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01/12/2004: "Tops"

I started wearing hats as an affectation, and then it became a habit, and then it became a choice dictated by good sense. When I was a youth, I saw a cool leather hat in a clothing store not far from the house we rented at the New Jersey shore. All my money was disposable, so I could afford it; in it I imagined I looked like Gato Barbieri, the coolest man alive. I bought it and wore it and wore it and wore it again. It was a little tight on the noggin, eventually, a little careworn and decayed, but I found other hats and other personas. It was a necessary part of my garb, right up there with blue jeans in the days when shoes were optional ten months of the year. I wore fedoras, straws, cowboy hats and baseball caps. Then I realized they were keeping the rain off my glasses, the sun out of my eyes, and the UV off my increasingly exposed scalp. I have been introduced to such innovations as sunglasses, the umbrella, and the sun visor, but hats still work the best, most of the time. Heads off to hats!