THE MAN WITH NO HAT

Images often come in a flash. But just because they happen quickly doesn’t necessarily lessen their impact. In fact, sometimes quickness even makes them stronger.

One image remains with me even now, indelible, as if an artist had painted it on a canvas in my head. It happened one day recently when I was driving into town. It was a cold, wet morning and I saw a man standing with his back to the road in the rain without a hat. He was short with square shoulders, strong from working in the vineyards or fields. He had jet-black hair that was washed down the back of his neck by the rain. It made no difference that I never saw his face, and that I passed him by so quickly and had to shift my eyes back to the road. A few seconds was all it took.

What captured me and made me continue to think about the man long after I’d passed, was that it was raining and yet he wore no hat. I’m not sure why it struck me so hard; perhaps I had a memory of being caught outside in the rain as a boy walking home from school, or as a soldier during monsoon season in Vietnam, or maybe both these things. Whatever the memory was, it brought back the discomfort.

When I was a boy I wore a baseball cap almost every day. My Yankee cap gave me an identity I felt comfortable with. As I grew older and my hair started to thin, wearing a hat became more a matter of utility than style. It made my head feel warm and protected me from the rain and the sun. Beyond the utility, in a more existential way, sometimes wearing a hat just plain makes me feel safe. It offers a protected place, that especially with the brim pulled down, is somewhere to hide from an unwanted gaze. A hat offers a sanctuary. If it’s big enough, like a cowboy hat, it can feel like a roof hanging over me.

Maybe because I live in Ukiah now, I do wear a cowboy hat, but not by any means an expensive one. Mine’s called a "Light Felt" made by Eddy Brothers who’ve been in business, it says inside, since 1929. The sweatband also tells me that my hat is made in the USA, that it’s packable and, that it’s "The Original" whatever that means. I thought Stetson made the original. But, best of all, it says it’s water repellent. And, maybe even better than "best of all" my hat only cost me twenty bucks.

What pushed me over the edge and made me decide to buy, was the story the woman at the Tack Room told. She said this hat could be dropped in the mud and my horse could trample on it and it would still bounce back to its original shape. I’m not sure if she made that up or not, but I wanted to believe her mostly because I liked the hat. But it was her little story that had me reaching for my wallet. Although I don’t ride a horse, I do drive a pick up truck and there conceivably could be a time when I might drop my hat, drive over it, and squash it down flat. I’d surely be happy then if it would bounce right back!

That was the story attached to the hat I was wearing when I passed the man beside the road. The story made the man’s bare head seem all the more vulnerable and exposed. I thought about how he must feel in the rain with the cold water dripping down his neck. I also thought that maybe I should stop and offer him my twenty-dollar Light Felt water repellent cowboy hat. After all, I was sitting inside my truck where it was warm and dry while the man had nothing to protect him from the sky.

But, as you probably guessed, I kept on driving and never stopped. I thought once more about it but by then I was too far down the road.

But, it’s strange how that image of the man without a hat still rattles around in my brain. I think it’s because I have learned that we are all in this life together, and when someone’s standing in the rain in need of a hat and I’m wearing one that I really don’t need, damn it, I ought to give him mine!