Tuni Hat

 Toony hat?

Tuni hat?
Tuney hat?

One of the advantages of moving is that in order to properly move in you need to go through all of your old boxes and sort / clean / organize them.  I found a box of my old childhood items and I think I may have a few interesting posts as a result...

This is my old fishing hat.  I found it in the Cascades when we were backpacking one year - I was 11 or so at the time.  We had seen a guy on the trail earlier in the day wearing it, but we never came across him again.  So - I became the new owner.

My Grandpa on my dad's side had some a LOT of funny made-up words.  We don't know where he got them all, but they were all very unique, and just about the time you think he'd run out, he'd have another one in his hip pocket.  He called my hat a (you pick the spelling) tuni hat.

We all know that it's very common for kids to be attached to something growing up.  Favorite blankets, pillows, a shirt or pair of cowboy boots - I even knew a girl who says she had a board she took with her everywhere.  Well - I got pretty attached to my tuni hat.  Not only did I wear it at all the appropriate times (camping, backpacking, yard-work) I also wore it 90% of the rest of the day.  And - remember I was a tween and young teen in the '70s - it was a great excuse to not wash my hair.  Suffice it to say that it had its fair share of sweat, grime, grease and dirt over the years.

My brother and cousin wanted tuni hats too, so we could all be cool together, so they started asking for them for gifts.  One of our funny family stories is that of my Grandmother on my mom's side - a fairly proper woman - going into a JCPennys and telling the clerk in the boys wear that she wanted to buy a tuni hat for her grandson, and could he direct her to them?  I can still imagine the look on the face of that clerk because she was very insistent that her one grandson had one, her other grandson wanted one, and she wanted to buy it for him!  We still laugh about that one to this day.

Anyway - I eventually (I think around 11th grade) stopped wearing my tuni hat.  As you can see from the pictures, it's seen better days.

Did any of you have something - clothing or other - that was your "security blanket" growing up?