A long time ago when Barney and Betty Rubble still roamed the earth, I put together a piece called “The Birthday Party.” I was trying to figure out what to do with the handmade pieces of paper I had begun making – experimenting with different media and pushing the frontiers of new ideas. Since painting is expedient and direct, I quickly brushed out some areas to see how the paper and paint held up together. One of those quickies yielded two awkward characters dressed in tall conical and comical hats on their heads. A birthday party was born.
And another one is on the way as my father turns 99 years old today!
I have a love of hats, and the more ridiculous they look on me, the better. When I’m drawing characters in my pieces, I must guard against putting a hat on every one of them. It is as natural as dirt for me. There is nothing better than a hat to immediately give character and dominance to any adventure. Everything else about your wardrobe may be normal, but if you put a hat on, you will become a caricature of yourself! If you add a reggae song to the mix, you’ll be jammin’, I guar-an-darn-tee ya.
My own dependency on hats came from my dad who has worn dozens of different ones in his life, both literally and figuratively, and claims he is responsible for the invention of a hat that could have made him a million bucks if he would have patented it back in the 1950s. (At his advanced age, some of his stories are a bit suspect to me, but this one sound plausible, so I’ll share it). He came up with this hat idea quite by accident on the golf course when he routinely lost his stash of golf tees because there was no place to store them. With a bit of help from his wife Lois’ seamstress, he came up with a bucket hat lined with tee loops along the top perimeter, the perfect holster for a dozen of ready-to-pick tees, which soon made him the envy of every golfer this side of the Flintstone National Golf Course, just a boulder toss from Pebble Beach.
Just today when I went over to check on him, he opened the door to greet me with a chef’s hat on. He did not seem to be aware that he had the hat on, and I was afraid to ask him if he knew it was on his head. If he had forgotten it was on, I was afraid he might not know who he was if I brought the hat to his attention, and if he did know it was on, I was afraid he might withdraw into a character I did not recognize. Either way, I did not think it would go well, and decided it was better to let the hat issue ride. I figure when you get to be 99 years old, you’ve earned the right to let people think you are crazy, even if you are.
What’s funny to me is that my dad never cooked anything in his life (hat or no hat) until he was 95 and his wife of sixty years passed. This fact has not stopped him from taking on the character of a master chef or any other role, like the real ones he has taken on with the Optimist Club, the Wartime Museum, and the Senior Olympics. Not too long ago at 90 years old, he donned his speedos and swim cap, and lined up to swim the individual medley, an event that requires a swimmer to do a lap of each of four different strokes (try doing the butterfly sometime!). Possibly due to the pressures of competition, eight of the twelve contestants defaulted before their heat, leaving my dad in the final heat of only four swimmers, three of whom would earn a medal at the National Senior Olympics. When he amazed himself by coming in third and earned the Bronze Medal, he climbed out of the pool and exclaimed, “Well, it just goes to show, that if you live long enough, you’re going to get a medal in something.”
And so you have, Dad. Hats off to you, and Happy Birthday!