Up from California, stories of a construction worker/inventor began to filter northward. It seems that the hot weather was sending a lot of the workers to the doctor or the hospital.
As soon as the crews took off their hats to relax and eat their lunch, Zorfel noticed that everyone's hair was plastered down from sweat. Right then and there he decided to solve what the men came to laughlingly call the "Friedbrains Syndrome".
Zorfel had made it his personal mission to invent an air conditioned hat so that cooler heads could prevail.
First he got everyone's attention by swinging a cold six pack in the air and hollering BEER! It didn't take long for the quiet to to roll across the gathering of the towns people.
Zorfel, meek soul that he is cleared his throat, jingled the coins in his pocket and he began.
Most of the workers around here work in construction and it gets real hot working up so high. Let me ask you all, If I could build you a solar energy air conditioned hard hat, would you buy one?
Well, you can just imagine how all of those burly construction workers razzed poor Zorfel. They laughed so hard they almost fell off the scaffolding.
"It can't be done, it would cost too much money to buy one, and it probably won't work anyway," they said, as they walked back to work, chuckling.
Now Zorfel was a lot like Henry Ford. He was not easily distracted and spent all of his spare time, including his lunch hours, sitting off to the side by himself with a small drawing board, a hard hat and a flexible measuring tape. He was being as mysterious as the recipe for my mother-in-law's cement meatballs, so the guys all turned into curious cats and couldn't help stopping by to ask how the invention was coming along.
As soon as Zorfel saw them coming, he threw the whole invention into the small box in which he always carried his "work in progress," and threw his work shirt over the box. He turned and faced them all and said that until the paperwork was filed, what was in his hat was as secret as his girlfriend's name and number.
The guys felt just like kids who were left out when the whole neighborhood was invited to go to the circus, but at the same time, they were all excited to see what this invention turned out to be.
How could it be possible to build a cooling system into a hard hat?
Every time Zorfel heard one of the guys saying stuff like that he broke into a big smile, which was followed by the belly laugh of a person with a huge secret and a ton of money in the bank. He knew that the crews would be as green as a bowl of guacamole if they could have invented it, but Zorfel had actually done it! As the buttons flew off Zorfel's shirt with pride, he reveled in the fact that the respect of construction workers all over the world would soon be his.
He just oozed success and was sure that his would become a household name.
Well, one morning old Zorfel showed up to work glowing like something radioactive and the crews only needed one look to know that something big had happened.
Zorfel was smiling so wide that it would take the best mortician at least a year to get the grin off his face. One would have thought that the guys were getting a month's pay for nothing to see how quickly they surrounded old Zorfel and the questions they were asking were mostly the same.
Did you finish your hat? Does your invention work? Can we see it?
How much does it sell for? Where can we buy one?
Zorfel lowered his head and admitted that they are not being sold yet.
Heck, Who wouldn't buy one!
Well, just hit "CTRL F "on volume #3 of your Encyclopedia of Solar Inventions and type "Hat" in the search window,(Top left of the screen). You will see the name is a link to expired patent Number Des.275,334 on the screen. Click on it, and that is just the one you are looking for. now you can decide for yourself.
