Dad's Fishing Hat
By John R. Greenwood
Fishing hat, hunting hat, weekend-work-around-the-house hat, there was usually a small partridge feather or trout fly attached to the band. The hat's soft threads were stained with the remnants of Pharaoh Lake and the Cedar River Flow. Bring it close and smell the trout biting, the black-fly bug dope, and the hint of a Stony Creek buck. It was crushable and tailor-fit snug. If you held the hat to your ear you could hear a small outboard motor putt, putt, putting across an Adirondack lake in May. That hat savored miles of hardwood forest, foraging animals, and free floating ducks. It covered the head-of-the-class; my father.
I can see the resemblance.
ReplyDeleteAnd, having read that, can almost feel the hat in my hands. Beautiful stuff, John.
It's wild how, when someone leaves us, the once mundane becomes ultra important. I see it every day.
Wonderful! Your words make it all so real.
ReplyDeleteA beautiful memory shared! So much history in that hat.
ReplyDeleteLovely photo and writing, John. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the picture, a jolt of emotion came to the surface. That picture, AND that hat ARE Dad and who he was as a person. I concur with all u said in the hat's description. Someone who knew Dad well once told me years ago that she thought our Dad was "the best fisherman in N.Y. state", and I would tend to think she may very well have been right!
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention that I have 1 or 2 of his old hats. I have a large black one with a wide brim all around has 2 pheasant feathers, like you said! I remember in the kitchen, how many hats he had clipped on the hat rack he made himself. We have it now hanging inside our back porch by the kitchen door, but Jim's hats are nothing like Dad's! How could anyone ever forget Dad's great uniqueness and talents!
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