Is your hat telling the truth about you?
Hats are in. Hats matter.
Hats make a statement. Even the way you get your hat blocked and creased makes a difference, if it’s that kind of hat.
A cheap but spiffy little Panama caught my eye at Walmart. It wasn’t real straw – just close enough. I bought it. Then I couldn’t bring myself to wear it in public because I didn’t know what it would say about me.
Google Panama hats. You will discover they have a broad range of historical connotations. If you wear one, you run the risk of making a misstatement.
So I ended up just wearing mine to work on the roof in July. Now it has a significant sweat stain -- a badge of honor that identifies me as a day laborer. It’s the downgrade I needed to wear the hat unpretentiously except I can’t wear it now at all if I want to look nice.
When it comes to pretensions, hats are crucial. The right hat conveys whatever image you want to project. It starts when you’re about 3 years old, when you wear your first cowboy hat. Or a policeman’s cap or fairytale princesses headgear that goes with the magic wand. Or a fireman’s helmet.
As for those cowboy hats, it must be said that some 3-year-olds are already very close to becoming real cowboys or cowgirls, but not me. I didn’t get my first horse till I was 7. An old black and white snapshot of me at age 3 shows a wannabe in fringed chaps and a Western hat, little lariat loop in hand. Or maybe I was 4. My mouth is wide open because the shutter clicked at the very moment I was singing the “o” in yippee-yi-o-ki-yay! There you have it. An empowering hat is sometimes all you need to burst into song.
At that age I was already learning the importance of hats just by riding in the backseat of the car with my daddy’s best ones. I was in charge.
Daddy wore a businessman’s hat when we went places as opposed to the dime store straw he wore with his striped overalls. His felt was a Stetson. It was probably more important than his summer straw hat, but it was the summer straw that got mixed up with Lt. Gov. Preston Smith’s hat once at a cafeteria in Austin. I’m thinking Piccadilly or Luby’s. Daddy and some other guys had traveled all the way down to Austin to press for some widening of a two-lane highway that was important to our rural school.
That’s when I learned that if you really want something done, you don’t just write a letter. Maybe it also helps if you wear the right hat.
Preston Smith is immortalized in bronze on the campus of Texas Tech. Yes, he’s wearing a hat. His hand is touching the brim. It can’t be a straw because he’s also wearing his overcoat. I like to think it’s a Stetson just like my daddy’s.
Hats matter.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Is your hat telling the truth about you?
