In some ways, I have lived a fairly simple life. I’ve owned a few cars and pickups over the years, but nothing spectacular. No vehicle of mine has been rare, or a collector’s car, or something that turned heads when I drove down the street. I’ve lived in comfortable houses, but nothing that was a showplace. My home never made a “tour of homes.” I’ve had comfortable clothes, but I’ve never been into name-brand fashions. No one recognizes the brands of shoes that I wear. Once, when we were students in Chicago, a burglar attempted to enter our apartment through a second-story window. We lost nothing. I think the burglar didn’t ever get all the way into our place, but the joke was that if they had, they wouldn’t have found anything to steal. We didn’t have any jewelry, or cash, or guns. We still don’t. All we had was a typewriter and quite a few books. We have more books now.

Nonetheless there have been extravagances. We have been able to travel quite a bit. I have a large collection of tools. And if you were to go through my closet you’d discover that I have quite a few pairs of shoes. I have black dress shoes and brown dress shoes. I have cowboy boots and duty boots from when I was a sheriff’s chaplain. I have comfortable walking shoes and a pair of old shoes I keep for mowing the lawn and other messy chores. I have muck boots for wading along the shoreline or walking across a muddy field.

I’ve got a kind of thing for jackets. I own two hooded sweatshirts. I have a dress coat. I have a winter parka. I have a rain jacket. I have an old rain jacket that isn’t very waterproof, but I keep for working when I might get dirty. I have several vests that keep me warm in varying degrees for varying conditions. I have a jacket with the logo of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Department. There might be a couple more jackets as well.

Then, if we really want to get into extravagances, I suppose I should be honest about hats. I like hats. We won’t count ball caps, but I have four or five of them with logos for different companies. Most of them are dirty with sweat from wearing them while working. I have a floppy hat in the car, another in the truck, and two more in the closet, just in case I need one. I justify having so many because I have had brushes with skin cancer and I do get asked about them on every visit to the dermatologist. Then there is the leather Australian Akubra, and the black fedora. I have two dress hats in two different colors. I own at least three navy watch caps for when it is cold out. And yes, there is in my closet a hat box with my cowboy hats. I have never owned a horse, but I have a white Stetson, and a gray felt cowboy hat. There is a black one that is a bit older and a bit dirtier. There is a straw one. I’m pretty sure that most people would recognize that I have way too many hats for one person. And, if you add it up, I have spent way too much money on hats over the years.

I guess I should feel a bit guilty about having so many hats when there are people who have no place to call home who have to carry with them all of their possessions wherever they go. They might not even have one winter hat, or no hat at all.

But my hats, at least seen one at a time, are far from showy. OK, I’ll make an exception for the white Stetson. It is a pretty flashy hat. I don’t wear it very often. It isn’t practical. It would get dirty very easily. I don’t even dare sweat when wearing it, for fear of stains. I’ve seen a couple of funerals where they place a cowboy’s hat on the closed coffin, but I’m no cowboy and such a display would make no sense at all. I have worn it for a couple of cowboy funerals, however.

All of my hats put together might fetch a few dollars on a rummage sale, but they aren’t the kind of thing that a burglar would take. Still, it is true that I have too many hats. On the other hand, they pale in comparison with the hat that is on display on the coffin of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. It is called the Imperial State Crown.

The crown sparkles with nearly 3,000 stones - including 2, 866 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and five rubies. And these aren’t exactly tiny rocks, either. It includes the 317 carat Cullinan II diamond - sometimes called the Second Star of Africa. Cut from the largest diamond ever found, it was given to Edward VII on his 66th birthday by the government of the Transvaal - a former British crown colony - in present day South Africa. It contains a sapphire said to have once been worn in a ring by the 11th Century king of England, St Edward the Confessor. That stone is in the center of the cross that tops the crown. And there is more. The Black Prince’s Ruby was worn in 1415 during the Hundred Years’ War by Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt. Although the Imperial State Crown was designed to be lighter, and to fit better, than the crown it replaced, it still weighs 2.3 pounds. That’s a heavy hat.

King Charles III will wear another crown for his coronation, the St Edward’s Crown. He will then switch to the Imperial State Crown to leave Westminster Abbey at the end of the ceremony. I guess that one crown isn’t enough for a well-dressed royal. The crowns, when not being worn, are displayed as part of the Crown Jewels - a priceless collection of tens of thousands of gemstones collected over the centuries by British kings and queens. The jewels can be viewed at the Jewel House at the Tower of London, home to the Crown Jewels for more than 600 years.

I’ve been to London twice, I didn’t bother to take a look at the jewels. After all, I’ve got my own impressive collection of hats. I bet the new king doesn’t have a white Stetson.