Antique Heads and Shrunken Memorabilia

You may wonder, as you read this, what this particular subject has to do with pop culture. My answer is this: pop culture isn't all He-man and Fox animated TV shows, hula hoops, and hoop skirts etc and so on. Remember that the "pop" stands for popular, or, if spelled wrong, poplar, which is a somewhat misunderstood and often under appreciated species of tree. And if M. Night Shama...Shamie...Shamalan...Shyamalan has taught us anything it is to respect trees...or they will kill us all.

Anyway the following does fall under the category of pop culture because for a time antiquing was a popular part of our culture. See how that works. Anything lampooned on mediocre sitcoms is fair game. On to the show!

Now whatever your reason for antiquing may be, trying to impress a lady you're courting (or gentleman), seriously looking for that last piece of your interior design puzzle, or trying to meet a new special someone, you may or may not have run into this conundrum.

I used to frequent antique stores more for my love of junk than anything. You see I am a recovering pack rat and to get my fix I would frequent the several antique stores in Cape Girardeau, MO. The wall-to-wall collected chaos was my crack. Eventually I was able to overcome the addiction and I haven't visited an antique store in quite some time. 3 years sober!

But for a time there was nothing better to do. Around the same time I went through a rather interesting phase. It was a sort of old-fedoras-and-hats-in-general-are-super-sweet-and-why-the-hell-shouldn't-I-be-super-sweet-too-and-bring-them-back phase that, unfortunately, you won't find an informational pamphlet or hygiene film about.

If you've ever been in an antique store, you've seen these hats. The former wearers (probably) long dead, and here you are lucky enough to find a few not buried with the deceased. I've been in dozens of stores and have always seen hats.

Now you may have reservations of where you put your head. I am less picky about where I park my melon. I have no fear of lice or catching polio or some other disease of times past (passed?). Try it out some time. Live a little. Trying a hat on in an antique store is exhilarating...like bungee jumping.

Anyway, upon inspection of these hats all have been, without exception, in remarkable shape. Perhaps a little faded, of course quite dusty, but overall very wearable...until I try to place them upon my noggin.

I'm not saying I have an abnormally large head. I mean, it's not like Sloth from the Goonies or anything (Rocky Road?). It is pretty average when it comes to hat sizes. Normal, it seems, has evolved. Instead of a semi-snug fit around my dome I am left with an overtly comical, as if I tried for the effect, fedora or bowler perched upon my head. Picture a cartoon rendition of Laurel and Hardy...I'd be the fat one.

Without fail, every time, the hats would not fit. This lead me to several hypotheses:

1) The hats shrunk over the years. Plausible but I'm not contacting the Mythbusters just yet.

2) I have a wicked large head. On the contrary. When I look in the mirror my head is disproportionate with the rest of me. Also I believe I have always had a small head...a fact that can be confirmed by my offspring who also has a small head (noted by a doctor who didn't pull any punches).

3) People in the past had much smaller heads. This is, of course, the only logical conclusion. And, I might add, the best case for evolution.

This had to be the answer. Science has already verified that people thousands of years ago were much, much smaller. So it only stands to reason that 50 years ago people were only slightly smaller than now. I was able to verify this by looking at matching suites of the same time period...none of which fit me.

There is the possibility that only small-headed and bodied people left these hats behind but that would be a most unlikely coincidence. What are the odds...the Rams have a better chance at super bowl ring this year.

No, it is official, people in the past, the first half of the 20th century, had tiny heads. It isn't their fault, that is just how it is. The question is why the tiny heads? People of the past really didn't have access to as much information as we do now. Oodles, even. It's sick how much we know, collectively, as a people. All that knowledge has to go somewhere, right? So it only stands to reason, more knowledge = bigger brain = fatter head. That's the evolution part of the argument.

Perhaps in the future we'll have to cart our enormous heads around in some sort of wheeled device. Of course, we''l be so smart we won't even have to walk. But I digress.

Having finally solved the problem I accepted the fact that I'd never have a lovely fedora of my own. That was until Target, apparently coming to the same conclusion as me at a much greater expense I'm sure, came to my rescue and offered a proper fitted fedora (made by a tiny-headed child in China I'm sure who couldn't even imagine the monstrous beast whose head would fit into the hat hole...a metaphor for Western gluttonous culture and free trade).

It wasn't until I wore it with my black suit an tie that people started asking me were Elwood was. That joke got old real fast. Jake, I would tell them, did not have a beard. Idiots!