Talking Through My Hat

The days of the hat are numbered.

I say this not because I dislike hats but because, on the contrary, I realize that I have become a hat person.
I have, I was surprised to recently discover, at least 23 hats in my possession.
Let me tell you a little story. When I was a child I had a particularly traumatic experience that resulted in a day off from school, spent with my mother – shopping, in Berlin, Germany.
Don’t get the wrong impression. I am not a child of wealth. I was not flown to Germany for this occasion. My father was in the Air Force and we were ‘stationed’ there.
In any case, concerned with my emotional state, my mother asked me if there was anything I would like to buy, anything. This, you should know, was before the age of $1500 EBay offers for Playstation 3. There were very few toys, at that time, which required loan approval before purchasing.
Mom was not taking a big risk.
Still, I knew that this was in all likelihood a one-time offer, and that I should take full advantage of it.
“Anything”, I asked her, looking for a firm commitment?
“Anything”, she said.
“Beatle Boots”.
I wanted a pair of the black, boot-like shoes with the elastic uppers, which the Beatles wore in ‘Hard Day’s Night’.
So off we went, in search of Beatle Boots.
Do I need to tell you that there were no Beatle Boots in all of Berlin? Do I need to tell you that, in all likelihood, there were no Beatle Boots in all of Europe?
What I need to tell you – my point, is that I am not what the trend watchers would call ‘an early adopter’.
I am in fact, someone who is behind the curve, off the edge, a trend-ender.
Not that I care.
It’s a safe and secure feeling, to be out of the loop.
When you are a trend-setter, on the cutting edge, and in the loop, you take a lot of criticism.
When you always lag a few steps behind the latest and the greatest, on the other hand, you get treated with the kind of patience reserved for the very old, or for small pets.
A trend setter may be considered ‘odd’, a trend-ender only ‘quaint’.
And trend-enders tend to be loyal longer. That is, those who are obsessed with the latest, often are the first to abandon their ‘love’, while those who come to the appreciation of a thing after a long and slow courtship tend to be faithful.
I love my hats: not with the hot, obsessive fervor of youth, but with the warm, enduring love of maturity.
The trend-setter may have two or three audacious hats that he, or she, wore every day for a few months. But I – as I told you, have at least 23 hats, which I only don when the mood is just right.
One of my favorite hats is a dark blue, all wool Tibetan that can be collapsed in to an almost normal look, or expanded, straight up, for nearly a foot. It’s a winter hat though, and I refuse to put it on unless there’s snow on the ground or the Dali Lama is in town.
I also have a wide-brimmed straw hat which I acquired at Sturbridge Village that I have only worn once – to the great amusement of friends and family. This is a hat that will probably always be out of fashion – which suits me just fine.
I have a beret, somewhere, though I haven’t seen it in years.
I have a gray wool Kangol that I have had a hard time wearing since I let my hair grow long. It still fits, but all that hair sticking out from each side is hard to live up to.
Of course I also have a number of baseball caps. My favorite, I think, is the one I got at my son’s college. It is an all-wool, old-style ball cap with a white felt ‘C” sewn on the front and no other adornment. It is a bit worn though, and not exactly clean – but it is the kind of hat that you are supposed to wear out and wear down.
I refuse, by the way, to purchase a hat that has been ‘pre-distressed’. I prefer to take the time to pick out a hat I really like and actually wear it. For that reason many of my hats are ‘like new’, and should last until hats are have regained their currency.
I did however, recently acquire a Red Sox cap that is designed to look like the style Ted Williams wore in his rookie year, 1939.
I am not sure exactly why, but I believe that there is an ethical difference between trying to make something new look old, and buying a new version of an old style.
Then again, I went ballistic when I heard about people paying $100 and more for classic Rock & Roll tee shirts that had been ‘re-created’. I used to have an old black ‘Who’’ tee shirt that I wore until it evaporated.
It’s existentially ‘in bad faith’ to pretend you were part of a trend that, in a real sense, has not ever completely disappeared from the marketplace.
A trend should have to be dead and buried before it can be brought back again, at a significantly higher price. To wear a new version of that old Who tee today would seem to me, ghoulish.
It is issues like that which would prevent me from becoming an early adopter – even if I cared to join their ranks.
A trend-setter cannot analyze: he or she has to be like a hermit crab. When the new styles come out, they must immediately jettison the old shell and put on the new one.
I am like an old bear looking for a new cave: I am not too concerned about the style, or the amenities, or the neighborhood. But after a few months of hibernation, I tend to become attached to the cave I have chosen.
I have become attached to my hats.
Trend-setters take note!