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Show By FLORENCE BITTNER We are being threatened by a return of hats. Threatened, I say, because it has been my observation that few of us can proclaim mastery over a hat. Almost always the hat wears the woman. There are few Alice Roosevelt Longworth's among us. Even a man, after a hatless generation, is usually in danger of being an appendage to his headgear. AS HAIR became important, impor-tant, hats delcined, but hair is receding, so adorning the head bv other devices begins. For several years past it was unusual to see a hat in a congregation, but recently here and there, like parsley in the salad, hats garnish a crowd. There have survived on my closet shelf a few relics of the days when no lady appeared at certain sccial functions hatless. Or gloveless. But though I wore the hat, I never really felt myself in control. I ALWAYS knew that hat perched up there attracting the gaze of the astonished and the approving and even occasionally oc-casionally the envious, but envy I retained unto myself since the hat drew the eyes first. I was under it. When I was a child, it was considered sure invitation to ailment to go hatless. In our western sun, a hat was a-provident a-provident umbrella. In winter, a hat kept colds at bay, and a lady's station in life and her age could be assessed as-sessed as easily by her hat as by her face. IN THE days when only the leisured class could remain protected enough to avoid suntan, women wore sunbon- nets to keep the skin of their faces white. In our day when only the leisured class has time to go out in the sun, a suntan says you have had time to lie on a beach, so we throw away head cover and invite the sun. Like the Boston lady who was asked where they got those symbolicTTats, and her implacable reply: "We don't GET our hats. We HAVE our hats;" so has been the working Westerner's Stetson. One day my mother captured Dad's grey, narrow brim and sent it to be cleaned and blocked. When it came back, Dad took one disgusted look, declared it ruined and refused to put it on again. HE TOOK to wearing his Sunday go to meeting hat to work in the Flour Mill and soon, it had the comfortable sweat, oil, dirt, dents and tilt which made it a fitting accompaniment ac-companiment to a good day's work. Mr. B. had a hat. He paid three dollars for it but it became his companion in . pleasure and he once ruined a forty dollar pair of shoes to wade into the ocean to rescue It. IT WASN'T a working hat, but it accompanied us on every vacation we took for years, and I doubt he could climb a hill without it. When it blew off and submerged in Lake Powell before we could get back to rescue it, we mourned its passing. No other .has ever quite taken its place. I know a couple whose marriage developed rifts ahd creaks over a fishing hat. He said the fish liked its smell and she said she didn't doubt it for a minute since they seemed to enjoy worms, but he would please park it outside. out-side. It drew flies. Soon there developed a love-me-love-my-hat confrontation which has never really been resolved, last I heard. UNCLE JIM has a hat. Or vice versa. He says his bald head gets sunburned without it, but Aunt Martha insists there is little danger of sunburn sun-burn in her living room. Actually she doesn't com-plain com-plain as loudly about his hat in the house as she might since she remembers hin when he had hair and understands under-stands that hat helps him forget the loss of that beautiful beau-tiful black curly hair. I SAW a picture of Uncle Jim when he was haired, and couldn't put his today's face under that hair, but he still sees himself with a head of hair any woman would envy. The very stylish are beginning begin-ning to appear in hats today. They say it takes seven years for a style to filter down to us commoners, so I guess there's time to adjust to the idea. IF YOU can get the knack of being boss over it, a hat can be fun. I just never got the upper hand, but maybe this time around I can begin with a look here now, I'm wearing YOU attitude. One thing I know. Sure as hats come back, I'll always sit behind the woman with the biggest one. |