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[Hat and Rehat]

Sorry to go on a tangent, but this is too good to keep to myself. There has been a truck crash this morning in the Dallas metro area. The truck was filled with toilet paper...on April Fools day!!!!

It's just so funny because it IS NOT a joke!

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/traffic...toilet-paper-across-i-20-in-hutchins/2343228/

Just preface it with a question Randy. Something like, did anyone else see this? 86 proof!

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Further to my last question, does the position of the bulge towards the back of the crease also suggest this hat is designed to be worn further back on the head? View attachment 224137

Also, a little steam, maybe pressing it with the tip of a steam iron, should tame that bow.

 

[The Shoe]

Welcome, friend. How you wear it is a matter of personal preference. At one time everybody dapper wore their hat cocked, tilted slightly to the side. Mickey Rooney was his straw boaters tilted back but others flat on their head. A lot of people like their fedoras down in front over the eyes, but I picture Robert Redford in The Natural with it back. Watch a good hat movie. The Sting is one. See which style of wearing appeals to you.

Thanks for the answer. I usually wear my hats deeper on my head, ie forwardish, but this hat simply won’t fit if I wear it that way. The thing I read or heard somewhere was that the trilby is less functional as far as keeping the sun off your face, so whereas a full brimmed fedora would often be worn flatter on the head to serve that purpose, the shorter brimmed hats as more exclusively a fashion item are often worn further up on the forehead. Anyhow, I like the hat, so I’ll see if I’m comfortable wearing it that way.
Thanks again.

Oh, and The Sting is one of my all time favorite movies.

 

[Rmccamey]

Yes sir, it is still being reported on the local news. On a major highway in the metro area, there are plenty of witnesses. And, to make this even better, the traffic reporters are saying the wreck is "in the clean up stage". HA HA. Sometimes fact is funnier than fiction!

https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/...ck-accident-toilet-paper-alabama-san-antonio/

Just preface it with a question Randy. Something like, did anyone else see this? 86 proof!

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Thanks for the answer. I usually wear my hats deeper on my head, ie forwardish, but this hat simply won’t fit if I wear it that way. The thing I read or heard somewhere was that the trilby is less functional as far as keeping the sun off your face, so whereas a full brimmed fedora would often be worn flatter on the head to serve that purpose, the shorter brimmed hats as more exclusively a fashion item are often worn further up on the forehead. Anyhow, I like the hat, so I’ll see if I’m comfortable wearing it that way.
Thanks again.

Oh, and The Sting is one of my all time favorite movies.

I think maybe tilted back is supposed to exude a sense of young innocence. That might be why Newman wears his that way at the card table.

 

[belfastboy]

And don't worry about preachin', B. My first experience of the Tremens was the first Sunday of the year. My vision and hearing were both off. We take the Supper sitting in the pews and I spilled half of the little plastic cup of "the blood" all over the knees of my khakis because my hand was shaking so bad. Three days later I met with my Pastor at his house and laid it all out. I told him of my plan to try to wean myself off but said if it didn't work I'd go into Detox. He and the elders were praying for me.
I'm United Reformed and we're catechized throughout our lives, unlike the Lutheran church I was raised in where you did that as a young teen to get confirmed. The first question of the Hiedleburg Catechism Is about the purpose of man. The first part of the response is, to Glorify God.
I wasn't.
God's glory is my first motivation. I trust He will cary me through.
I feel like one of us needs to ask a question.
Do you have good snacks in your fellowship time at church?

A number of years ago my wife and I having decided that we no longer wanted to be 'unchurched'. We went on a search to find a church that best fit for us......leaving no stone unturned we went to Synagogue with a Jewish friend one Friday night. The food at fellowship was incredible and I seriously considered converting. Alas all those rules were a deal breaker.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

A number of years ago my wife and I having decided that we no longer wanted to be 'unchurched'. We went on a search to find a church that best fit for us......leaving no stone unturned we went to Synagogue with a Jewish friend one Friday night. The food at fellowship was incredible and I seriously considered converting. Alas all those rules were a deal breaker.

Couldn't give up the BBQ spareribs?
(Note the question, bartender)

 

[belfastboy]

Couldn't give up the BBQ spareribs?
(Note the question, bartender)

Yep, that was part of it too. The irony is our search eventually has brought us to Eastern Orthodoxy. We are still in the 'inquiry' phase and likely to become catechumens soon. We have decided to practice a true Lent and so are full vegans for the 46 days of Lent. This is week 5 and so far I have made it. For some reason they lift the alcohol restriction a bit this week and starting Thurs I can have a shot of whiskey in my morning coffee again.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Yep, that was part of it too. The irony is our search eventually has brought us to Eastern Orthodoxy. We are still in the 'inquiry' phase and likely to become catechumens soon. We have decided to practice a true Lent and so are full vegans for the 46 days of Lent. This is week 5 and so far I have made it. For some reason they lift the alcohol restriction a bit this week and starting Thurs I can have a shot of whiskey in my morning coffee again.

You're killing me. Of course I liked mine very light on the coffee. The smell as my wife brewed it was nice and sufficed. With a name like belfastboy .... well .... if you get four Irishmen together you can always find a fifth. ;-)

 

[belfastboy]

You're killing me. Of course I liked mine very light on the coffee. The smell as my wife brewed it was nice and sufficed. With a name like belfastboy .... well .... if you get four Irishmen together you can always find a fifth. ;-)

Us Gaults consider ourselves Ulstermen NOT Irish. We come from a proud line of Presbyterians and a bit more introverted and dour than the 'hail fellow, well met' of the Irish. And we drink Bushmills not that Catholic Jamiesons.

 

[belfastboy]

Us Gaults consider ourselves Ulstermen NOT Irish. We come from a proud line of Presbyterians and a bit more introverted and dour than the 'hail fellow, well met' of the Irish. And we drink Bushmills not that Catholic Jamiesons.

As a last note....my dear departed Great Grandmother is likely rolling over in her grave at the news I have abandoned my Protestant heritage and gone over to the other side. Her enmity towards the Pope of Rome is legendary (I was too young to remember). The mantra heading over to her house each Sunday for dinner was always...."Don't mention the Pope!". Now Eastern Orthodoxy does not recognize The Pope nor have one of its own but I am thinking our switch to Orthodoxy is still too close for her to forgive.

 

[humanshoes]

Thanks Bowen. I was in a pretty dark place for a while. It seemed like everything I touched was turning sour between cleaning bucoup accumulate crap out of my shop to make it into a hat shop and more accumulated crap out of my little barn shed to have a place for the good stuff that I wanted to save (having upwards of 500 hats and also a big inventory of thrifted stuff to sell on ebay didn't help) then my neighbor insisted I drag another bunch of accumulated crap out of a weird no man's land between her fence, which is 6' on her side of the lot line because of some trees that used to be there, and a second fence I built about a foot my side about 20' long to hide construction materials ( that would surely come in handy some day) from the city citation writer. This was all done before she lived there so we ended up in a lot line dispute along with my back yard looking like a tornado hit, twice. Then a friend died and grieving him triggered grieving for my sister which I hadn't really done when she passed last year. Don't ask me about my van.
The short of it is that my alcohol consumption hit new highs, better characterized as lows, and I went for a long swim at the bottom of the bottle from Thanksgiving to the first of the year. It was bad enough that I got the shakes three hours after my last drink, which scared me bad. I weaned myself down to 1/3 of what I had been drinking over about 2 1/2 weeks. I could have and should have stopped then but my wife kept stopping for beer for me and wine for her and I didn't tell her to stop. Toward mid Feb. I started to slide again and ended up back where withdrawal would be physically dangerous. After making a deal with the wife to stop together I checked into a Detox facility 3/10 and came home 3/16 sober and $1600 poorer. Ouch on the money, but my deductible is met so I better get a lot of other things checked out and/or fixed this year.
I'm feeling good, and strong. I'm just plugging away at one thing at a time instead of letting it overwhelm me. I don't miss getting drunk. I think it was time. We even tossed the grass, which was more her thing than mine. I liked my bourbon though and also had a taste for white whiskey triple run then proofed down to 90 --- the good Mule.
I'm going feel nostalgic for that first sip passing my lips but I know I have to leave it at that.
Leave it at nostalgia I meant, not a first sip.

Stay the course Steve. I can sum up my friendships with Jack D. and his various cousins just by saying that I had great fun until I didn't and I was a drunk until I wasn't.

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

I think maybe tilted back is supposed to exude a sense of young innocence. That might be why Newman wears his that way at the card table.

I think a-lot of the hat tilted back in movies is so the camera can see their faces without shadows and such.
B

 

[Hat and Rehat]

As a last note....my dear departed Great Grandmother is likely rolling over in her grave at the news I have abandoned my Protestant heritage and gone over to the other side. Her enmity towards the Pope of Rome is legendary (I was too young to remember). The mantra heading over to her house each Sunday for dinner was always...."Don't mention the Pope!". Now Eastern Orthodoxy does not recognize The Pope nor have one of its own but I am thinking our switch to Orthodoxy is still too close for her to forgive.

I understand the Orange/Green distinction. Beg pardon. Do you march in your bowler?
I was agnostic by 19 and considered myself an atheist at 25. The Hound of Heaven pounced on me, almost against my will it seemed, at 33. We ran the gamut of modern Evangelical, some more Liberal Presbyterian, a sort of country style church that grew out of a Railroad Sunday School (for adults) movement that replaced the old circuit riding preachers. We ended up in the Reformned church which is very Presbyterian except a good number of the families have Dutch names. Definitely creedal and mildly liturgical (much less than the more high church Lutheran liturgy). A pretty conservative denomination, but we do sing some Hymnlogy with the Psalter. Some Reformed don't, like some Presbyterians. No modern Worship Choruses; Heaven forbid! Every week is Law and Gospel. Recognizing how we never measure up leads us to renewed gratitude for the Grace won on the Cross. It's amazing how many churches rarely preach that, as if you only need to hear it up until the moment you're saved.
My knowledge of Eastern Orthodoxy is pretty limited. Hank Hanagraph who was on the radio as the Bible Answer Man converted a few years back. I happened to run across some of the blowback from prominent Pastors in radioland. I used to listen to radio preaching earlier walking with the Lord. There were cries of heresy, for sure. It seemed overblown to me. No Pope. No celibate priesthood.No Maryology either, correct? (I got my question in). The icons are a curiosity but doesn't seem like a deal breaker on the level of excommunication from Christian teaching radio.
I have heard that the ScotsIrish form of Presbyterian worship is, or was, considerably more exhuberant than the Frozen Chosen style many people associate with the big P.

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

And don't worry about preachin', B. My first experience of the Tremens was the first Sunday of the year. My vision and hearing were both off. We take the Supper sitting in the pews and I spilled half of the little plastic cup of "the blood" all over the knees of my khakis because my hand was shaking so bad. Three days later I met with my Pastor at his house and laid it all out. I told him of my plan to try to wean myself off but said if it didn't work I'd go into Detox. He and the elders were praying for me.
I'm United Reformed and we're catechized throughout our lives, unlike the Lutheran church I was raised in where you did that as a young teen to get confirmed. The first question of the Hiedleburg Catechism Is about the purpose of man. The first part of the response is, to Glorify God.
I wasn't.
God's glory is my first motivation. I trust He will cary me through.
I feel like one of us needs to ask a question.
Do you have good snacks in your fellowship time at church?

To Steve and any other’s out there struggling with this issue i will say this and then be done because it is a decision and not a discussion for this arena.
Sobriety is a daily reprieve. No matter the days months or years it is never cured. It won’t go away, will never leave and if you think you are different you will be proved wrong.
It takes the understanding that a higher power than YOURSELF is required to break the prideful arrogant thinking that got you where you are.
I know who my higher power is, you have to find yours.
What is the most successful program for sobriety and always has been?
AA and no other is even close.
A very recent study showed AA to be 36% successful for longterm sobriety. Thats up from about 30% 10 years ago if i recall. Modern Psychiatry, detox facilities and every other program would love 30%. None are close.
AA is not just a sobriety program. It is a LIFE PROGRAM. It will keep you sober if you work the program, yes. But it will make you a better person as well.
And it will help you help others because someone helped you.
Done preaching but i had to say something or MY reprieve may have suffered.
B

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Stay the course Steve. I can sum up my friendships with Jack D. and his various cousins just by saying that I had great fun until I didn't and I was a drunk until I wasn't.

,
I'm in with both feet, Rick. I actually walked away from a lot of other things, some used in their season very abusively, over the years. The liquor remained. I was a functioning drunk for quite a while. I wish I had faced it and quit years ago instead of having to go down where I never thought I would.
I really feel at peace with this. I have a lot of support I might not have when I was younger, even here it seems, and just knowing it's there if I need it will help keep me strong.
Knuckle knocks.

 

[belfastboy]

I understand the Orange/Green distinction. Beg pardon. Do you march in your bowler?
I was agnostic by 19 and considered myself an atheist at 25. The Hound of Heaven pounced on me, almost against my will it seemed, at 33. We ran the gamut of modern Evangelical, some more Liberal Presbyterian, a sort of country style church that grew out of a Railroad Sunday School (for adults) movement that replaced the old circuit riding preachers. We ended up in the Reformned church which is very Presbyterian except a good number of the families have Dutch names. Definitely creedal and mildly liturgical (much less than the more high church Lutheran liturgy). A pretty conservative denomination, but we do sing some Hymnlogy with the Psalter. Some Reformed don't, like some Presbyterians. No modern Worship Choruses; Heaven forbid! Every week is Law and Gospel. Recognizing how we never measure up leads us to renewed gratitude for the Grace won on the Cross. It's amazing how many churches rarely preach that, as if you only need to hear it up until the moment you're saved.
My knowledge of Eastern Orthodoxy is pretty limited. Hank Hanagraph who was on the radio as the Bible Answer Man converted a few years back. I happened to run across some of the blowback from prominent Pastors in radioland. I used to listen to radio preaching earlier walking with the Lord. There were cries of heresy, for sure. It seemed overblown to me. No Pope. No celibate priesthood.No Maryology either, correct? (I got my question in). The icons are a curiosity but doesn't seem like a deal breaker on the level of excommunication from Christian teaching radio.
I have heard that the ScotsIrish form of Presbyterian worship is, or was, considerably more exhuberant than the Frozen Chosen style many people associate with the big P.

On the marching front....I live in Canada with a wife of Ukrainian descent (born in Canada). A few years back she joined the Ulster Marching Accordian Band . They were a big hit hereabouts in the local MayDay parades etc. So here I was a son of Ulster watching my Ukrainian heritage wife march in what should have been my band....except I could not play the accordian. No they did not wear bowlers but damn they looked good in their powder blue and red uniforms. I always envied the guy that got to whack the huge Lambeg drum.
What appeals to me (and I am very surprised by this) about Orthodoxy is that it is 98% liturgy based. Our priest gives a very short homily during the service but blink and you miss it. It is the same liturgy as delivered back in the 4thCentury. So it appeals to my conservative nature....you can't get much more conservative than going back 1600+ years. They do recognize Mary but do not venerate her as do the RC's.
There is much ritual. The choir is a huge part of the service and in our cathedral they sound like angels. The call and response from priest and choir often sends chills down my spine. It truly is heavenly.

I was a fan of the Rev Ian Paisley and he represented a more dour, severe strain of Ulster Presbyterianism but the dude had a style....and I am a sucker for the Ulster accent. I do miss the singing of the old time hymns but in my last milder non credal Protestant light church they changed the lyrics. It drove my wife nuts when I would belt out the original lyrics refusing to change to suit the kinder and gentler times. I still consider myself a 'wretch' and would sing it extra loud instead of the more politically correct 'soul'. Tis' a journey and at this point in it Orthodoxy fits well.....it just seems right and I don't bother my rational mind in the attempt to figure it out. I accept it as a fit and enjoy it all.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Ok. Back on topic (the other stuff can move to PMs). I have worked out a way of making blocks that I believe holds a lot of promise. I plan to do a tutorial as I put it into practice, which is on hold until I dig out of the mess I have around home.
I do have some blocks I made before working out some critical details, mainly in kid sizes for the little Gremlins ... er, Grandchildren. I've also fabricated a couple flange blocks to go with them. I have a few vintage blocks and flanges but none that are a set from the same manufacturer. Can anyone with matched sets answer this for me? What is the gap between block and flange around the circumference to allow for the felt thickness?

 

[belfastboy]

Ok. Back on topic (the other stuff can move to PMs). I have worked out a way of making blocks that I believe holds a lot of promise. I plan to do a tutorial as I put it into practice, which is on hold until I dig out of the mess I have around home.
I do have some blocks I made before working out some critical details, mainly in kid sizes for the little Gremlins ... er, Grandchildren. I've also fabricated a couple flange blocks to go with them. I have a few vintage blocks and flanges but none that are a set from the same manufacturer. Can anyone with matched sets answer this for me? What is the gap between block and flange around the circumference to allow for the felt thickness?

I have just ordered 3 Long Oval blocks from a guy in Poland. They are to match a set of vintage LO flanges I picked up. He advised that he allows for a gap of 5mm to allow for the felt thickness. I have toyed with the idea of making my own so would welcome any tips on the 'how'. I have found a block maker in the UK that makes just a domed topper for much cheaper that I was thinking of adapting to fit onto a flat topped block. This way I can have blocks to fit the smaller sized heads that cannot justify the higher cost of a wooden block in a popular size. I can make just the flat topped block but it is the artistry of hand carving the top to get the slight dome that vexes me.

 

[belfastboy]

I think a-lot of the hat tilted back in movies is so the camera can see their faces without shadows and such.
B

Many years ago I was involved in live theatre and hats were problematic. I created a character for an improv group and it seemed to me that wearing a hat was integral to the character. However, wearing it lower on the brow put my entire face in shadow and killed many expressions. Pushing the hat back on the head gave off the wrong vibe....from serious/menacing to flip/insouciant. The compromise was each time the character entered the room he would doff the cap and toss it on the table.