I always do it...I'll wear a hat while working in the yard or doing some other activity and the hat gets funky, so I'll toss it in the wash. Can't have a funky hat, now, can we?
I should not wear my favorite hats while working up a sweat so I won't need to toss them into the washer and dryer where they get chewed up but good. And once they start to fray, well...it's only a matter of time.
Being a bald man, I have a certain affinity to hats. They're not just head coverings. They have their own personalities, their own characteristics. No two hats are the same, even if they follow one another off an assembly line. Hats protect me from sunburns in the summer (which totally suck...), and a frozen head in the winter. Back in my father's day, all men--no matter if they had hair or not--wore hats. They were as much a part of a gentleman's wardrobe as a pair of shoes. Personally, I'd love to see that return because the hats were wicked cool, but those days never will return...it's a shame.
All things wear out. In the grand scheme of things, hats last a relatively short time, as compared to, say, rocks, or VW beetles, or grudges between sports teams and their fans. And if you wear those hats overly, it expedites the deterioration process.
If I'm careful, I can nurse the collection of fabric and stitching and see how long it'll last. Hopefully, a bit longer. But, when it's time, I'll go the way of all things. It'll have no future--no one will necessarily want it, even though it's a trophy of sorts...A Koval Award from 2018. And when it's retired, I'll hold fond memories of the hat.
For it will be replaced by another selection...most likely not a trophy, but another friend to offer comfort, to shield me from dangerous rays, or bitter cold, or the revelation to the world of my lack of hair. For many, it's just an old hat. To me, it's something more.
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