The Hatboro Hat

Kurt and I often drive through Hatboro, PA to get to I-95 and lately I have been noticing what appears to be their mascot. This is what I think...

I went to Muhlenberg College and they chose the Mule as their mascot, so I am qualified to talk about mascots that make no sense. I mean, come on...Muhl does not equal Mule. And, furthermore, who wants to be The Ass?

Driving by Hatboro Horsham High School, I noticed a giant top hat on their sign. Really? Is that the height of the creativity of that town? I figured it could just be a cute little symbol on which an erstwhile school board inanely voted, chortling to themselves about how clever they were so many decades ago. Maybe I could consider that harmless enough. Oh how wrong I was.

Driving past the high school and into the main street of the downtown area, I noticed a realtor's sign. Know what the symbol for Hatboro Realty was? A giant top hat with windows. WHAT! Continuing down the street, there were pretty little banners hanging from lamposts, much the same way there are in most other quaint towns, but Hatboro filled its banners with pictures of....hats. Seriously? Wow.

The sad thing is, while it is certainly no thriving metropolis of art and culture, Hatboro is not the most backwoods podunk town in the area. If it were, I might be impressed by the citizens' ability to recognize that the word "hat" makes the beginning of their town's name. But they are not, so it is not okay.

I live in North Wales. Do we have a whale as our mascot? If we were founded by the same people as Muhlenberg or Hatboro we would.

Before you say that I am being unfair to the citizens because they cannot control what their original governing body was drinking when it elected Hatboro as the name and...a HAT...as the mascot, let me remind you that cities can certainly elect to change their names. Nearby Blue Bell, as I learned the other night during a rousing round of Huggermugger (the ultimate nerd/word game, and, therefore, fabulous), was once called Chicken Town (or something equally impressive) and they had the sense to change it to something more attractive.

So, Hatboro, I say take your cue from Blue Bell and work out something new. Be careful, though, Mauch Chunk, PA officially changed its name to Jim Thorpe, PA, and that is equally as unfathomable.

Then again, I would rather see an Olympic athlete as the town mascot than a HAT.