Boater

My dad’s name was Ted, and he was very fond of hats.  Over the years he added to his collection as styles demanded.  He wore fedoras and porkpies and panamas and derbies.  In later years he wore a Tryolean model with a little feather in the headband, narrow brimmed, turned up in the back and down in the front; and like all of Ted’s hats, and because he was right handed, it slanted just a bit to the right, drawn down a little closer to his right eye than his left.

So jaunty!

One memorable outrage he wore was this monstrosity, covered in plastic apples and grapes and bananas and a pineapple.  He looked like a walking fruit salad.  Chitiqua Banana would have worn it proudly out in public, but dad only wore it for the select audience of his grandchildren.  Between the goofy hat and the ‘Nilla wafers he always had in his shirt pocket when visiting them, they couldn’t get enough of Big Daddy.

Such a pied piper!

There were limits to the chapeaux.  Under no circumstances would he put on a Stetson or a ten-gallon.  Wouldn’t catch him in any kind of farm apparel.  No baseball caps.

So not is style!

But of all the visions of hats, the one I treasure the most is the one I never actually saw him wear in person.

My parents had a tall colonial dresser which we called the highboy.  I would visit their room as a kid, because one of the drawers held family photos and newspaper articles and other memorabilia, and I loved to rummage.  Nothing was organized.  Nothing was catalogued.  Just tossed in.  You had to plow through it, and plow I did, wondering who those people were, digging for lore, digging for information, hungry to know my family.  Had I not been digging in this family clutter, I might never have seen my dad in his boater straw.

There was a photo of Ted walking in a cityscape, wearing sharply creased slacks, shiny shoes, a crisp white shirt, a very stylish long-sleeved cardigan sweater; and all topped off with the boater.  He was a “sharp dressed man.” 

So dapper! ZZ Top woulda loved him.

What is a boater?  It is a flat brimmed straw hat, and the crown is also flat.  The name probably derives from Victorian England when young British schoolboy fops would woo women by “punting (boating) on the Thames.”  Barbershop quartets wear them, probably for the same reason.  Picture the quartet in “The  Music Man.”

The first time my mom saw that hat was in 1933.  She was standing on a curb, in full “urp-ness” and waddle, tummy stretched out to there, waiting for my oldest brother to emerge, just a few days later.  She had stepped out of the office of her Ob/Gyn right there on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, waiting for my dad to pick her up.  He drove up and reached over to open the door of his Model A.  She heaved herself in; and before he could ask her about the appointment, she noticed that he was wearing a new hat.  She complimented him on his handsome appearance, and he nodded his thanks.  She asked him where he got the hat, and he told her.  She asked him how much it cost, and he told her that too.

So like Ted!  Not to worry about the budget.

Audrey didn’t remember the price of the hat; but whatever it was, it was way too much, and definitely not in the budget in the middle of the Great Depression when times were tough and you could buy a back of groceries for a dollar, if you had a dollar, and buy a loaf of bread for a nickel, if you had a nickel, and there was a baby on the way.  She came apart and her blood pressure blew out the top of her head and all over Ted.

So mad!

Ted listened for a long time, for it was not his style to cut her off.  Finally, when she wound down a bit, and when he was sure that he had her full attention, he rolled down the window, reached up and removed that new and expensive boater straw, and with a deft flick of the wrist, zinged it out the window.  That flat-brimmed hat took off like a frisbee, sailing up and around the car and halfway across the street before coming to rest in the middle of one of the busiest thoroughfares in Los Angeles. 

It took a few seconds for it to sink in, and when it did, she shrieked, “STOP THE CAR!”  Ted pulled over, and she was out of the car in a waddling flash. She fetched the hat right off the ground; and when she got back to the car, she dusted it off and put it gingerly on his head.  Of course, he readjusted it slightly, as all men do, canting it to the right a little. Then he drove on without saying another word or taking his eyes off the road.

Such a rogue!

Audrey did not like it when Ted spent money on things they couldn’t afford; but she liked even less the idea of throwing money out the window.  The last thing Audrey said was, “Nice hat, dear,” and again, he nodded his thanks.  Throughout this entire incident, my mother never stopped talking, and my dad didn’t say more than ten words.  When someone asked Ted why he spoke so little, he said, “Because I love Audrey, and whenever I open my mouth, I interrupt her, which is rude.”

Ted was very fond of hats, and of Audrey; and Audrey was very fond of Ted, with or without a hat.