gutter girls

The other day I found a white John Deere hat in the upstairs closet, the brim curled up. It looked lived in, but it's been vacant for quite some time. Technically it belongs to a member of my immediate family, but in actuality, it's Les' hat. She's the one who broke it in. Every Wednesday night she'd stick her head in that thing, twist it a little to the side and, like a champ, bowl at least a 200.

I've written before about Team 23 and our Wednesday night escapades down in the bowling alley of the Wilk. I don't know that I mentioned, however, that we four (Les, Suz, Al and I) breathed new life into that place by dressing up every week. There was always a theme, agreed upon by the Team. Nerd Night. Basketball shorts and ankle socks. BYU-issue gym garb (we looked most exceptional that night.) Western wear. It didn't take long before everyone else dipped into their own closets and pulled out something of the costume sort. It made our highlight-of-the-week Wednesday nights even more highlightable. Trying to bowl bedecked with a belt buckle was tougher than I thought.

The white John Deere hats were a constant, making the wardrobe cut every week. Those hats were our signature. Our good luck charm. Rabbit's foot. Four-leaf clover in fashion form. We meant business, too. We made a video every week and reviewed the tape immediately afterward, helping each other out with our techniques. We made our roommates watch, too. They painfully and patiently sat through fan interviews and our shaky camera work. (Mostly it was an excuse to make a documentary of our junior year of college and to interview unsuspecting Dance Dance Revolution Champs who played in the arcade behind the bowling alley.)

I hung Les' hat up on the hooks in my bedroom, a Team 23 memento I can see everyday. Somewhere there are three other hats who deserve the same attention and adoration, at least from me.