleast six years if not eight. I don't care to look to find out the exact time frame because it would only demean what the hat actually means to me. Its greater than a number of years spent together, its the amount of experiences we've spent together. Personally, I think high school for me was a time of self-discovery more than for others. It was the first day of grade nine, beginning at a new school, that I started spelling my name Cris, without the H. Many people, when they find out my full name is Christopher but I go by Cris, probably think that it was because I wanted to be unique, stand out and do something I thought was cool. That's simply not the case. I started spelling my name without the h as a representation of change from my former self. I had problems just as everyone else did and does, and I was nolonger going to be slave to these problems. I was going to live differently. I look back now and I think to myself of how I've changed. My closest friends probably wouldn't even have took notice of these changes, because they came from and occured within. The way the cap fits into all this is that it has been there for mostly all of these changes too. It may have arrived a little late, but I've still continued to change and to grow, and ever since I bought it its been there with me, where ever I've been and hopefully where ever I continue to go. Its been to BC treeplanting, Nova Scotia for university, Cuba and Memphis and on many other vacations, and it'll be with in Australia, worn into the country as it always is whenever I travel, out of comfort knowing it won't be crushed while on my head.
The fit of the hat is like that of my own hair and like none other cap I wear. The flag and the brim lean ever so slightly to the left, and a thread has been frayed where the brim meets the bucket for atleast three years. the u in PUB is shorter on the right than the left because of a stray thread that had to be cut off many years ago. When I wear it, sometimes I think of the significance and where we've been, sometimes I just think of how comfortable it is, and sometimes I think nothing at all. But for all the above reasons, all the others I won't tell, and all the stories we've been through together, the hat that has no name is one of my Top Ten things in this world.
*West Nile really wasn't that bad, maybe a handful of birds perished in total and I had never seen one myself.
