Beau Brummel in the Woods

 I enjoy sartorial splendor.  There, I said it.  I don't have kids, I have clothes (and a cat).  I bought a four bedroom house years ago with a closet in every room including the kitchen and den, a hallway cedar lined closet, and two attics (one over the house and one over the garage)  in anticipation of  having enough space to store a life's worth of stuff for me and my family.  It turns out I needed all the space for a life's worth of stuff for me and well, me.  This is hard for any man to admit but I own more clothes, shoes, coats, jackets, and watches than my wife.  She does own more accessories such as jewelry and purses than me.  I only own one purse.  A murse.  More like an over the shoulder travel bag you find in the LL Bean catalog for adventurous travel to dangerous locales like Nigeria and Nicaragua.  Only no one who goes to these places would ever be dumb enough to stuff all their important papers in a visible and easily rip offable shoulder satchel.  That's what money belts are for.  So I assume other men use them for trips to the mall like me.  But it is fun to pretend.

I also own a lot of hats.  Western, outback, fedora, Panama, wool felt, fur felt, straw, waxed cotton, Tilley, Bailey, Stetson, Akubra,  and even one made of buffalo fur and leather.  I have loved hats ever since I can remember.  In grade school I saved up my money to buy one of those Cuban Revolutionary's caps that Fidel always wears.  It was the sixties and Che Guevara was a household name in liberal New York Jewish households.  I feel it necessary to state at this point that I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the communist party.  In fact I generally have no pity for the working class of which I include myself.  Though I don't think Wisconsin should take away the collective bargaining rights of it's civil employees.  But did you know it was just the right to arbitrate for their benefits?  They could still collectively bargain for their base salaries.  But I digress.

I long for the days when men, no matter what activity they were engaged in, wore fedora fur felt hats.  I find myself drawn to those old photos of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, or the pictures of food lines in the 1930's when all the men, no matter how down and out, were wearing natty chapeaus.  A smartly tilted hat will make even the most hapless fellow seem a bon vivant.  In fact it has always been my motto that "If you don't know what you are doing, look good doing it".  And please, do not mistake my enthusiasm for a stylish hat as an implicit approval of wearing baseball caps for any purpose other than catching baseballs.  Perhaps a John Deere baseball cap would be okay for a farmer out tilling the fields but a broad brimmed straw hat would set him apart from his fellow toilers and do a better job of protecting his head, face, and neck from a nasty carcinoma.




I own a separate set of clothes for each activity in which I involve myself.  I also own a coat or jacket for each five degree change in temperature and precipitation.  Forty-five degrees and sunny?  I have an app for that.  Fifty-four degrees and raining?  I have an app for that.  You will not come upon me hiking in the woods or climbing up a mountain wearing anything other than a smart looking Schoeller, Polartec, and GoreTex outfit and a handsome full brimmed hat.  I might be bringing up the rear but I look damned good doing it.  Out doing yard work?  I am wearing a stylish barn coat and cowboy hat.  My neighbors may think I am quirky but I know every guy wishes he owned a cowboy or outback hat and wore it while cutting up downed tree limbs with a 60cc chainsaw. 

I've noticed another thing.  It has become fashionable to post a life's worth of pictures at a viewing for the deceased.  When the eight people present at my funeral stand there admiring my life well lived I want them to say to themselves "Damn, I need me a hat like that".