How many hats do you wear?

In life we all fill many roles, or metaphorically wear many hats that can be incorporated into speeches as props, as mentioned by Tom Antion. Hats fill needs at many levels, as shown by this Indexed cartoon about where your head is.

We also may literally wear many hats. When the top of my head began to go bald (around age 30), I became especially conscious of hats. In the winter I keep my head warm by wearing knitted watch caps, also known as tuques. In the summer I avoid sunburn by wearing Army surplus boonie hats.

A TV comedy show called Whose Line Is It Anyway? used to feature a game about hats where two teams got to use a box of them as props for the world’s worst dating service video.

The most unusual hat I own is a South Pole Station baseball cap. It was a gift from my sister Ellen, who got to spend two weeks there in 2005 (including Thanksgiving). I used it as a prop for a Toastmasters speech titled “Of course the turkey is frozen - a very southern Thanksgiving.” Her husband Antony Stark designed a small radio telescope called AST/RO that was located in the Dark Sector - about a kilometer from the main station. Tony and his colleagues ran it for 11 years. Ellen got to help him dismantle it to make room for its larger successor, the South Pole Telescope.