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Eat Your Hat, Cowboy
- University of Minnesota Press
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Eat Your Hat, Cowboy Nowadays, the only hats worn regularly have been relegated to sports and war, baseball caps and helmets. Perhaps a couple of exceptions would be the occasional appearance of hats on the heads of the trendy or the cold. I remember refusing to wear a hat during a Minnesota blizzard and warming my ears with my gloves, risking frostbite to stay “cool” on my way to high school. In Italy, I figure I can fit in with my new hat since the old men in the town square never leave home without their hats. Bums and street musicians still pass their hat for tips and alms, and even hipsters put on big Russian fur hats to warm their ears and snub animal rights activists. Owning a hat is a responsibility in Italy. Hat protocol is strictly enforced through rigid unwritten rules: hold your hat in your hand upon entering the cathedral in respect to the Almighty; remove your cap when another poor soul meets his maker and the funeral party marches to the cemetery plot; hang your hat before pulling up to the table unless you want la mamma to smack you with a spoon; and God forbid tossing your hat on the bed unless you have a death wish! I finally broke down and bought a knockoff of the classic Borsalino hats. I’ve wandered by the hat store a block from my house many times admiring the array of old-style hats, especially the expensive Borsalinos, which are essentially an 65 Italian Stetson. I’ve been wearing my heavy Minnesotan wool ski cap, and curious Italians constantly want an explanation . After all, I’m not on the ski slopes so what on earth am I thinking? My St. Paul Saints baseball cap makes them think I’m on my way to play “the most confusing sport ever invented.” Entering an Italian hat store is a step into the past, as Americans have given up wearing hats ever since JFK went hatless at his inauguration. I’m sure Kennedy took a cue from my fellow Minnesotan Charles Lindbergh, who took off his ski cap (or was it an aviator’s helmet?) after his flight landed in Paris. The money saved on hats in the United States has since been spent on getting the proper hairdo at the barber. In Italy, the hat still makes the man, even though it’s mostly the older men. The clerk at the store is happy to pull out a dozen different styles of hats, even though I know exactly which one I want. There’s the Jackie Stewart model, the Greek fisherman’s hat, the Basque beret, etc. Finally, she lets me try on the version I’ve admired in the window. It’s made of the skin of lepre, which I find out is hare, not leper. My American friends greet me with “Hey, mafioso!” when they see the hat, probably expecting me to be munching a toothpick and tossing a silver dollar in the air to complete the look. For the most part, hats in the United States have been put into cold storage and are only pulled out for comedians to poke fun at foreigners: a tilted beret on the head with a baguette under one arm is a snooty Frenchman; a perfectly groomed bowler accompanied by a three-piece suit and a cane implies an uptight, but practical, Brit; and a feather poking out of a green Tirolean hat means a jolly beerguzzling Bavarian with lederhosen. A hat becomes a jab at those people a little different from ourselves: Napoleon’s 66 Eat Your Hat, Cowboy [18.212.242.203] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:07 GMT) sidewise general’s hat means another cuckoo has cracked; a proud dude sporting a ten-gallon Stetson leads to whispers of “all hat and no cattle”; and a maroon fez with a gold tassel is a sure sign of a Shriner on a scooter. Wandering into the piazza one day with my fake black Borsalino with the small brim, I figure I can sneak in to watch the old men play their Italian card game scopa on the back of a scooter seat. They eye me quizzically as though to say, “Who the heck does this giovanotto [young man] think he is in that hat?” They don’t seem to mind as long as I’m not an undercover cop trying to bust their petty gambling. Afterwards, I...