Hold Onto Your Hats
The Hat Saga Continues
I went into Chicago recently to shoot some pictures. I wore my Tilley hat - the one that Tilley sent me as a replacement for the first one I bought, which started to fall apart. I had this hat a year-and-a-half. (It's not the same hat from the previous story, but let's pretend it is for the sake of verisimilitude.)
Anyway, the weather was balmy, so I'd decided to tuck the chinstrap out of the way. And everything was fine. Until I got out of the train at my stop and started walking toward the stairs leading outside (this section of the Loop on the Red Line is underground).
I'm walking, not paying attention to the trains - admittedly I was distracted by an attractive blonde in front of me - when all of a sudden a train swoops in from the opposite direction, and a whoosh of air blows the hat off my head. I try to grab it, to no avail. Before I could do more than react, the hat had settled on the train tracks. A younger man might have descended down to the tracks - and I'm sure someone did and is now wearing my fairly pricey hat. Which is OK, since I wasn't really overly fond of it. Still, the incident did throw me off my game. I took a few pictures and headed home, my bald pate fully exposed to the sun. Luckily, it was overcast and mild outside.
Next thing I know, I'm shopping for another hat. Anything but a Tilley. Well, to be fair - and out of sheer curiosity - I sent them an email briefly outlining the incident. Their lifetime warranty covers hats damaged by washing. But I doubt their warranty covered hats lost to whooshing (like the alliteration?). (As it turns out, they offered a 10% discount - I passed.) In the end, I found a nice hat, one that doesn't require a chinstrap to stay on your head in the wind - subway platform tested. It's made by Henschel, and is the one I'm wearing in my self-portrait on my Home page. It has a distressed look, so now I can smile any time I feel distressed and simply point to my hat.
Anyway, the weather was balmy, so I'd decided to tuck the chinstrap out of the way. And everything was fine. Until I got out of the train at my stop and started walking toward the stairs leading outside (this section of the Loop on the Red Line is underground).
I'm walking, not paying attention to the trains - admittedly I was distracted by an attractive blonde in front of me - when all of a sudden a train swoops in from the opposite direction, and a whoosh of air blows the hat off my head. I try to grab it, to no avail. Before I could do more than react, the hat had settled on the train tracks. A younger man might have descended down to the tracks - and I'm sure someone did and is now wearing my fairly pricey hat. Which is OK, since I wasn't really overly fond of it. Still, the incident did throw me off my game. I took a few pictures and headed home, my bald pate fully exposed to the sun. Luckily, it was overcast and mild outside.
Next thing I know, I'm shopping for another hat. Anything but a Tilley. Well, to be fair - and out of sheer curiosity - I sent them an email briefly outlining the incident. Their lifetime warranty covers hats damaged by washing. But I doubt their warranty covered hats lost to whooshing (like the alliteration?). (As it turns out, they offered a 10% discount - I passed.) In the end, I found a nice hat, one that doesn't require a chinstrap to stay on your head in the wind - subway platform tested. It's made by Henschel, and is the one I'm wearing in my self-portrait on my Home page. It has a distressed look, so now I can smile any time I feel distressed and simply point to my hat.
