When we moved into our new home last October, one of the last items I loaded out of the garage wuz a wooden hat rack that wuz home to several old, decrepit cowboy hats that I owned. I just didn’t have the heart to pitch them into the trash. But, I hadn’t paid a whit of attention to that hat rack until last week when I spied it on a shelf in our garage.
When my eyes rested upon one particular cowboy hat, that sight triggered a long-held, treasured, personal memory of all that’s happened to that hat. It truly is a cowboy hat with a history — and I’ll share that history with you in this column. If you smile while you read it, then you’ve joined me, because I did, too.
The hat is an expensive, black, narrow-brimmed Resistol that I bought back in the 1970s at a western wear store in Iola, Kan. It spent several years as my dress cowboy hat. After it got a noticeable sweat stain ring around the brim, the hat graduated to full-time work and hunting hat. It wuz in that work-hat mode when I moved to Iowa.
Now, we get to the best part of that hat’s history. My closest neighbor and closest friend in Iowa was ol’ Nick deHyde. Nick is a dyed-in-the-wool sheep man. He has sheared sheep all over Iowa and down into Missouri for decades. He’s even sheared research sheep on contract for the government at a federal animal disease research laboratory in Ames .
He has always had a small ewe flock of white-faced sheep. He even hosted and ran the Iowa Ram Test Station for a few years. He loves training working Border Collies and has owned a bevy of good ones.
When I became Nick’s neighbor, I got involved in his sheep enterprises by osmosis. He could use my help. I wuz happy to provide it, and I enjoyed it.
When I moved in as Nick’s neighbor, he wuz in the final construction of a spanking new metal pole barn. It’s purpose wuz for all-things sheep. I arrived in time to get involved with the inside and outside pen building.
Nick had big plans for letting that new building pay for itself with sheep. The first enterprise he planned wuz to dry-lot two pot-loads of South Dakota feeder lambs during the winter when the Iowa ground wuz frozen and sell them when they reached market weight.
It wuz a sound business plan, except for one thing. That winter the Iowa ground didn’t just freeze up like normal and stay frozen. Instead it went into a cycle of freeze and thaw all winter. Of course, with every surface thaw the hooves of 400 sheep made the mud and muck deeper and deeper. Eventually, the feed lot because a four-inch quagmire of juicy, mucky, smelly sheep manure and mud — all underlain with a slippery layer of ice.
Anyone who knows sheep understands sheep perform best when it’s dry. Sheep and mud don’t’ mix well. The two get along like oil and water. I won’t get into detail, but suffice it to say during the whole feeding period, the lambs’ performance wuz less than ideal.
But, eventually, the bulk of the lambs survived the weather ordeal and were ready to ship. The sheep were going to a processor in southern Minnesota. For the lambs to arrive at their allotted time required that they be loaded out well before dawn at Nick’s feed lot.
Of course, on that cold March shipping day, I volunteered to help with the load-out. I rolled out of my warm bed around 4:30 a.m. The trucks arrived promptly. The load out began. And so did my hat’s most remarkable history episode.
Wearing my gum boots, I entered the sheep pen and began herding the lambs toward the loading chute. Nick, his Border Collies, and I were all slopping through the muck. But, at a most inapportune moment, the moving mass of sheep knocked me off balance on the slippery under-lying ice layer and down I went into the mire. My Resistol flew off and instantly disappeared into the slop under hundreds of sheep hooves. I righted myself unhurt but carrying a few extra pounds of liquid sheep excrement. I knew my hat wuz a goner.
So, I worked bareheaded until the last lamb wuz loaded and the trucks headed down the road. I didn’t even look for my hat. I went home, showered and warmed up. The mucky mess in the feed lot refroze solid. I, frankly, forgot about that Resistol.
But, a few weeks later, the ground thawed and Nick saw the brim of my felt hat peeping from its nether-world. He gingerly plucked it out and plopped it over the top of a feed lot fence post. There it forlornly hung through all the Iowa spring downpours. Finally, I retrieved the sodden, misshapen hat and took it home, where I somehow convinced ol’ Nevah to wash it. Of course, the inner lining wuz gone, but, surprisingly, the narrow hat band wuz still attached.
But, after the thorough washing, to my surprise the ol’ Resistol didn’t stink of sheep manure. So, I wet it down again with clean water and re-shaped it into wearable condition. I wore it a few times after that, but, mainly, I retired it to the hat rack in my garage. I’ll bet there are few felt western hats in America with a history like my ol’ Resistol,
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I read in the aggie press that it took only a few weeks for the newly-introduced gray wolf predators in the Colorado Rockies to start killing calves and yearlings. That wuz as predictable as the sun rising in the east. But what to do to solve the problem?
I think I have a solution. For every cow, horse or sheep that the wolves kill, it should be mandatory that a randomly selected “wolf lover” has to turn one of their beloved pets loose in wolf country. I think that would soon put an end to the cries for “more wolves.”
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I neglected to mention that my best Colorado friend — retired carpenter and fisherman extraordinaire Sawyer Bord — recently stopped for a short visit. Sawyer told me he’s just about completed his fishing bucket list. His goal is to catch a fish in all 50 states. The only two he’s missing (I think) is Ohio and Hawaii. Now that’s dedicated fishing.
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Words of wisdom for the week: “An apology is the best way to get in the last word.” Have a good ‘un.
