My Serendipity Hat
A while back Amanda and I spent a long weekend in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It’s a kinda touristy, artsy craftsy place nestled (an oft misused word, but actually true of this town) in the Ozark Mountains. Not long after arriving at our cabin, we caught the trolley into town to do a little walking around (most people shop, but that’s not really our thing). The summer sun was shining above, and it only took me a couple of minutes to realize that I’d forgotten to bring any sort of pate protection.
This was a problem for three reasons: I’m bald, I’m pale, and size 8+ hats aren’t exactly off-the-rack items.
Scanning the street for possible solutions, we figured the leather goods store was as good a place as any to start searching in vain. We ask the clerk if they had any really big hats, to which she said “like a sombrero?”. Not a good start. After further explanation on our part, she told us they didn’t stock any sort of extra large sizes, or really anything but “one size fits all”, which I know from experience doesn’t.
We thanked her, and as we were leaving I noticed a largish hat on top of a display. I grabbed it for a closer look, flipped it over and saw that magical tag: “XXL”. I placed it on my head and, like some sort of nerd Cinderella, it fit perfectly. Having met the only real criteria, we bought it.
It’s got a look all its own. It’s rough leather. It’s dark green, but not in any wholly consistent way. A braided leather cord circles the crown, then goes on to form a tassel that hangs off of the back. The shape is a little hard to pin down, meandering through the middle ground between Indiana Jones, Roy Rogers, and The Man From Snowy River, without ever really managing to be any of the three.
But it fits. And it has a wide brim.
When I wear what Amanda aptly dubbed my serendipity hat, I look like a total dork. I mean even more so than without it, which is quite a trick.
But I don’t care. It’s protected me from sun, rain, and snow equally well. It even has the perfect balance of grip and give that allows me to push it down just a hair (I heard that snicker) to get it to stay on without keeping a hand on it in the wind that really does come sweeping down the plain here in Oklahoma.
I love that hat.
Fat lot of good it’s doing me on the dash of my van, on the other side of a hundred yards of torrential downpour.
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