The Cap

Across the Fence #574


As I prepared to leave the barn, I saw it hanging there, just inside the door. It was covered with cobwebs and dust… Dad’s old Pioneer seed corn cap. It hung there as if waiting for him to step back into the barn and put it on again. He had been gone for almost eight years at the time, and it had to be several years before he died in 2000 when he hung that hat on the nail where it had rested all those years. 

That old barn, that was once the hub of activity on the farm, stood empty. Its end was near. That’s why I was in the barn that day. I had decided to take some photos and document what had once been an active barn before it was gone. When I came across Dad’s old cap, I took several photos of it hanging near the ceiling on a large nail protruding from a faded, whitewashed timber. Then I left the barn and bolted the door behind me.

There’s something special about caps. Each cap tells a story and is a walking advertisement. They tell a lot about the person wearing it.

I’ve always been a cap person. I had quite a collection of caps before we moved back to Westby. I’d acquired them from numerous sources. Most had some special significance. People even gave me caps they thought I’d like. Our daughter brought me a cap from Graceland when she visited there. I was a big Elvis fan when I was young. I had long sideburns and my hair slicked back into a ducktail. That’s back when I still had hair.

I’ve got John Deere caps, of course. Is there any other kind of tractor? There were also Wisconsin caps, Norwegian caps, farm products caps, a Harley-Davidson cap, and an assortment of Vietnam vet caps.

In an attempt to simplify when we moved, I gave many of my caps away to Good Will and St. Vincent de Paul. I kept some of the special ones, and wouldn’t be surprised if my cap collection started multiplying again. I told “Pioneer Bob,” the Pioneer seed corn dealer in Westby, that I needed a green Pioneer cap like the one Dad left hanging in the barn. He gave me one.

Have you ever noticed that when you see someone without a cap, that always wears one, they look very different?

I had a friend, Dennis, a big, bear of a man, who always wore a cap. I asked him one day if he took it off when he went to bed. He said he did. I don’t care what he said, I still think he slept with his cap on and one eye open. He died of lung cancer several years ago and was cremated with his MIA/POW cap on. I felt better when I heard that. It wouldn’t have been right to send him off to the Spirit World without his cap!

For you non-cap people, caps are important. They make a statement to others about who we are. They aren’t just to provide shade for our balding heads, although that’s important too.

I wear my cap with the bill straight ahead and curved down on the sides. Some people keep the bill completely flat and straight across. Today, many young people wear their cap brim to the rear. You can’t tell if they’re coming or going. Gang members wear their cap with the brim to the left or right to designate their gang affiliation. When I see photos of young people from my father’s generation, I see a lot of caps cocked to the side. My father always wore his that way. There’s a photo of him in his baseball uniform with his cap cocked so far to the side, I don’t know how he kept it from falling off. Talk about attitude and making a statement.

Caps also seem to categorize us. When I lived in Madison, one of the businesses I did advertising for was Sub-Zero Freezer Company. One day when I arrived, there was a new, young woman at the reception desk. I was just about to tell her I was there for a meeting with Paul, the Marketing Manager, when she grabbed a package off her desk and handed it to me. I looked at it and saw it was a package for Badger Cab to pick up and deliver. She thought I was the cab driver. If I had walked in with a suit and tie on instead of casual clothes and a cap, I know she’d have treated me differently.

Yes, caps are important, especially those with a history. As I was driving away after taking those photos in the barn, I started thinking about Dad’s old Pioneer seed corn cap hanging there. Should I leave it behind and let it be destroyed with the barn? It would be a fitting epitaph for his old cap to be buried with the barn, just like my friend Dennis, going out with his cap on. After thinking about it for a while, I turned around and went back. I couldn’t leave it behind. I took the cap down from the nail, dusted some of the cobwebs off, and put it in the car. It now hangs on a nail in our garage. I think he’d like that…

knowing his old farmer cap still hangs on a corner of the land he worked and loved for all those years.

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