Sunday, May 18, 2008

Baseball Caps across the Americas

My Dad has a baseball hat collection that numbers in the hundreds. For as long as I can remember, each closet in my parents house is stuffed with hats. You'll find a hat for every trip he's taken and about five variations for each sports team he likes. Every ten years or so, he'll clean out his collection. It doesn't matter though. It seems like the next week, there are 300 new hats stuffed in each closet. With our family all together today (a rarity), he asked my brother Tim to bring down the collection. Various family member sifted through the collection, selecting which ones to take. The remainder of the collection is destined for placement on heads in faraway South American places.

On Tuesday, my brother Tim begins another epic journey. He's traveled all around South East Asia, India, Australia, and Europe. This time, he travels to South America. He'll depart on Tuesday for the first leg of his journey: Ecuador. He will travel to multiple countries, learning Spanish, until December. Along with him, he'll bring my father's hats. He intends to give the hats to people he meets along the way, as gifts. When I heard this, I thought it was a great idea and added another. I told Tim that he needs to document this. Each time he presents a hat as a gift, he must take a picture. He seemed to think it was a good idea, so hopefully he will follow through on it. If he does, I'll do my best to post them here. Imagine if you are traveling to the deepest, darkest regions of the Amazon and meet a tribal elder, only to see him festooned with a Johns Hopkins Lacrosse Final Four Champions 2002 baseball cap. We shall see.

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