Losing your hat...

[Kaleponi Craig]

Great quote by Charles Dickens (from The Pickwick Papers):

"There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable consideration, as when he is in the pursuit of his own hat."

Kaleponi Craig

 

[Matt Deckard]

He is right!

 

[tonyb]

God willing, none will ever suffer such an indignity (not to mention the loss of the hat). Maybe we should get in the habit of using those wind strings for their intended purpose.
Nah. Just wear beaters on blustery days instead.

 

[jake_fink]

"There's nothin' more foolish than a man chasing his hat."
Tom in Miller's Crossing

 

[K.D. Lightner]

The Hat Ranch

This story was told in a California periodical containings stories of early California history.

There is a place in the Mohave desert called the Hat Ranch. The story told was that years ago, the stagecoach would wind it's way through the desert to the town of Mohave.

The winds would blow out in the desert and many a passenger, men and women, would lose their hats -- out the window they would blow and go spiraling through the desert. The stage driver would not stop, not with the oppressive heat and the stage schedule. It would have been almost impossible to retrieve those hats, anyway, as they would blow away like tumbleweeds, making their way to a place where they were trapped by cacti and where the wind did not blow.

The locals knew of this place and called it the Hat Ranch. The owner of the town hattery would go there to retrieve the hats and sometimes sold them back to the very people who had lost them. Locals would also go there to find themselves a new hat.

The stage is long gone, but there is allegedly a place in the desert near Mohave in which you can still see remnants of those lost hats -- little shards of straw and ribbon and felt.

No wonder they started making trolley and stampede straps....

Urban legend? I don't know. I once had a straw hat sitting on the cooler blow right out of my car while I was driving through the desert. I stopped, however, and was able to retrieve it.

karol

 

[Mr. Rover]

Nearly happened to me 3 times- once in Hong Kong, once in London, and once in Taiwan. Funny that I've never lost a hat during a typhoon, though...

 

[android]

Lost one on the ferry in Puget Sound several years back. I'm sitting inside the passenger compartment minding my own business when some dumb kid opened an emergency hatch. The whole place instantly turned into a wind tunnel and my hat went out the door and over the stern almost instantly.

Just like the stage coach, no turning around. :cry:

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Too bad the kid didn't follow the hat right out the wind tunnel. Then they'd be forced to stop.

Or maybe not....

karol

 

[Biltmore Bob]

I was training a dog for a client, who was observing...

...when the wind got hold of my prized 4 inch brimmed Stetson...that was not a pretty sight.

Imagine trying to run down a hat dragging a dog.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Too bad the dog couldn't "fetch" --or would that have been a bad idea?

karol

 

[Not-Bogart13]

Just this weekend

I almost lost my Federation to the wind while walking my dog on Saturday. It usually stays on pretty good, and I didn't realize how windy it was until I got out there. Then I got hit by a sudden surge of wind from behind that left me clinging to the support under my deck, watching the Fed disappear into the night. The Dog tried to go after it, but he was on a leash, which had been blown around the support (along with me). Fortunately, the wind was so severe that the hat hit the snow-covered ground with enough force to get partly burried, just outside of my view. I found it quickly. :clap

 

[John in Covina]

I have lost two ball caps on the water and both sank like lead, one was on the way to Catalina on the ferry and the other on the Long Island Sound. I have lost a Utility Cap (the Navy version of the cloth Marine cap but without the Globe & Anchor) while bicycling in traffic, I would have died in any attempt to retrieve. I had an LLBean hat similar to the Snowy River shape in Canvas that got caught in a gust of wind and headed for parts unknown back in the early 80's. The gust was so fast that I figure it's still circling the globe next to some space junk in orbit.

 

[Rigby Reardon]

There is a place in the Mohave desert called the Hat Ranch.

Good story, K.D. Thanks for posting it.

Having been passed by a tumbleweed, I do not doubt the hats took on a life of their own. Who knows which state they ended up in? I saw an article about tumbleweeds getting caught in the 'vacuum' behind a truck (truckwash? ) and traveling over a hundred miles w/ the truck until it stopped. So there's just no telling where your hat ended up...

 

[Jokerswild7]

I was recently at the King Tut museum exihibiton in Ft. Lauderdale dressed completly vintage. When my family and myself left the building, the sudden gust of wind sent my brand new Stetson Saxon flying. I was ready to kill someone. Luckily I caught the little bugger as it tried to cross the street (it could have been worse). Thankfully, the hat was placed back on my head where it stayed for the rest of the day.


I still have nightmares about it.

Chasing his hat like a darn fool,
Glenn