Tales of Real Deal Brazil hats lost, and found

Our hat winds up in some pretty surprising places, no question.

There's the story of this guy, Shawn, from Kiowa, Kan., whose father gave him a Real Deal Brazil recycled-tarp hat after Dad fished the then-new RDB out of a Dumpster in Longdale, Okla. After seven years of constant wearing since then, Shawn sent his RDB, above, back to us for some re-stitching around the brim; once fixed, this trash-to-treasure hat will be bound back to Shawn's waiting head.

Not only do we think that's a really cool story, but Shawn’s much-beloved hat turns out to be one of our very first, a literal prototype, from 2008, with an oversized logo on the side; we're not even sure if we would have sold that to anyone. So how it ended up in Oklahoma, we'll never know ...

 And then there's the phenomenal story recently emailed to us, also from an RDB-wearing Sean, the scuba guy immediately above:


"I am from Pinedale, WY and often go scuba diving in the clear mountain lakes we have here. This past Sunday, I was diving at about 30 feet in Fremont Lake when I saw something that didn't belong. As I swam over to the irregular shape lying on the bottom among the rocks, I was surprised to find this RDB hat. I picked it up and put it on my head and immediately started to surface. It dried beautifully and one would never know it had (been lying) in the bottom of a mountain lake for who knows how long.

Inside the crown, you make the claim that you can do nothing to this hat that hasn't already been done. I would bet that this is the only RDB hat that has laid on the bottom of a mountain glacier lake at an elevation of almost 8000' and been recovered to be worn again. Only the hat knows for sure.

A big thank you to the person who was unfortunate enough to lose this great hat."


Also, a big thank you from us, to these two guys for sharing these stories!

National Nude Day 2013: Several days late, and a couple of coconuts short ...

OK, for those of you who got here from Facebook, you can't say we didn't tell you what to expect. Coconuts. Actual coconuts.

Though truth be told, those really are some oddly shaped palm fruits, huh? Not that we're the kind of people to judge or anything ...

We've posted this picture in a slightly belated homage to National Nude Day, July 14. We missed this year's celebration entirely, not knowing such a day even existed, wandering around as we were amid all those other folks with their clothes on.

But we have faith these two island naturalists were naked that day, if they knew said celebration in honor of shedding clothes existed.

We're pretty sure the guy in our hat is Chester Elizondo of San Antonio, Texas, one of our longtime favorite RDB wild men. No clue on the identity of his buddy, though the two are seen, almost in their entirety here, in Puerto Rico, where Chet has gotten into plenty of Real Deal mischief in the past.

His April 2011 "exploration adventure" to several different Puerto Rican beaches, involving much "sun, surf, rum and fun," produced what may be our favorite photo explanation of all time, for the below cockeyed-hat shot he sent us back then:

"Ya’ll make one hell of a hat. I swam in that thing…buried it in the sand..stuffed it in my back pack…had sex in it…filled it with ice and used it as a small ice chest….at one point it was my loin cloth while I chased a chicken naked down the beach (not sure how I ended up naked…and the chicken was very very fast)…"

Notice any kind of pattern here? We're thinking it's probably pretty nakedly obvious ...