Mad About Hats

This is my Great-Grandfather, Glenn, looking very dapper in his

wool hat. Don't people look fabulous in hats? I adore hats. There is

something very dashing and romantic about a person wearing a hat.

I like to wear one when I'm in a festive mood or when it's just plain

cold, like it's been this week. I saw a lot of hats on both men and

women at the inaugural because of the freezing temps. There was a

classy guy in a bright red fedora. And didn't you just love Aretha's

fabulous bow? There was a time, however, when you didn't dare

leave the house without your hat. It is quite sad that we have

become so casual in our attire that we feel perfectly comfortable out

and about in public without our hats.

The Death of the Hat, Billy Collins

Once every man wore a hat.
In the ashen newsreels,
the avenues of cities
are broad rivers flowing with hats.

The ballparks swelled
with thousands of strawhats.
Brims and bands,
rows of men smoking
and cheering in shirtsleeves.

Hats were the law.
They went without saying.
You noticed a man without a hat in a crowd.

You bought them from Adams or Dobbs
who branded your initials in gold
on the inside band.

Trolleys crisscrossed the city.
Steamships sailed in and out of the harbor.
Men with hats gathered on the docks.

There was a person to block your hat
and a hatcheck girl to mind it
while you had a drink
or ate a steak with peas and a baked potato.
In your office stood a hat rack.

The day war was declared
everyone in the street was wearing a hat.
And they were wearing hats
when a ship loaded with men sank in the icy sea.

My father wore one to work every day
and returned home
carrying the evening paper,
the winter chill radiating from his overcoat.

But today we go bareheaded
into the winter streets,
stand hatless on frozen platforms.

Today the mailboxes on the roadside
and the spruce trees behind the house
wear cold white hats of snow.

Mice scurry from the stone walls at night
In their thin fur hats
to eat the birdseed that has spilled.

And now my father, after a life of work,
wears a hat of earth,
and on top of that,
a lighter one of cloud and sky – a hat of wind.