Like bumper stickers, hats are used to make political statements, acknowledge where their wearers have been or want to go, what their wearers would rather be doing, or expressing support for some sports team. Mine generally do none of that. (I don’t display bumper stickers either.)

I generally wear three types of hats: baseball caps, Panama hats, and Irish wool hats. My reasons for doing so might seem unusual. While the hat itself might make a statement, my main purpose for wearing them is, in fact, utilitarian.

Baseball caps have the disadvantage that they don’t protect the tops of my ears from sunburn. I use them more in rainy weather, preferring them to an umbrella unless it’s  a torrential downpour. Some of them promote something (Guinness stout or Jameson whiskey; Spring Lake, NJ—you might have seen my pic where I wear one), but they’re generally neutral in color—brown or gray, and never red or blue. I’ve lost quite a few baseball caps in my life, many more than a sock from a pair.

I finally found a Panama hat. I’ll confess my ignorance. I discovered hey’re made in Ecuador, not Panama. I think other South American countries make reasonable facsimiles, though (maybe like champagne, they’re not allowed to call them “Panama hats”?). I can’t imagine coffee growers in Colombia paying for an imported hat, even if Ecuador is a next-door neighbor, and they invariably wear one. Of course, the iconic Juan Valdes isn’t a determining factor in this controversy—he wasn’t even Colombian! (Of course, the name is an advertising creation, but the original Juan Valdes  was portrayed by Cuban opera singer Jose Duval.) Those “Panama hats” are pliable, practical, and cool (in both senses of the word), and the wide brim keeps my ears from burning.

I don’t think there are any pics of me in either Panama or Irish hats, though. The latter are from Donegal; here’s the link to Hanna Hats. The Hanna hat was born in 1964; Mr. Hanna, a tailor, created it. You’ll find that link elsewhere on this website, an inconsequential violation of my policy of not giving product endorsements (there’s a few links to Irish brews too, but some readers might have to lie about their age to visit those websites). How did I find these hats that keep the top o’ me head warm in winter? I didn’t see anyone wearing them when we visited Donegal, but the weather was exceptionally warm and sunny when we were there. My author friend A. B. Carolan tells me they are quite common in the western part of the Emerald Isle, just like those sweaters from the Aran Islands lying in the wild Atlantic just outside Galway Bay (generally cold and bleak, but also warm and sunny when we visited). No, A.B. didn’t introduce me to Hanna hats either. I found them in Spring Lake, NJ, along with some of those baseball caps.

I don’t feature hats in my fiction. Interactive AI helmets in my sci-fi, yes. They help some characters negotiate large databases. See the dystopian novella “Fascist Tango” that was serialized on this blog (partly in honor of Gibson, the creator of cyberpunk), or A.B.’s Mind Games, coming soon from Carrick Publishing. A.B. got that data-helmet idea from me from the first book in my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” Survivors of the Chaos (all three books are now bundled together in the Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection).

Do hats define the man? I hope not. Otherwise I might be considered schizophrenic…or undecided, at least. The ladies are often more creative than I am with their hats, especially on Easter Sunday (in days of yore, they always had to wear them in mass), if my hat wearing can even be called creative. The British ladies with their fascinators, Derby fans in their colorful bonnets, and so forth consider them artistic expressions and haute couture. Of course, men still wear top hats, but some furry friends probably hated some of those styles back in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. And those bearskin hats the Queen’s guard wear are exactly that, bearskins taken in the annual hunt in Canada. Let’s hope that all fur apparel is on its way out and becoming unfashionable. The hats I wear are environmentally okay, unless you consider shearing sheep for wool as cruel and unusual punishment (my wool Hanna hats).

What about you? Are you a hat wearer? Comment below.

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Comments are always welcome.

Mind Games. Coming soon from A. B. Carolan and Carrick Publishing. Della Dos Toros has powers her adopted father didn’t want her to use, but she must use them to find his killer. This new young adult sci-fi mystery will take a peek into the far future when humans want to give ESP powers to androids. It’s set in the same sci-fi universe as A. B.’s The Secret Lab and The Secret of the Urns, and my Chaos Chronicles Trilogy and Dr. Carlos stories. For young adults and adults who are young-at-heart, this action-packed sci-fi novel might just blow your mind.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

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