Everyone with a head needs a hat! That’s what my father Malcolm Bowles always said. With temperatures in double digits everyone certainly could use some protection on their head. I wish I had listened! Dad always wore a wide brim hat and my stepmother a bonnet outside the home. She created a Little House on the Prairie type bonnet on her pedal-driven Singer sewing machine. Ida married my dad in 1957. He bought her an electric sewing machine, but she insisted on using the old Singer. Ida went to the pasture with us, helping to tend cattle and mending fences way into her nineties. Both looked years younger than they were because they protected their face from the harmful UV rays of the Texas sun.
My hatless outdoor activities: working cattle, boating and thousands of motorcycle rides resulted in skin cancers on my head and neck. After numerous Mohs procedures and losing part of my nose, I now wear my trademark straw Stetson in warm weather and a felt when it’s cold. I quickly learned life in a hat can be difficult in a hatless society. Many are prejudice toward people that wear hats. It’s time for hat wearers to unite and stop the discrimination! More about that in my next post. I look forward to hearing your comments, as long as you’re not talking through your hat.