Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Dad and hats

I have a picture of Dad on my wall. It shows him sitting at the kitchen table in his doublewide on the hill off Barr Road. He's reading the newspaper and wearing an orange mesh baseball cap. There are two things about the picture and the cap that are characteristic of Dad. First, the cap isn't down on his head fully; it's sitting almost on top of his head. The second is that the cap is at an angle, down over the right eye a little.
In almost all the pictures of Dad, and and in all my memories, I see that same thing. He tended to wear his caps and hats high on his head and at a slant. The slant gave him a slightly rakish appearance.
As a younger person, I wore my hat the way Dad did, over one eye. I don't any more, I'm not too sure why, but as I age, tend to wear my hats higher on my head, the way he did.
When Dad was working construction, he wore a heavy cotton work hat. It was a fedora, tan, with a reinforced brim. I thought then, and still think, that it was very cool. In fact, I'd like to be able to find an example of this hat and buy it for my own. They were very popular -- Paul Newman wore one in the movie "The Long Hot Summer."
I'd love to remember my Dad by wearing the same hat he did, but not slanted over the eye. I can't do that.

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