How 'bout hat?

I have this picture of my mom and dad, taken in the late 1940's. In it, they're walking down a New York City street. My mom is wearing this luxurious looking fur coat (If you're in PETA, just deal with it, please) and my dad is wearing a perfectly tailored suit.  Both dressed to the 9's. But best of all, they're both wearing these incredibly stylish hats. My mom is wearing something like a modified pill box hat. Probably some other style. But even better, my dad is wearing a fedora. He looks like he stepped right out of a Howard Hawks movie.
Now, I know enough history to know that wearing a hat was de rigeur for the ladies. As is true today in some societies. The Kentucky Derby, Charleston, even the UK. But I'm not going there. This column is about men and hats. (Not to be confused with the 80's band Men Without Hats)

I was in a therapy session a few years ago and was recounting this picture of my mom and dad, as I never met my dad, who died 2 months before I was born. My mom died 5 days shy of my Bar Mitzvah, and in many ways, I feel like I never really knew her. So this picture has incredible power for me. I told my therapist "So my dad is wearing this really cool hat. It's a, um, uh, something with an "F". A fez." My therapist, in perfect deadpan said, "Was he in Morocco?" No, I said. He then said "did you mean a fedora?" Yeah, I told him...that's it.
I don't wear a hat for fashion purposes. But I'd like to. If I did though, it would look an awful lot like a midlife crisis. Which, maybe it is. So I go "sans le chapeau". I could honor my dad and wear a fedora. But I'm not sure that's "me". If I could pick one hat, it might be the wonderfully named pork pie hat. It reminds me of music. It was the name of a classic Charles Mingus tune meant to honor the great tenor sax player Lester Young, who was a regular wearer. It reminds me of the Bowery Boys and all that scruffy stuff, pre-rock and roll. 
Hats serve all kinds of purposes. They can be fashion statements, or just functional, or, as any Nashville songwriter will tell you, to cover balding. Too late for me. But when I was living in Nashville, I saw many songwriters wearing hats, or just baseball caps. The music business is very much a youth oriented business, so, trying to look younger made occupational sense.
There are (or were) many Nashvilleans who wear cowboy hats. Yes, it's the mecca of country music but I still don't like cowboy hats being used in this manner. The hat is associated with the west, not the rural south. I have to admit that I actually did buy a cowboy hat in advance of moving to Nashville, back in the 90's. I visited there for the first time in June. No one wore a cowboy hat. I thought, "What??? I don't get it. I visited a 2nd time in January, this time (again) "sans le chapeau". And everyone was wearing a hat. To understand it, I went to my natural tendency to assume the town banded together, knowing I was coming, and intentionally played a trick on me. Then, it hit me. The weather. It's brutally hot in June and chilly in January. Maybe the hat had a functional purpose. Still doesn't explain "hacks with hats", which is the term I use for country music wannabees who have no business wearing a hat.

I play in a band. One of my band mates came in wearing a hat that could have been used in an Indiana Jones movie. I thought it was great and told him so. I encouraged him to wear it during the show but, alas, he also went "sans le chapeau". But another guy in my band wears a beret.
I have mixed feelings about the beret. It looks great on him. Dion DiMucci, one of my musical heroes, wears one too. It's sort of his trademark. And it's popular in the military too. But I wouldn't wear one. I don't know why. It just doesn't have that "pork pie edge" that I like. Maybe it's because I associate it with the French. And if I combine the French with our military, I get very, very worried.

Then, there are the elegant hats. The derby, the top hat. All very nice and, indeed, elegant. Maybe if I wore one, the hat would give me magical powers enabling me to dance. Which, as *GWCTRA will tell you, is not my strong point.
Finally, there's the Panama hat. Another one I love. Great for Sydney Greenstreet and Latin American CEO's. But again, it's just not "me".
I DO wear baseball caps in hot weather. But caps aren't really hats. They're more a commentary on color than anything else. And they are NOT a reflection of one's allegiances. In addition, I see caps with the wrong colors. A Yankees cap in green? A Celtics cap in blue? What is wrong with these people? Both the designer and the buyer? Are they all color blind?
But I digress. My point is that I'd be happy seeing a Congressional bill mandating that we all wear hats. Maybe all world leaders should wear hats. The sillier, the better. It just might cause them all to lighten up. The millinery folks would love it.

But I get the 1st pork pie. 

(God help me...I now have the song "Safety Dance" stuck in my head)

Rock on...gp

*GWCTRA (Girlfriend who chooses to remain anonymous)