I'd Tip My Hat To You, But. . .

Last winter when Patrick and John returned home from a ski trip, they had gifts for all of us. Mine was a pink corduroy baseball cap with the resort’s name embroidered on it.
“This is cute,” I said.
“Will you wear it?” Patrick asked.
“Where would I wear it?”
“Skiing,” John answered.
“It doesn’t cover my ears,” I told them. “The only reason I wear a hat is to keep my ears warm. If it is warm enough to go hatless I do, because hats flatten my hair.”
But that was then and this is now. I’ve come to my senses, or should I say my sinuses, and realized if I want to be cool, which of course I do, I’ll have to wear a hat: not a pillbox, a Panama or a floppy brimmed one, but a baseball cap with something written above the bill.
Have you noticed that some kids are never without a hat? The ones who come to our house have their heads topped and, for sure, we only have the coolest of the cool hanging out here (one of them forced me to say that).
They wear hats to school, and they’d wear them in the classroom if it were allowed. They wear them for movies, games, parties, shopping and hanging around the house.
I asked Patrick’s buddy Joey why he always has on a hat. He said, “Because I like to wear a hat. You can quote me on that.”
It used to be that only guys with balding heads wore a hat outdoors, to prevent a sunburned scalp. When I was a kid, if you wore a hat in the house it was speculated that you would become one of the permanently hated because your hair would fall out.
Farmers were among the initiators of this baseball—style cap craze, because for years they have worn the caps given to them by the feed and seed companies where they did business. Now every team for every sport sells caps as souvenirs. Every school, beer and scenic spot has a hat with its design emblazoned across it, and I think we have at least one of each type.
Since I am always seeking ways to enhance my image, I decided to don a hat. I chose a Chicago Cubs hat purchased by Maureen when her dad took her to a genuine Cubs game. When I arrived at my friend’s house wearing the hat, no one said anything or even seemed to notice. This continued until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“You haven’t said anything about my hat.”
“I was wondering if you were wearing it because something was wrong with your hair,” my friend answered.
I think what she meant to say was, “You are cool, cool, cool!”
Later that night when John and I walked to return a videocassette, I wore the hat to check the reaction of the public. Would they realize I was cool now? Apparently not. No one noticed me except for a guy who yelled out of his car window that the Mets beat the Cubs 23 to 10. Darn, I thought. I should have worn the Mets hat.
Just because you wear a hat doesn’t necessarily mean you are rooting for that team or have an affection for that place. We have hats for the Red Sox, White Sox, Mets, Cubs and two College World Series. We also play no favorites in wearing hats from colleges, vacation spots or social events.
It just means someone in our family was there and brought back a hat, or someone wore the hat to our house and forgot it. Just as my pink corduroy hat no longer lives here – it only comes to visit on the head of Patrick’s buddy, Tom.
He won’t let me have it back, but that’s OK. I know he is wearing it because he wants to be like me, now that I’m cool.
September 2, 1987