Straw Hat Day...

From Jim: Since forever, I've marked the change of the seasons by which hat I put on. In the Fall and on through Winter, I wear a felt hat. My old Resistol has completed it's fourth year and it shows it. At one time it was black, but it's had enough rain on it to be bleached sort of reddish, brownish black. The creases are really more memories now and the pinch crown is sure enough pinched. Trouble with felt hats is that they develop a kind of personality, maybe even a cult of personality and get hard to replace. I'll stop every now and again and try on hats, but the idea of starting over with a new hat is more than I'm up for right now. Besides, the weather has turned and it's straw hat time. I won't need to think about felt hats for quite a few months and, by then, I wouldn't want to take a new hat out in the rain anyway. Today, I wore my newer straw hat for chores. My old straw hat needs to get tossed in the bailer. The poor thing is just falling apart. I think I'll pull the brim wire out and feed it to the goats. Generally a straw hat'll last about 1 1/2 seasons. It never fails but that you'll have to get a new straw hat around mid-summer, when it's 100 and hot, and the dust wants to stick to everything, but especially that nice ring just outside the sweat band. I've noticed some of the cowboy boutiques offer hats that already have that well used look. They're stained and crimped and frazzled. You have to pay more for that as it's considered stylish. I've not convinced those folks to offer me much for the real thing, thus the goat snack. I like a 4" brim, tall crown with a ranch crease and not too much bend in the front of the brim. It's seems so futile to get a broad brim and then fold it up so the sun leaks in. There's some pretty good straw hats around these days and they're pretty spendy. Makes for future gourmet goaty treats I guess. I've worn Resistol hats since I was a kid. I've a Stetson or two and liked them fine also. The main thing about a good hat is that you come to feel like you need it on in order to leave the house. If you don't, you probably need to hunt for a new one. When you find the right one, don't expect that it will get all the respect an old timer deserves. I cringe when I hear,"You're not wearing that out to dinner tonight". That's why you have to have a "dress hat". But that's for another blog. Hope you loved on your critters today! It's a good thing to do.