Hats-more than just a stylish "cover"

[WarrenP]

I have always wore a baseball style hat and never worried about the sun. Born and raised on a farm and spent many hours out in the sun in the hay fields and spent many hours in the sun while tournament bass fishing. After becoming a fly fisher, about 20 years ago, I continued to wear the baseball style hat and put up with the sun burnt ears and neck for the first few outings and never gave skin cancer a second thought, but, a little over a year ago I had to have surgery on the top of my left hand to remove a rather large spot of skin cancer and have had to go back for check-ups every 3 months since. The surgeon told me that most people do not realize that the skin cancer that "pops" up now did not happen from the sun we are exposed to now but is really the damage done by the sun many years ago and now the body is older and cannot continue to fight the damage and it turns into skin cancer. He advised me to be more careful of exposed skin to the sun and use sun blocker and any other protection I could. Thanks so much to "CO Flyfisher", I now own and use a Tilley everytime I am on the water and just love it. It not only protects the neck and ears, it also blocks the sun from coming in from the sides which interferred with vision. It is so light, I never know it is on and it repels water.

Thanks so much, Jared, for your thoughtful gift. You are a good caring FAOL friend and hurry back here so we can fish again.....