Trivial Pursuits: Hats off to you

“Sweet hat,” my boyfriend told me when I walked into the kitchen last Thursday night. 

When it comes to fashion, Bryan may have better taste than me – or, at least, he’s more invested in it. The older I get, the more content I am with having remembered to put on a bra before I leave the house. So I took Bryan’s compliment as confirmation of what I had suspected – this new hat was indeed “sweet” (though I myself prefer more outdated slang, like “swell” or “far out and solid”).

Then I launched into the story behind this hat, which I found on my keyboard Thursday morning, having just missed the gift-giver, apparently, a woman I met once at the Brandon Historical Society ribbon cutting. 

Linda Maurer, Jill’s note read. I remembered her immediately – a sweet lady (and here I use the word in its traditional, non-slang way) who genuinely seemed to know and like our paper. The hat was a nod to a column I wrote a few months back about this thing I have with hats (i.e., I love them).

When Bryan heard the hat was from a reader, his endorsement became even more enthusiastic. 

“It’s an awesome gesture,” I agreed. “I’ve had two people email me before about columns I’ve written, but nobody’s ever given me something.”

(One of the aforementioned emails was about a column I wrote years ago about divorce – the reader said it really hit home and made her cry – and the other was a Journal subscriber who read one of my beagle anecdotes and realized she’d adopted one of Sherlock’s brothers). 

So I was feeling pretty good about the hat, but the labeler in me, or perhaps the writer, wanted to put a word on exactly what type of hat this was. I suggested newsboy. Bryan said more like a train conductor’s cap, the way it puffs out on top, only plaid instead of striped. Because he works for BNSF, I gave it to him.

My 9-year-old, Greta, who has been known to say such things as, “Fashion is my life,” also said I looked like an engineer. My housemates also agreed it was the best headpiece I owned. 

So, hats off to you, Linda, for a truly swell gesture and far out and solid headpiece.