Dolomite

This is another hat I got at Neiman Marcus during a Last Call sale. It was reduced 80% of the regular price (costing $40). It's an Italian-made 100% fur hat in the preferred mossy green that makes me feel invisible. This hat is incredibly soft-to-the-touch, and the temptation is to just keep stroking it with my fingers. Whatever fur was used is of premium quality.

In the backround is a light dusting of snow.

The Dolomites are the Italian Alps, hence the title: Italian, snow, mountains.

A reach, I know.

Fuzzy logic.

This is your basic nylon ball cap, but with a crucial difference for the folliclly challenged. This cap, made by a company called Weatherproof, specializes in the use of microfibers. The exterior is a water-repellent nylon, suitable for fog and drizzle.

The interior of the crown, however, is the source of true joy in this cap. It is lined with micro-fleece, keeping bald/balding pates comfortably warm in the winter months. The human scalp is one of the primary radiators of body heat. A bare scalp in winter could lead to impaired cognitive abilities.

Not a small matter of importance, especially if you have a big head.

Pop's inner laborer.

This is my straw Stetson. I bought it many years ago at Neiman-Marcus (back when they handled a few items of Western Wear for real oilmen). It listed for $225, mainly because of the fancy pheasant hatband, but it was still top of the line panama straw. I got it at Last Call™ for $25.

The years took their toll. The hatband migrated to the straw that inspired Pop's Hat. But this hat labors on... mainly when I do yard work or cook out.

P.S. That's a bootlace substituting for a hatband.

First grab.

June Anne LaGrone (granddaughter) makes her first grab of Pop's hat.

Red letter day.

Back to basics.

This is the sweat-stained Panama that started this adventure. I've tried to replace it a couple of times, but failed. It has patina.

Pithy Pop

Yep. It's a pith helmet, made by Dorfman-Pacific from an open-weave, stiff paper fabric.

I love this hat. Great sun protection, very cool, excellent evaporative action, and it has an adjustable leather sweatband with a removable terry-cloth brow pad. It's the perfect hat for Texas summers, with only one drawback...

...unless you're a Postal Carrier, it looks kinda pretentious, which I hate. I may BE pretentious, but I hate to look it.

Blowing a fuse.

Probably one of the more "honest" hats of this type I have. It's a brushed cotton-blend cap with a Mossy-Oak bill. The writing/logo on the crown is from FUSECO, an industrial fuse and electrical component supply company in Dallas.

A dear Xn brother of mine gave it to me. He's a salesman for FUSECO, hence the honesty... a given gimmie cap.

Growler

Linden and I took Hosea to the Dallas Zoo weekend before last. It was his first trip to the zoo, and we wanted to achieve certain firsts.

1. First trip to the zoo,
2. First weekend with us away from his parents (brainwash time, heh, heh, heh),
3. First Flecther's Corny Dog, and,
4. First rubber tiger hat.

He liked to look at his reflection in the windows and make tiger poses like the little boy in Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are."

All boy.

Faux Pop's Real Hat.

As mentioned, I had two hats refurbished by Texas Hatters recently. I re-refurbished my dad's hat, and I had my own hat that Texas Hatters made for me in the mid-70s refurbished as well at the same time.

It's a little "fancier" in my book, and less desirable, than Dad's. Like so much in my life, I was trying to imitate the things about Harry C. Summer, Jr. I admired, and vainly perhaps trying to improve.

I view Harry's Hat as "Authentic", and P.M.'s hat as a "Replica".

I never understood my father's attitude (and fear/awe) of his own father, Harry Clifton Summer, Sr.

I'm getting closer to understanding.

On the moors of Dallas.

This hat is a great Anglo-American hybrid hat. It's made of genuine Harris Tweed™ fabric from Scotland, with a GoreTex™ liner from the U.S.A., and sold by that Yankee outfitter, L.L. Bean™.

I don't wear it as often as I might for two reasons: Even with the GoreTex™ breathable membrane (or perhaps because of it), it tends to get a little too humid in milder weather (temperatures in the 50s, say), and although it's sized as a "large", it's a European large. Apparently, my head size is "giant" in Europe (actually XL, based on some other European hats I possess).

Today is a day for this hat. Slight mist, light wind, 38 degrees. Sure it's a little snug, but sic transit gloria.

The Real Pop's Hat

This is a genuine, 100X beaver, Stetson hat that belonged to my dad, Harry C. Summer (Jr.). He bought it in the late 1950's/early 60's. It was not cheap (these were Dad's "high-roller" days when he was a custom-home builder in Dallas). He wore this hat when he worked in the field and when he played in the field. By the mid-70's, it was horribly sweat stained. In about 1978, I took it to Manny Gammage's Texas Hatters in Austin and had them refurbish it. He wore it another fifteen hard years.

I took it to Texas Hatters again late last year (now in Lockhart) and had them refurbish it again... but for me this time. Interestingly, Dad and I have the same 7-5/8th hat size.

It's a treasure.

The Streets of my City.

Loden green wool fedora. Water repellant. This is a great hat for snowy, sleeting days.

These are the kinds of days that scare most folks off the roads AFTER the danger has passed. I am walking down the middle of a street in downtown Dallas at lunchtime.

Anglophile.

One of my favorite hats, this is a felt "driving cap" that imparts a sort of British charm to this Texan of German/Scottish descent. This particular cap was made by Pendleton Woolen Mills of Portland, Oregon. I love the mossy-green color. Works great on a snowny/sleeting day in North Texas.

Summer in Winter.

This is my Timberland™, GoreTex™ lined, leather ball cap. I can wear this in Texas two or three days a year. Today's weather forecast is 32º, with rain, turning to sleet.

Today is just the type of day I can wear this hat.

Slick Mikey.

It's raining today. It rained all night. God is good (all the time).

This bucket-hat is 100% cotton, impregnated with oil to make it water-proof, yet breathe-able. I believe it to be the only thing I own (other than some wine) that was made in Australia.

It matches my English oil-cloth coat. The ensemble is very Anglophilic (which I am). Also very non-synthetic, which I like (like the Impaler Spruce Christmas tree behind me).

The Greening of the New Year

This is really nice, olive-drab, ball cap from Weatherproof™. It's made with a microfibre shell (very soft to the touch), and lined with black microfleece. very warm to the skull.

The pin on the crown is a brotherhood of Saint Andrew's pin. The X represents the way Andrew was crucified at his martyrdom. You see the same X in the Scottish national flag, as St. Andrew in Scotland's patron saint. It also shows up in the british Union Jack, where St. George's and St. Andrew's crosses are superimposed upon each other, signifying the unification of England and Scotland.

The Confederate battle flag also bore St. Andrew's cross. A common trait for the losers of civil wars?

New Yeller.

This is my newest hat, and current favorite.

Why? It's the school bus yellow color. It really helps my 5' 2" wife find her 6' 1" husband when we are out shopping. She looks for the yellow hat.

The Cabela's label is imitative of the type of label the Department of Defense used to put in U.S. Government issue military gear, so it has a utilitarian style that appeals to my faux-utilitarian fashion sense.

Out of the closet.

During the 2004 Election Cycle, I had a friend suggest it was not possible to wear this hat with this pin on it.

My response, from my perspective, was that it not posible to NOT do it.

Cedar-chopper Pop.

Bodacious Bar-B-Q is an East Texas institution (Tyler). It is from whence Dallas' "Baker's Ribs Barbecue" has come from (family connections).

Rejected.