Comfort and style under an old hat

From Under My Hat

By John Riutta

, Nov 18, 2009, Updated Nov 18, 2009

John Riutta is a freelance columnist living in Scappoose.

Darryl Swan / The South County Spotlight

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I remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday. It was my second Christmas home from college. I walked into the old family home wearing a “mink brown” Stetson Temple fedora that I had bought a month before at John Helmer’s in Portland. When my father came around the corner and saw me, with a surprised look on his face he exclaimed “He’s wearing a man’s hat!”

“A man’s hat” – for generations that’s exactly how a brimmed felt hat was understood all across America. From Seattle to Saratoga, regardless of wealth or occupation, few men would even think of leaving home without their trusty fedora, homburg, or trilby set squarely (or perhaps occasionally a bit rakishly) upon their heads; until the 1960’s that is.

No one really knows just what sparked the decline in men wearing brimmed hats. Popular legend says that it was due to John F. Kennedy not wearing a hat to his inauguration (a legend clearly proven false by photos from the event showing the former president sporting the classic top hat then customary at such important events). More likely causes include agricultural companies handing out free company logo-bearing ball caps to farmers and the general trend toward more casual styles of dress that also began in the sixties.

Whatever the cause, with the exception of ball caps or the western-style “cowboy” hat, most American men now go hatless through life. Even my father, in whose mind the image (likely from his own youth) of a man in a brimmed hat was sufficient to elicit his exclamation upon seeing me in one, seldom wore a hat. Not so, however, my grandfather.

“Gramps,” as we always called him, never left his home without two things: a brimmed hat on his head and a stogie clenched between his teeth. The only time I can remember him not wearing a brimmed hat was when he was working on a landscaping project — his hands and clothing covered in freshly dug soil, and a dark grey “workman’s cap” on his head.

I don’t really remember why I started wearing a fedora myself; perhaps for the same reason I started wearing tweed jackets or grew a beard at such an early age — I thought it would make me look older. However now after wearing one for well over 20 years and no longer trying to look older (nature has taken care of that all by itself, thank you) my trusty fedora, only once replaced by the exact same style — the Stetson Temple in “mink brown” — bought at the same shop as the first has been with me through all the ups and downs of my adult life.

Whenever I put on my fedora, I think of my dad and Gramps. While much of my life is very different from the lives they lived, my old-fashioned hat and all the customs that go with it (taking it off in elevators, tipping it when being introduced to ladies) help me to recall traditions and memories I hope never to forget.

John Riutta is a freelance columnist living in Scappoose. His e-mail is john@bornagainbirdwatcher.com, or visit his Web site at www.bornagainbirdwatcher.com.