Provocative Symbolism

On the front page of my blog you’ve seen me wearing my Green Bay Packer hat for years now. I’ve been wearing it nearly every day since. The primary reason for doing so is that it sparks conversations with strangers. I love talking to strangers. In fact, one of my articles from about a year ago is called “Talk to Strangers”. It’s an easy way to make new friends. After about 2 minutes, we’ve exchanged names and which state or city we’re originally from.

The motivation for this article is that today has been a particularly productive day of making new friends. Starting at the gym this morning, the Green Bay hat sparked 4 separate spirited conversations with former strangers. A lot of laughs and one suggestion of getting together later over few cold ones.

A trip to the hardware store right after the gym sparked a long conversation with a guy who’s a huge fan of Vince Lombardi, the iconic football coach from the 1960’s. Surprisingly, this guy did most of the talking. Usually that’s my role.

The 3rd interaction occurred at the grocery store where a guy, maybe in his fifties, responded to the Packer’s hat with the usual question; “You from Wisconsin?”. He and I both had been long term residents of Milwaukee. Being 20+ years older, I was able to enlighten him with some not so complementary facts about the culture of Milwaukee in the late 50’s and 60’s. I’m not going to bore you here with details, but if you’re curious just “google” “Police Chief Harold Brier”. Some of the details — 30 years worth — are stunning.

Back to the point at hand. I also have New York and Chicago team hats which are fun to wear as they will flush out Yankee, Giants, Cubs, and Bear fans which presents the opportunity to needle them about their teams’ misfortunes. The conversations have never been less than cordial and always funny.

My “hat” habit triggered a Christmas gift wish idea which I can barely wait to share with my wife. I’m going to ask for a full set of NFL team hats. I think that’s 32. I can hardly wait to see her reaction after I let her know that each one cost’s about $30.

Sorry about the college football photo. Apparently the NFL is very strict about their trademarks.