How to Spot Me at the Science Fair

[J. M. Stovall]

Not too hard, these photos were posted to my daughters elementary school site over the weekend. The fair was last week.

The hat is my grey Stetson Whippet.

And one shot of Sydney (age 6) for good measure.

 

[funneman]

Great shots J.M.

Cute daughter. You're right, we can spot you a mile away! LOL.

I always wear a fedora to pick my kids up at school, or soccer or whatever.
They can always pick me out of a crowd or a field.

It's always funny to see their reaction, because first they see the hat, then they look underneath it to make sure it's me.

Enjoy that little girl of yours, they grow up awfully fast.

 

[Vintage Betty]

You look cool, but she looks darn cute.
Sorry, she wins!

Vintage Betty

 

[RBH]

Great photos JM ! Cute girl you have, does she like hats?
Im glad to see you have your hat on too, instead of carrying it.

 

[Benny Holiday]

Darn that Whippet looks great JM! And Sydney is so cute - my little one's three and eight months now and I know that before I know it, she'll be Sydney's age and off to school!

 

[DblCoronaMS]

On Fridays parents are allowed to have lunch in the cafeteria with the kids. On a recent visit I wore my grey Cavanagh. I got several compliments from the kids. One boy said "Wow! you have some cool hats Tyler's dad!"

Gotta start 'em young!

 

[J. M. Stovall]

I drop Sydney off every morning and I always have a hat on. At the beginning of the year some of her little classmates would say "your hat is funny", and I would just tell them it keeps my head shaded from the sun and also keeps it warm and dry (I just had to put a little science spin on it!) Now no one bats an eye but they all know me as the hat guy.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Cute daughter. You're right, we can spot you a mile away! LOL.

I always wear a fedora to pick my kids up at school, or soccer or whatever.
They can always pick me out of a crowd or a field.

It's always funny to see their reaction, because first they see the hat, then they look underneath it to make sure it's me.

Enjoy that little girl of yours, they grow up awfully fast.

Most of us take those photos of ourselves for various threads, but it's fun to have candid photos of myself wearing a hat!

 

[NonEntity]

Nice candid pics, Stovall.

It's so true that a hat makes you stand out in a crowd. At 6'2", I stand a bit taller than most anyway; add in a hat on my head, and you can easily spot me from 200 yards away. That's not always a good thing, but that's another story.

When I went off to college in the mid-1970s, practically the only men who wore hats were funk musicians like Sly Stone and a certain ilk who drove Caddys with several ladies in the back seat. Of course, those hats and tams were over the top, to put it mildly.

Shortly after I arrived on campus, I got a nice rust suede Churchill stingy brim (1 3/4-inch) trilby with the most beautiful feather I've ever seen. In a very strange coincidence, on the first cool day of Fall, I walked out of my dorm room with my hat on, only to encounter the two guys immediately across the hall with their hats on! Brian, from Texas, wore a Western style Stetson, and his roommate JK wore a tall-crown, wide brim felt fedora, a la Rick in "Casablanca." Not counting ball and stocking caps, we were the ONLY men on campus who ever wore a hat, so we definitely stood out.

Brian immediately picked up the nickname "Stetson," while JK soon came to be known as "Bogey." Though my hat was not a Tyrolean, it kind of had that look, and people called me "the alpine hat guy." To my ear, that's not nearly as catchy as my buddies' nicknames, but it stuck much more so. People I'd never met referred to me by that nickname.

In fact, recently, 30 years later, I was at a reunion party talking with an attractive woman from my class I didn't know but was very interested in knowing. Trying to establish some common ground, we were playing the who-did-you-know game--what dorm we were in, what frat/sorority we joined, etc.

Finally, it donned on me to mention my key identifier. Before I could even finish my sentence, she exclaimed, "The alpine hat guy! You were the alpine hat guy. I always wanted to meet you." Things went swimmingly with her from that point on.