Old "open road" style hats

[PabloElFlamenco]

Yesterday evening, saw a documentary about the political career of Richard M. Nixon.
At one point, it showed President Eisenhower fly-fishing with the vice-President, Ike wearing what appeared to be an "open road" style hat. A close-up showed, and confirmed what I have seen in other old pictures, the side-bash (of the cattleman crease) to be as it were "cracked". Not smooth-structured, as would result by a careful steam-bash, but crushed with hard, irregular, outlines. Not all that pretty, at all!
Would that mean the hat was full of shellack, and the bash ...brutal?
Or would some of you consider that to be an acceptable alternate look?
Maybe that hat was straw?
Paul

 

[RBH]

Could have just been a well worn hat that was thrown about and used as needed.

 

[PabloElFlamenco]

Could have just been a well worn hat that was thrown about and used as needed.

Gosh RBH, are you saying Presidents have "well worn hats...thrown about..used as needed"? Very human, indeed... I somehow thought these gents had cupboards full of "donated" Stetson 100's (and which appear to have ended up in National Memorial Museums).

You should have seen those (fifties) Cadillacs! Must have weighed ..er... 6000 pounds! And the throngs of reporters, all wearing Fedoras. And those large magnesium flashbulb still cameras, photographer with the front brim snapped upwards, against the handle-flash!

I can understand people regretting those days (add: in a way). I sorta do.

Respecktfoolly!
Paul

 

[tonyb]

We all know that a person interested in seeing his hat last a long, long time will avoid handling it by the crown. But you gotta believe that people routinely did handle their hats by the crowns back when hats were much more commonly worn than they are today. Fifty and 60 and 70 years ago a person could always get another hat and any one of several stores in any town of any size. And he could always get his existing hats cleaned and blocked at a hatter's shop in any town of any size. So hats were less precious to the common man than they are to, say, people like us.

Wanna see a rumpled, uneven hat crown? Check out pictures of FDR taken during his presidency.

 

[Stan]

Shocking Revelation Follows!

Hi,

I'm going to shock you all here. This is your fair warning!

Well, I have to admit that I often handle my hats by the crown. I also often handle them by the brim. I'd say it's about 50/50.

A fedora is more likely to be handled by it's crown (by me, anyway), as the front pinches practically cry out as a place to cradle the hat by when putting it on and off it's hook.

Note, though, I say 'cradle', not 'grab'. I don't put any finger pressure onto the crown when I handle it that way. It's just the weight of the hat. I adjust it on my head by the brim.

I also don't pick a hat up by the crown when it's been laying flat (like on the seat next to me), again I pick it up by the brim. It just seems natural somehow.

I also don't tend to handle my Open Road hats with their alpine (or cattleman's as it's also called) crease by the crown, either. Even when cradling, this style crease tends to want to distort easily whereas the fedoras don't.

I now have three Open Road style hats. One is straw and came with the alpine crease. The other two are felt, one vintage and one custom, that were creased as fedoras when I got them, and have now been re-creased by me into the apline crease because my wife and daughters both think I look better in that style than in the fedora.

I can see where the crown would quickly become a lumpy out-of-shape mess should it be handled by the crown a lot.

Finally, you ought to have seen my original brown fedora that I wore all the time for 20-some years. It had a decided coloration to both the front pinch area as well as the front and rear of the brim from handling, often times with somewhat dirty hands. I had never heard of cleaning a hat until recently!

It died one evening at the race track when it blew off of a toolbox and into a rather large pan of hot drain oil when I was out on track running a race. Sigh.

In fact, I never gave the old hat much thought at all, until it was no more. My dad, nor any of my uncles ever did, and many of them wore hats daily. They're sort of like a pair of shoes, you wear them, then wear them out, then get new. My dad would treat a hat a like a pair of boots, though, being rather rough on them. He only ever wore straw hats and then to work in on the farm, so that fits.

I seem to have learned from a somewhat dodgy source there, but I rather think the same way even with a $300 custom made hat. Oh, I'll treat that one really well until something bad happens to it and then I'll stop treating it so nice - and order up a new one.

Just like I treat my boots, come to think of it.

I have three or four pair at any one time. One pair is 'good' and the newest. The next is 'light duty work' and is the next oldest. A third pair is for farming and the oldest is for working in the dirt, usually on the bulldozer. A bulldozer is very rough on footwear, although it may be that by the time a pair of boots gets to that stage, they're pretty easy to kill!

Anyway, eventually a brand-new pair will wind up being dozer boots one day!

I suspect that the same is true with hats.....

Later!

Stan

 

[RBH]

Gosh RBH, are you saying Presidents have "well worn hats...thrown about..used as needed"? Very human, indeed... Paul

YEP
They are just like us. At least most of them are.
Gifts they may get... but... they like what they like.
As I stated, more than likely that was an old hat he liked that was now not treated as well as other hats, that said I dont think he wore hats as a rule.

 

[PabloElFlamenco]

Stan, I liked readin' you!
I admit to -consciously, when I think of it- handling my hat by the brim (using both hands!), and all the rest of the time, the crown seems to be the more "natural" handle.

Loved (to read, politeness imposes me to state) your "track accident". For cryin' out loud, Stan, wearing a hat at the racetrack! Bound to happen! I have yet to see a racer with spic 'n span clean hands (usually stink of gasoline). Couldn't you, at least, have put sawdust on the oily hat in an attempt to retrieve it from its yucky death? lol "The pitstop hat". I used to go down to Spa and watch the 6 hours veteran car races there, you know, (winning) Cobras, E-types, nimble lil' Lotus and steely screaming exhaust sideways-curve-sliding 2 liter Porsches. Arghh!!!!
E-C-O-L-O-G-Y, a sound mind, order, moderation...(we're all sinners, at heart, aren't we)
Paul

 

[Stan]

Pit-Stop hat

Hi,

Well, by the time I found where the errant thing had blown to, it had been in the oil for at least an hour. The oil was hot, as I'd just changed it between practice and qualifying. Hot as in at least 400 deg F hot. Oil cools slowly, even in an open pan, so it would have been at least 300 deg F when the hat decided to go swimming.....

When I pulled it out, it was well and truly soaked through. Talk about a floppy mess. Oh, well. Things happen....

As far as wearing an old hat in the pits, it was good for keeping the sun off my head when I wasn't either driving or wrenching on the car. I replaced the felt hat with a straw one that I used when working on the old farmstead.

If I were still racing, I'd still wear a hat when I was in 'spectator' mode. Chances are, I'd probably wind up losing another one eventually. Oh, well.

Remember the team boss in the movie Le Mans? He wore a bucket hat, not a fedora, but there you are. Or, look at Roush in the NASCAR Cup series. Hats in the pits!

fftopic:

BTW, I love the smell of race gas. It's nothing like pump gas, and it's like perfume when some gets onto a hat!

Mmmmm. Race gas, exhaust and Castrol-R! What a wonderful aroma!

Only the race fans out there will get that, so don't worry if you don't!

Later!

Stan

 

[PabloElFlamenco]

Stan, I got "Le Mans" on DVD, I'll take it out and keep my eye on that pit boss. Le Mans... never been to the actual race, but been twice to the fftopic: Le Mans Classic. Ever seen (nah, that ain't right, HEARD is the word, or even FELT ..felt?...yes felt!) 50 odd prototypes, GT40's of varying generations, one Porsche 917 (the front runner ) ,two dozen or so 908's, and few sucker red cars in the middle... and the whole rest of the flock BARRELLING DOWN the Mans grandstand straight? Arghhh... so much for ecology, I admit. Enough to make anyone's hat fly off!
:eusa_clap Stan

 

[Pilgrim]

Remember the team boss in the movie Le Mans? He wore a bucket hat, not a fedora, but there you are.

Stan, here's a question - I see various hats I believe to be fedoras listed on Ebay as "bucket hats". It's a term I don't understand, and until I saw your note I had assumed it was some colloquial expression for a fedora. Now I'm in doubt.

I JUST found this online, and it appears to be pretty definitive:
http://www.apparelsearch.com/Definitions/Headwear_Hats/bucket_hat_definition.htm

It describes a soft cotton hat with a wide, downward-sloping brim, and gives the hat Gilligan wore on the comedy series as an example.

Does this agree with your understanding of the term??

 

[Stan]

Bucket hats

Hi,

Yup, that's it. Good ol' Gilligan and his simple cloth bucket hat. Or, for a 'fancier' one, Col. Henry Blake on MASH with his all done up with fishing flies!

Often times, bucket hats are associated with golf. IIRC, the bucket hat worn by the team boss in the movie Le Mans had a patch for some golf club or other on it.

Later!

Stan

 

[Woodfluter]

Correct. Bucket hats are also associated with yachting - the original canvas Tilley hat (T1, still available and I have one) is definitevely a bucket hat designed for that purpose. I like them for windy conditions such as aboard a boat, because the far downturned brim gives the most protection for the least "wind effect", or tendency to get blown off your head. Of course, the unique Tilley chinstrap/backstrap arrangement takes care of that too.
- Bill