The Hat
The Hat
Common practice in the cigar industry is to use highly processed tobacco leaves or paper products as the outer layer or “wrappers” of cigars to give them a smooth regular appearance.
My Italian ancestors produced cigars in New York and Pennsylvania from the early-twentieth century onward. Their particular manufacturing process used one half of a full tobacco leaf as a wrapper to contain the rest of the cigar tobacco.
The curing process causes the natural wrapper leaf’s veins and smooth areas to shrink and dry giving each cigar a unique, irregular profile.
Easily identifiable by their rugged look and distinctive aroma, the cigars became popular in places from New York City to the west coast, including Hollywood.
They appeared as movie props in films as diverse as Star Trek and Clint Eastwood westerns. They were a personal favorite of director Coppola.
Referencing the western movie theme, the cigar company ran a promotion with Stetson hats. As children of the company’s principals, we all got Stetson cowboy hats. A picture of my cousin wearing his was used on the box of one of their most popular products.
I was in my late teens at the time becoming whatever I wanted. When I put my hat on I was a real cowboy again for the first time since being a toddler.
When not worn, the hat was shelved under my car’s rear window, identifying it as a cowboy’s vehicle to one and all.
My Godparents presented me an Alpaca poncho when they returned from South America. Worn with the Stetson just like Clint in his westerns, the poncho was further confirmation that I was a real cowboy.
Memory fails if wearing the hat socially increased or decreased occurrences of good night kisses. I wore it anyway. I was a cowboy. A real cowboy dammit.
The hat travelled with me to college in western New York. Marshall Tucker, Charlie Danials, Pure Prairie League, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Lynard Skynard and The Outlaws were all popular at the time. Cowboy music resonated near continuously from some source or another across campus. Skynard and The Outlaws were from Florida not out west. Some of the band members wore cowboy hats so they were real cowboys.
My college roommate was from Voorheesville in upstate New York, not from out west. He wore a cowboy hat so It was easy for me to see that he was a cowboy too. I was born in Englewood New Jersey not out west. Didn’t matter. We were real cowboys. We both knew it.
We’d listen to cowboy music in our dorm room wearing our hats. We’d smoke cigars. We’d drink Jack Daniels. We’d rub mink oil into our boots to waterproof them in case we wore them doing rugged outdoorsy cowboy things. Like stepping in horse manure.
We’d gripe about women. At the time, he about one in particular who had captured an uncomfortably large portion of his heart, I about the hell that would be visited upon me if two or three particular women on campus happened to chat about me and put two and two together.
“I hate likin’ a woman, too hard on the heart. Safety in numbers.” I’d say.
Our company was not an alternative, but a respite from the complex energies of women aged to the height of fertility and our blunt attempts to understand the state of their minds.
One night a friend came into the dorm room and asked to borrow the hat.
“I’m working security for The Outlaws concert tonight and I want to look the part!”
Memory fails as to what prevented me from attending the concert myself. At the time, it would have been out of character for me to prioritize scholarly assignments above concert going. If the distraction was a woman’s company, I can’t remember her, her name, the color of her eyes or anything about her.
After impressing upon my friend the hat’s sentimental value, I reluctantly let him borrow it for the concert even though he was not a real cowboy. I warned him “If anything happens to that hat…”.
After the concert, when my friend opened the door to our room he wasn’t wearing the hat.
He had one hand behind his back. He did not look happy.
“Where’s the hat?”
“Something happened.”
“Where’s the hat?”
“I loaned it to somebody.”
“YOU WHAT? Where’s the hat?”
“I have it here.”
“Let me see it. Give it back to me now.”
He handed me the hat and his face softened to a bit of a grin.
Not amused, I examined the hat closely. No new scuff marks, no change to the form of the brim. Except for being a bit sweat dampened, the hat was in the same condition I had loaned it.
“What happened? Who’d you loan it to? It looks fine.”
“I was working security right in front of the stage. The Outlaws lead singer said he really liked the hat and wanted to wear it for the concert. He promised to return it so I let him wear it the whole night. That’s his sweat not mine – hope you don’t mind!”
How could I mind? That big dose of authentic real cowboy lead singer sweat made the hat, and so me, even more real cowboy!
Later that year, despite my “safety in numbers” philosophy, without my consent or control, too large a portion of my heart was commandeered by a woman. For a short time before and after graduating, my roommate and his girlfriend, and me mine would do cowboyish things together. We’d shoot pool. Drink beer. Wear our hats. Listen to cowboy music. Drink Jack Daniels. Smoke cigars, sometimes cigarettes.
Then we got jobs. My roommate goes off to Oklahoma. Real cowboy country. Never to be heard from again. My roommate’s girlfriend goes on to work for Harvard and then for a world famous musician, a cellist.
Me and my girl go back to Pennsylvania hills, bartending, waiting tables, coaching ski racing then ski patrolling. Cowboy enough life but not enough to pay the bills.
Because I thought I should, I try to become a computer working yuppie. Hat, shelved in closet, comes out only rarely as part of cowboy costume.
Hit a bad patch for a couple of decades. Bills pile up. Chronic gout. Debilitating back spasms. Days, weeks months lying flat on the floor. My girl, now wife leaves. Three times. After thirty some years she wins pretty much everything in divorce except for house and hat. She goes off to North Carolina. Back to family. Never to be heard from again. Hat stays on shelf.
Spent another few years of wondering what would happen if two or three particular neighborhood women happened to chat about me and put two and two together.
Now, for the last decade, without my approval, a woman, a widow, occupies too large a portion of my heart. Some time after we started seeing each other, I guess I started letting her take care of me a little. Now she feeds me. We often share meals. She has her own place not far from my old farmhouse home.
Born in Oklahoma, her parents live in Voorheesville in upstate New York. I visited there once and tried to find my old roommate’s name in the phone book. Her father-in-law is a world famous singer, an operatic bass originally from New Jersey, later Pennsylvania. After performing at the Met for fifty years he retired to North Carolina. She hears from him from time to time. Turns out he used to enjoy smoking the cigars my ancestors produced.
She was a dairy farmer. Her one son raises and shows champion pigs and steers. Her other son, a star in school musicals, lives with her and hays with his dad, still a farmer. She had a horse.
When she’s not mothering her sons, we do cowboy things together. We smoke, drink, bartend, wait tables, serve people and work computers.
We’ve driven each other to the emergency room in the middle of the night. We’ve demolished and refurbished buildings and built gardens. We grow food. We ski and ride bicycles instead of horses. We listen to a lot of music. All kinds of music. We pay our bills. I rarely wear the hat.
Once, from quite a distance, I saw her shake her head. She couldn’t have known I was watching the moment the sun flared her mane auburn like it does a hummingbird’s throat red.
Last week the stars aligned and the weather agreed. We and the hat are on our way to see Lynard Skynard, ZZ Top, and The Outlaws!
The hat comes off the closet shelf and is put in car’s rear window identifying us as cowboys for everyone to see.
As the hat, the woman and I wind our way toward Bethel fifty five years and a day after the start of the original Woodstock Festival, I’m feeling grateful that this summer I’ve recorded more cycling and jogging than in decades. I haven’t been this young in years.
Ten years younger than me, the woman recklessly wields scissors on a Jack Daniels t-shirt wondering out loud just how daring she should be.
She looks at the shirt and says “Old No. 7 – same as your ski patrol number!”
She bravely applies red nail polish as I negotiate the twisty roads. She spills not a drop, scuffs not a nail. We arrive.
She strikes a pose wearing the hat and Jack Daniels t-shirt. I photograph her.
For the second time in forty-five years the hat is at The Outlaws concert.
The day we met years ago I eyed her up and down noting to myself that none of her parts were too big or too small for each other. She was a redhead, and, kind of cute. OK, really cute.
Realizing I was becoming more and more smitten as that day wore on, I remember finally asking her
“Do you want to know now what I like least about you?”
She looked at me but wouldn’t answer.
Looking back into those deep eyes that I’d find to be sometimes brown, sometimes green, I silently answered myself.
“I hate likin’ a woman.”
