Hats off to you!
Readers brimming with tales of terrific toppers
When spring is in swing, so is hat season. But for many, a terrific topper is part of their wardrobe yearround. The Post-Gazette invited readers to share stories of their favorite hats and memories associated with them. Here are a few.
I’ve been a volunteer at the Cooper-Siegel Community Library in Fox Chapel for a long time. I’m at the circulation desk, so I am right in front, usually the first person you see when you walk in. I always have a hat on, usually a goofy or funny one related to a holiday. The children love my hats and always want to try one on. I have probably 50 to 75 hats! Some are in boxes, and some are just scattered all over.
Lately, even the adults like my hats. I just get a kick out of being laughed at and laughed with, and I have a lot of fun with it. — Kris Niemann, O’Hara
Jewish people wear skullcaps, known as kippot, as a reminder that the divine presence is above us. I needed no reminder as I gazed out upon the congregation on the Saturday morning of my son’s bar mitzvah. If kippot could talk, the ones worn by so many in the synagogue that morning would have a story to tell.
One year earlier, I got the call none of us wants to hear: breast cancer. I was looking at the big three: chemotherapy, surgery and radiation.
I learned quickly how time in hospitals moves like sludge climbing uphill. Minutes feel like hours. Nothing drove me crazier than the inescapable television in the corner of every waiting room. How is it possible that it was always tuned to the same annoying game show? Then one day, as I tried to focus on a magazine article for the third time with the television blaring in the background, I had one of those transformative light-bulb moments. I would crochet kippot for family members to wear on the morning of my son’s bar mitzvah.
It was a rough start. I couldn’t seem to establish or follow a pattern. The kippot were all different sizes. Too flat. Too domed. Too big. Too small. It amazed me that out of all of those uneven stitches anything could emerge. But they did. Before long I had enough for the entire congregation. I was a woman on a mission. The more I made, the better I felt.
I met amazing women in those waiting rooms, many of whom were also knitting or crocheting. We would strike up conversations, and I would tell them what I was working on. It didn’t take long to learn that head coverings were a hot topic among this group of follicle-challenged women. I felt privileged to hear their stories and share my own.
One year later, as my son chanted from the Torah, I looked out at the fruits of my labor — 108 misshapen kippot worn by family and friends, all there to celebrate my youngest child entering manhood. If that isn’t divine presence, I don’t know what is. — Debby Glick, Mt. Lebanon I have a hat from my wedding
day in the 1940s. I couldn’t buy a veil because of the war; the fabric was needed to make parachutes. So my mother had a special hat made at Gimbels for the wedding. The day of my marriage, someone in church recognized the hat as a duplicate of one Lana Turner wore in a magazine. I had no idea. They saved the photo from the magazine and gave it to me.
Years later, my niece took the hat out of storage and placed it in a glass case along with the pearls I wore on my wedding day and a picture of me and my husband. — Ellie Turnbull, Charleroi
The hat sits on a shelf surrounded by books in my study. I never wear it and have no plans to ever put it on my head. I just want it there so that I can see it often. The hat grounds me, reminds me who I am and offers a silent blessing as I go through the day.
My hat would not be popular in Pittsburgh. When we moved here over a decade ago from Missouri to be near grandchildren — a concession to my wife's need to see her three grandchildren grow up and have them know and love her — I left behind almost everything I knew and cherished. Pittsburgh was a new beginning, along with a semi-retirement.
I have become a Pitt fan, which actually was quite easy because two of the three grandchildren enrolled at our great university. The Steelers? Who could not fall under that spell.
Which brings me back to the hat. It's red and has the logo of the St. Louis Cardinals. I've noticed that people like me who were born in St. Louis and grew up there almost never give up this first love. I say almost because there is my grandfather, whom I loved more than I knew growing up.
He was a baseball man, a Missouri dirt farmer born in the 19th century. One of the earliest pictures ever taken of him shows a young farmer as a baseball manager, one knee bent and his team of younger men standing behind. My hat connects me to my wonderful grandfather.
My grandfather did the unthinkable. He gave up on the Cardinals and never looked back. In 1926, St. Louis traded Rogers Hornsby to the Giants. My dear grandfather was so upset that he never again took up the cheers for the home team. He switched to the Yankees.
When I look at my hat, I hear the voice of this man who meant so much to me. A man who never met a stranger. A man who always had a smile. A man who loved baseball but who could never forget or forgive losing “The Rajah.”
My hat also reminds me of growing up in a different time. In the 1950s, most people did not have air-conditioning in their homes. I have memories of walking down the street on a hot night, every window open with hope for a breeze, and every radio announcing the Cardinals game. You could walk blocks and never miss a play.
It was a place where everyone knew your name, knew your parents, knew your grandparents and, in my case at least, knew your great-grandparents. When I see my hat, I remember those hot nights and the warmth of being known and loved by the world all around me.
In the neighborhood during the day, there was hardly an afternoon that passed without a game of sandlot baseball. The thing about our games is that everyone got to play. I always wore a hat very similar to the one that I see now as I write. And the memories wash over me about how fortunate I was to grow up where and when I did.
By the time I finished college, the St. Louis Cardinals had started winning again. But from the time I was 3 years old until after I graduated from college, the Cardinals never played in October. I know the disappointment of losing -- year after heartbreaking year. So my hat reminds me that not every season is going to be great. Not every decision is going to pay off and bring reward. Not every relationship is going to be a blessing.
The other side of that coin is equally valuable — to rejoice in every good win, to claim happiness and joy whenever it arrives. Take nothing for granted and give thanks for everything beautiful.
When I look over at my hat, it takes me back to the 19th century and forward into the 21st century, when at some moment I will finish the game. I have a lot of hats in the basement and some in the closet, and I will wear all of them sometime. But you can see why the hat in my study will never be worn. This red hat has just too much to say. — Tom Clifton, Glenshaw
About 10 years ago, I went to a fabulous estate sale in Highland Park where one entire bedroom was filled with vintage hats. I purchased six, one being a Paris opera hat in black crepe with black veil and my favorite, a black suffragette hat with fruit-like decorations.
On Jan. 21 of this year, my sister Renee and I participated in the women's march held in Pittsburgh. I proudly wore my suffragette hat in homage to the hundreds of women who marched years before to give me and all other women the right to vote. I also wore the hat/ensemble to the Pittsburgh Mills Macy's employee Halloween contest. (I was one of the winners.)
I view the hat as a symbol of empowerment, and I will always wear it with pride. Plus, it's really a beautiful hat! — Adrienne SemprCapaccio, Tarentum
I am a lover and collector of hats. My collection includes a Hattie Carnegie hat that belonged to Gen. Matthew Ridgway’s first wife, Julia Caroline Blount. The ticket on the box indicates it was bought in 1922 from a Washington, D.C., store.
I was blessed to know two great ladies here in Pittsburgh who were known for their style and affection for hats. One of them loaned a 1930s hat to me to wear to a Great Gatsby party in Ipswich, Mass., many years ago. It was a fabulous ivory satin elliptical design. The other grand lady gave me most of her hats when she moved to a smaller home. They range from furs to wools to florals. I have devoted most of a room in my home to them. — Nancy Barsotti, Rosslyn Farms
I have been collecting baseball-style caps since 1976. I have 745 — and counting. My first hat was a Montreal Canadiens hat. A friend attended an NHL playoff game at the old Montreal Forum. That got me started. I'm retired now, but when I was working I wore a hat to match my tie. I almost always have a hat on, and it usually matches my outfit.
Total strangers have handed me the hats off their heads after I said to them in complete sincerity, “Nice hat!” I have a Texas Longhorns hat given to me by a Texas cowboy visiting Ross Park Mall, and an MIT hat from the father of an MIT professor given to me at a local grocery store. An Albertsons grocery store deli clerk in Whistler, British Columbia, gave me a nice meat vendor’s hat. At my wife’s Vanderbilt University Law School reunion, a former United Nations prosecutor gave me a hat.
A good friend got me a Local 66 Operating Engineers hat at the annual Labor Day parade. My late father was a 47-year operator, and the union was giving them away to union members at the parade. My friend, a labor union member, asked for one, and at first they said no. Joe was insistent. He gave it to me for a Christmas present.
There are the special hats that have sentimental attachments, like my late father-in-law's hat from Lincoln Memorial University, where he graduated in 1935. I also have a complete collection of hats from every baseball team my nephew ever played on, from T-ball through college, plus college hats from the schools that five godsons attended. My wife and I got married on July 31, 1993, and we each wore a 1993 All-Star game hat on our honeymoon.
In my collection, there is not a single Philadelphia or New York sports team hat. I'm from Pittsburgh. — Jim Johns, Bethel Park
I have a hat that has been worn by young girls in my family for over 75 years. I believe it was purchased at the former Kaufmann’s, Downtown. My mother and I always shopped at this store. I loved the hat because of its beautiful bow. I wore it to church for the first time on Easter when I was probably 7 or 8 years old.
I wore it for many years, then gave it to my first cousin, who gave it to her daughter to wear. It has been well taken care of by my cousin, who is waiting for a granddaughter to also wear it. We are a small family, and my husband and I never had children. I would have also had our daughter wear the hat. — Joan Kenney, Squirrel Hill