by Robin
Sauerwein
That black
fedora has seen better days. Its rim flexes loosely now and it has deep gray
creases running through it. You can shape the leather in various positions,
making for a variety of looks and uses. It can be squashed and stepped on and
it still manages to look somewhat like a hat.
He wouldn’t
think about replacing it. Nothing could replace the history or its rugged beauty,
which is if you believe that a hat can have that trait.
It started
falling apart last year. The threads started to fray along the brim so when we
went camping last week, my husband brought a needle and a trail of hemp along
to repair it.
“Every story
I’ve ever told or adventure I’ve had, that hat has been involved. It’s been
there,” my husband said as if speaking about an old friend. He’s had to replace
his knife and walking stick but never his hat.
“It’s been
halfway up Devil’s Tower glaring at the slow moving people who wouldn’t get out
of the way so I could finish the climb,” he told me taking a seat by the fire.
He pulled out the sewing kit and started to sew the hole.
He scoffs at
people who do not understand the hat’s meaning or its many uses. Not only does
he use the hat as a plate for sliced cheese and summer sausage while driving
along the North Shore for our next adventure on the Superior Hiking Trail. But
it also serves as an air conditioning unit, either by soaking it in water or
putting ice on top of the rim. (As the ice melts the water dribbles down onto
your face.) Instant relief. It has been a hot pad for cooking and he has put
many fires out with it, as well as picking up hot logs.
And it’s not every day
you get a hat that can serve as a fire starter, a dog dish, and a bag to
collect deer bones and owl pellets found in the woods. And if you spin it flat
like a Frisbee, it inflates itself magically in midair. It can do all of that
and never be cleaned unless you count walking in the woods in a thunderstorm or
during a blizzard in February.
Many years ago
he thought he lost his hat while on a hike at his mom’s house. He sent his son
Stefan looking for it on a trail they had been on earlier. But soon after Bill
found it in the back of his truck and came into his mom’s house with a big
smile on his face wearing this scrunched up dusty, crusty piece of a hat.
His mother
looked up at the hat and said, “You sent Stefan out looking for that piece of
crap.”
“My hat did not
measure up to my mother’s opinion of a hat. It’s kind of like bringing home the
wrong kind of girlfriend. She can’t get that initial meeting out of her head,”
he said.
A similar thing
happened two years ago while we were in the Boundary Waters. He was riding
alone in his canoe when it tipped over. Bill has had only a few swimming
lessons in his life and wasn’t wearing a life preserver. Instead of grabbing
for the canoe, he swam for his hat first. (I think if I had been in the canoe
too, he may have had to think twice about which one to go after first).
After sewing the
hat awhile, he pulled out a dark strip from the inside lining and smiled at me.
“I am going to
put this on your walking stick,” he told me. “It has 22 years of my sweat on
it.”
I smiled. There
is no reason to doubt him on this.
His best friend
Joe even bought him a brand new shiny leather fedora to wear at his wedding. He
did wear it to the wedding although he would have preferred the old one if it
didn’t look so out of place with his white shirt and suspenders. But that was the last time that new
fedora has been on his head. It
remains buried in the basement corner attracting spiders and layers of dust.
Even if he bent it into submission or had a truck run it over, it still would
not feel and look the same as his old black one.
The hat has
taken on its own personality. And in a way it is so accommodating, folding up
like an origami crane, so compact and elegant. Unobtrusive. It can be crammed
into a backpack easily and made to do almost anything.
The hat is at a
comfortable stage in its life with natural creases and folds. The rim bends
almost effortlessly. I have to
admit when Bill wears it, he does take on a certain resemblance to Indiana
Jones but a little less clean-shaven and with a lot less hair.
“The fact is the
hat is going to be with me to the end. I’m going to have to start beating the
other hat so that I have transplantable materials in case my hat gets a hole in
it,” he said putting his pocket sewing kit away.
All sewn, he
sighed happily, walked down to the river and filled the hat with water for our
dog, Lucy.
My mother-in-law
says my tolerance for that hat is beyond wifely duties.
I am wondering
if I should tell her about his favorite knife.
published in Country Magazine, 2010
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