Published: March 17, 2008 11:30 pm            

Cathie Shaffer: Getting to the hat of the matter

We’ve just finished St. Patrick’s Day and we’re coming hard onto Easter. The obvious connection between the two, of course, is religious, a saint and a savior.

But there’s a second one as well.

Hats.

Silly hats have become part of the St. Patrick’s Day tradition, just like wearing green. These hats are generally some variation of a top hat, bright green, often accented with white.

You’ll often see them atop the heads of folks in St. Patrick’s Day parades or, as I did on Monday, bobbing in a crowd outside a New York studio during a morning news show.

My ethnic background is as rich as an Irish stew, including an ancestor who migrated here from the Emerald Isle. So I feel justified in celebrating on St. Paddy’s Day, wearing a “Kiss me, I’m Irish” button or shouting “Erin go brae!”

But you’ll never see me in a hat. I have a love-hate relationship with headgear of all sorts. I love my warm knitted stocking caps in the dead of winter, even though they make my hair look like it’s been smothered by a buffalo.

I hate the kind of hats that are supposed to accent a lady’s beauty but serve instead to make me look like I’m being punished for some unspecified sin.

My grandmother was a great believer in hats. Her hair style was simple — two long braids wound over the top of her head — and lent itself to hat wearing.

The last thing she did before picking up her purse and leaving the house on a trip to town or church was pin on her hat. She used those long pins that poked clear through into her hair, creating a seal so tight even the strongest wind couldn’t rip that hat from her head.

I never felt the need to be a well-dressed lady — heck, I seldom felt the need to be a lady at all — but my grandmother had no intentions of putting up with hooligans. So we were expected to follow in her footsteps, and that of her daughter, our mother, and show some style.

When Easter approached, we’d head to town and the “good” stores. In general, I loved Easter shopping, when each of us girls got a new dress and new shoes, with accessories to match. So I should have felt like a princess walking into church in my new finery, my little spring purse swinging from my hand.

I might have if I’d been able to wear a shiny tiara. Instead, I had a hat — usually one of those white straw ones with lots of flowers and an elastic band that went beneath my chin.

The slightest gust of a spring breeze would tug at the hat, pulling it upward and tightening the elastic band. If there was a strong breeze, and we had to park at the back of the lot, I’d feel like I was being strung up before we ever got into a pew.

I’d sit there with my parents and grandmother, amid a sea of Sunday hats, certain I was being stared at — and not admiringly.

Some of the little girls looked cute. I looked miserable as the cord slid behind my ears, the hat tipped sideways and my sister whispered snide remarks about how goofy I looked.

I adored my grandmother. I mourned greatly when she passed on. But neither my admiration or sorrow were deep enough for me to ever again put something on my head that made my ears stick out, my glasses go sideways and my hair lay as limp as the last of the St. Patrick’s Day streamers.

CATHIE SHAFFER can be reached at cshaffer@dailyindependent.com or (606) 473-9851.

        

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