Dear Trucker Hats
Was I the only fourth-grade girl who wore you?
I loved to wear you when I was a kid. I had so many of you: one with Sam the Los Angeles Olympics eagle, one from the world’s fair in Vancouver, and a handful from my grade school softball teams.
I remember two of you most of all. One was maroon and said, “Barlament and Son Trucking.” The other was bright orange and said, “Waukesha Parts and Service.”
My dad gave these to me when I was about ten years old. He drove short-haul truck for Barlament for a time. He didn’t wear baseball-style caps, so when they gave him the hat, he gave it to me. I wore it to school a lot.
I’m not sure how he got the Waukesha one, but the real mystery is why I wanted to wear an orange cap. It was never a favorite color of mine. Probably I liked that the hat had an embroidered patch on it — and I remember that I liked how it fit; it pulled down a bit lower than most.
Do you remember the 1980s much? You weren’t trendy back then like you are now. We didn’t have hipsters or influencers, and I don’t remember anybody talking about streetwear. Kids wore you, or farmers, or truck drivers, or old guys my grandpa knew from the restaurants where he ate all the time.
Of course, I wouldn’t have known a trend from anything. I knew you because you were always turning up for me to wear, a souvenir or a gift or both.
I never knew why I liked you so much. I just liked you. I knew people thought I was a tomboy because of you. Did other girls wear caps from the trucking companies their dads worked for? I didn’t know any other girls like me, but I bet you did.
I sometimes wish you could have started some kind of club back then, so the girls who wore you could have known each other. But it was before the internet and smartphones; we didn’t have the world in our Levi’s pockets, and maybe we all lived pretty far away, or at least in the next suburb over.
Back then we didn’t know anybody else was like us unless we happened to see them at school or in the neighborhood. And even then, it didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could just be a feeling without any kind of name.
I sometimes would see girls who wore their beat-up jean jackets a certain way, or who looked so cool in their black and red basketball shoes from the boys’ department. Maybe these girls and I were in some kind of club that I didn’t have a word for, but it didn’t make sense to me for another ten years or so.
I hope you don’t mind how I’ve been kidding around with you. You aren’t the admission ticket for some kind of secret club, and neither is playing softball, nor the fact that I always chose the Hot Wheels Happy Meal toy instead of the Barbie one.
These days, my girlfriend is somebody who didn’t wear you as a kid. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that she has one of you she wears now and then on lazy Sundays, tucked in the hall closet with her high heels? It says, “Pride,” and has a rainbow heart.
It’s true, trucker hats. I wouldn’t make this up after all the years I’ve known you. I stopped wearing you years ago, but do you think I’d be a tiny bit trendy if I started again?
