250 Words on Hats

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I wish I could wear a stylish hat. Men used to wear great hats—Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart—but whenever I do I feel like a boy playing dress-up in his grandpa’s closet. These days, wearing a hat is a bold statement that not everyone can pull off. 

Indiana Jones ruined the fedora, a perfectly fine hat. I once had one I liked. But you can only take so many gibes, including a Disneyland cast member in full Jungle Cruise uniform who chased me through Adventureland yelling “Indy! Indy! We need your help!” before the fedora winds up in the closet.

Incidentally, my archaeologist daughter reports that real archaeologists don’t wear fedoras (nor, should it need to be said, whips). They favor practical floppy-brimmed canvas or straw hats for minimum weight and maximum shade. 

Far down the list of the MAGA movement’s many crimes is ruining the formerly innocuous red baseball cap. From a distance, it’s impossible to tell if you support the San Francisco 49ers or fascism. Best to avoid red headwear altogether. 

You have to earn the right to wear a cowboy hat. I haven’t.  

Finding the right hat is hard. It’s got to fit the shape of your skull and the curves of your face. Some men can don a newsboy cap and look like Sean Connery in a ’54 Jaguar Roadster while others look like a doughy back-alley bartender. 

As in so much of life, the trick to properly sporting a hat is confidence. 

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