I think it was the late 80s or early 90s, but at some point, guys in my generation decided they should start wearing baseball caps.
I should say American guys made this decision, as we seem to be the only ones who have done it.
I should also add that other guys besides me started wearing hats, because until the last couple of years, I never embraced the trend.
That was partly a result of my big head. I never felt I looked all that good with a hat on. Plus, there's a certain reality to buying a hat for a large skull. Sometimes even the adjustable ones are uncomfortably tight.
I lived happily this way for decades. At the same time, starting in my mid-20s, I began losing hair on the crown of my head. This is a genetic thing and, hey, it happens.
One result was that, at least five times every spring and summer, I would be outside for an extended period and my bald spot would turn red and uncomfortable.
I've always just lived with this, never quite making the connection that, if I were to start wearing hats in the warmer months, I would not get these sunburns.
It was only when my wife strongly suggested I keep a supply of hats in my car that I started wearing them, and even then it's really just an occasional thing for me.
In fact, I'm recovering from a crown-of-the-head sunburn as I type this in mid-May because I didn't wear a hat recently when announcing a high school baseball game. The temperature was on the cool side, and apparently to my brain, that meant there was no danger of sun damage.
Which is of course silly and wrong. It doesn't have to feel hot for the sun to burn you.
So I'm trying to get myself into the hat habit. I have 3-4 baseball caps and a floppy brimmed hat in the car, all of which make me look exactly like what I am: A middle-aged suburban dad and soon-to-be grandpa trying not so much to be cool but rather to ward off melanoma from the top of my oversized head.
It's an ongoing struggle.
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