Why the Hawaiian Shirt?

When I was a missionary kid back in the 1980s, I somehow wound up with a Hawaiian shirt in my closet. It was beige with large electric blue and pinkish-red blooms splashed all over. It offended my teenage masculinity and my mathematical sense of order.

But it was comfortable.

And so I wore it around the house, changing into it from my school uniform when I came home. It quickly became my favorite shirt. Somewhere in the pile of photo albums my mother has, there is a picture of me wearing it while making a funny face and giving some youngster a piggyback ride.

Alas, I lost track of that shirt. I was sad, because it was the most comfortable shirt I owned. It was also as obnoxious as I could be with my sartorial choices while living under my parents' roof.

My next Hawaiian shirt was purchased on our honeymoon. It was mostly blue, with green leaves scattered throughout. My wife purchased a matching dress made of the same cloth, and we wore them to a luau that evening. Unfortunately, I "outgrew" that shirt, and it was made available to a new home via the local thrift store.

In June 2009 a work trip took me to Honolulu. I showed up to the office wearing a suit and tie. The first person in the office to greet me asked whether I was a lawyer. He clarified, "Brah - only lawyers wear suits here." That evening I went out and purchased a shirt. As the assignment stretched out over a month, I purchased two more.

But it wasn't until 2013 that a pair of events that the Hawaiian Shirt theme of my wardrobe really took off.

First, the company I was working for had a dress code - collared, button-up shirts. With a bit of an anti-establishment streak, I combed through the fine print and was assured that there was no language specifying the print. And so, I launched myself into Hawaiian Shirt Fridays - and persuaded people attending my events to do the same. The idea caught on with a number of my colleagues, and it became quite the hit in the office.

Second, my son joined the swim team at his high school. I volunteered as the announcer for the home meets. Realizing that the pool deck was a warm place, and that I may need to be easy to find, I wore a Hawaiian shirt to increase my visibility. It became such a part of my identity that if my son's friends saw me without one, the conversation would go something like this:

"Hey, Mr. Haddad - where's your Hawaiian shirt?"

"Oh hey, sorry - uh, Chris? Yeah, didn't recognize you without your speedo..."

From there it snowballed. I started wearing Hawaiian shirts every day. I would occasionally go by the thrift store to see if there were any shirts that needed a new home. At one point my collection grew to 13 shirts! When I would attend trade shows and conferences, I would let people know to look for me - a tall, bald guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Not hard to find...

Since then, the Hawaiian shirt has become my calling card. It lets people know that I know to not take myself too seriously while providing them with the highest quality of care and compassion through the services I offer.

It also tells them I'm not a lawyer.

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