Come Follow Me As Helmet Hut Does A Restoration. Today: Step One

The guys at Helmet Hut, Warsaw, Indiana, are being patient with me and have agreed to share photographs of the ongoing proceedings of resurrecting my Riddell TK5 (TK stands for Tru-Kurve) into a Green Bay Packer helmet from the "Glory Years" -- a Bart Starr helmet to be exact, complete with his number "15" stenciled in black on the back of the helmet.

Teams often stenciled the player's number on their helmet so that they would be easier to locate along the sideline during the heat of battle -- unless, of course you were Max McGee, who was so hung over for his second and final Super Bowl that he came out on the field after warm ups without his helmet and when Boyd Dowler went down with an injury, Lombardi yelled at McGee to get in the game.

McGee, dazed and confused, yelled at Pop Burress to go back to the Packer dressing room to retrieve his helmet. Meanwhile Max had to borrow someone else's helmet -- a frightening aspect when you consider that each helmet was fitted exactly to each player's head.

At any rate, the photo you see today was sent to me by the Helmet Hut crew. At this point, it is "gutted" -- all the interior straps and rivets that held the suspension in place have been removed.

The next step is to "glass" the helmet shell, filling in all the drilled holes left from the past with fiber glass, save the holes that will be need to affix a two bar Riddell face mask to the helmet upon completion.

I am afraid that I am going to be quite a "pest" to the talented crew at Helmet Hut. But I find this whole process really fascinating and hope that my readers will also.

And really -- it can't be bad for publicity either, do you think?

And now it is time for true confessions. They are working on a stolen helmet. Well -- not exactly stolen. More like borrowed and somehow not returned. And I didn't do it! It was "borrowed" by some of the sorority/fraternity kids that were working on a homecoming float for the UW-Eau Claire Homecoming Parade.

The coach gave out some really beat up helmets for them to use. this was one of them. Several years later a fraternity brother of mine painted it up (freehand) as a Green Bay Packer helmet and gave it to me for my birthday. It sat in my basement for years and years.

When I went through a divorce, I didn't get much property, but the helmet went with me. so then it sat here in my "office" for another 13 years before I sent it out for a new life.

So arrest me.

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My fondest memory concerning this helmet is seeing my friend Matt Capell wearing it while riding a little Yamaha scooter, wheeling across town to visit Kim at work at Roosevelt School. I don't remember why he was on his way to visit Kim, but with a home made Packer helmet on his head and sitting astride a little bitty Yamaha scooter -- well -- I was gonna say "you had to be there" but if you just picture it in your mind, you will laugh!