animals, Art, books, Fantasy, Kids, Uncategorized, Weather

Here’s Your Hat – What’s Your Hurry?

40 Comments

My local library has begun to accept books back – there is a big bin outside the door during their open hours.  The books will be “quarantined” – until they are out of quarantine, they will stay on my account.

When I called the library last week to check out one of my curbside holds, I asked about the returns and the librarian told me to please not bring all 28 at one time.  So I’ve been stopping by and dropping off 4 or 5 at a time every day.

Yesterday on my way home, I passed a mother and daughter who were clearly headed toward the curbside check-out.  The little girl looked to be about five, maybe six.  At first glance I was thinking “why does this kid have on a hat in this hot weather?”  Then as they got closer, I saw that it was a unicorn hat.  “Aaaah…. never too hot for a unicorn hat!”

Forget the weather, forget hat hair.  What kind of hat will you wear today?

40 thoughts on “Here’s Your Hat – What’s Your Hurry?”

  2. I can remember hearing “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry” from my parents since I was a child and so naturally that made me wonder about its origins and how far back it goes. Reading material from the middle of the nineteenth century, I am frequently surprised at how many familiar idioms were already in common parlance and probably were more relevant than they are today. “Here’s your hat” makes more sense in a time where everyone wore hats and left them at the door when they came to visit.

    The earliest instance of a version of “Here’s your hat” that Google found for me was from a play written in 1853. That version was, “Here’s your hat, don’t hurry!” but from the context I gather that it was meant in the same way as “what’s your hurry?” However, the fact that it was used in a play as dialog suggests that its meaning as an oblique invitation to leave was already familiar. None of the entries on Google offered an origin story for the phrase.

    I did find this, though:
    https://www.villagehatshop.com/content/40/hat-isms-hat-sayings-and-phrases.html

    It’s interesting how many colloquialisms involve hats.

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    2. George Bailey used that line in “It’s A Wonderful Life,” when his mother literally shoved him down the street to court Mary Hatch. (Can you tell I’ve seen the movie a few times?)

      Chris

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    3. That’s an impressive list, for sure. I just took a peek at colloquialisms and idioms based on horses. The list was pretty long, and it left out some that I knew. As someone who used to own guns, I often run into gun-based phrases (like “flash in the pan”).

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        1. For a while, vs, the most modern guns were flintlocks. There was a pan on the right side of the barrel, a pan that held powder. A hole bored through the barrel, connecting the pan and the inside of the barrel. After tamping down powder, a wad and a ball of lead, the soldier or hunter poured a bit of powder in the pan and protected it with a sort of lid. When he fired the rifle, the hammer held a chunk of flint. It scraped down a plate filled with little ridges, sending a big spark down into the powder. That powder ignited, sending flame into the barrel, igniting all the powder behind the bullet. Dang, I didn’t realize this would be so windy!! Sometimes the flint’s spark ignited the powder, but the fire didn’t travel through that little hole. Result: a flash of light but not detonation of the charge. So the rifle didn’t fire. That was a flash in the pan, meaning an attempt to do something of consequence that failed. Whew! Don’t ask me the origins of the phrase “stand for it.” It’s complicated, and way too embarrassing for this venue!

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  3. I shall wear a traveling hat today as we drive back home from Brookings. It is a five hour drive. My hat could look like Mercury’s hat, one that would speed us on our way through the back roads of South Dakota. We plan to take Highway 12 through Aberdeen, then north to Jamestown, then to I-94. We plan to avoid Fargo, a COVID hotspot.

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  4. If I were to wear a hat, it would be a wide brimmed straw hat for gardening, but you couldn’t pay me to be out there in the middle of the heat except in early morning, when I don’t need one!

    My hair is starting to look like a helmet, so we could just say that’s my hat…

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  5. today a panama is in order or maybe a milan straw, summer straws are great, with the shade today its not a big deal. but to go out into the weather without a hat is not an option for me. lightweight felt or straw choices by the door usually 5 or 6 to choose from. i am a little like the shoemakers kids, i get the ones that have a flaw or an issue that make them less sellable than a perfect specimen, but i do appreciate a good hat, unicorn is good for the soul of a munchkin and i am all for soul upping. hats in general are soul upping except baseball hats… they are t shirts on your head. i saw a guy yesterday with his hockeyteam shirt his hat had a different team on it and he was looking at a camo hat to change it up and be more redneck. hats do a good job of elominating hair concerns. hair is a non factor as long as you keep the hat on.
    i watched golfers over the weekend and wondered why they bake their ears off with baseball style hats instead of providing shade. i always get a kick out of then the farmers tan a baseball hat provides. they take it off and they look a quart low.

    sorry i missed yesterdays 10 year anniversary. i got crossed upmand was looking at the wrong post in the morning and when i came back with a reply it was obvious i had looked at the wrong entry,
    space for 5 years. access to an online entity would provide most of what id need. book music blogs and podcasts maybe a way to do art and interesting exercise routine but weightless might make that challanging,
    a way to spice up food with some variation for 1500 days there and 1500 days back plus eating while youre hanging out on mars foma couple year of chilling . lots of cumin. olive oil salt smoked paprika basil and a stash of rosemary thyme lemon dill and some hot peppers.
    my space hat would be a fedora too, chilling across the cosmos

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  6. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I will wear an air conditioned hat, guaranteed to cool on the steamiest day. I may add my tiny fan that I hang around my neck when I travel in hot weather, for a complete ensemble.

    OT—I should have taken these accessories to Iowa this weekend, along with sound proofing ear protectors. We travelled to central Iowa Saturday for our scheduled patio visit with my mother on Sunday. We Got out of the car on Saturday at 4:30pm to the noise of firecrackers. The fireworks intensified all afternoon into the evening, unrelentlngly, peaking from 10-midnight. We slept in my sister’s camper and lived outdoors to achieve the needed physical distancing. With the fireworks going on, Lou said,’This is like sleeping inside the bass drum.” That was about it. I went to bed very early last night and feel much better this morning.

    Te dogs are still recovering from their nervous breakdowns. I held Bootsy all night Saturday.

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  8. In the 1920s my dad was sent to live with his aunt in the tiny river town of Keosauqua, Iowa. The head of that household always wore a straw boater hat and white suit. Those were signals that he didn’t work with his hands and thus deserved more respect than farmers or manual laborers. Hats were one way of defining status and identity.

    When my dad and I visited Keosauqua in 1998, we toured the old church my dad attended as a kid. Instead of pews, the church had seats, and each seat had an odd wire structure bolted underneath. Those wire thingies were a place men could stow their hats while in church.

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  9. I’m not a hat fan for the most part. I see them as necessary evils– summer hat (usually a ball cap) to cover the thinning hair on the top of my head. Stocking caps in winter to stay warm. I do have a decent straw hat I wear on occasion to play golf but the wind has to be very light or it distracts me by getting blown off at inopportune times.

    But most of all, I wish I could find a thinking cap that fits perfectly. 😦

    Chris in Owatonna

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  10. In hot, and especially hot/humid weather, my whole head sweats which leads to wet hair. Hats or caps just makes that worse so I avoid them at all costs. Plus, I have a small head so nearly all hats are a bit too big, and I think I look silly in most. If I was invited to the Kentucky Derby or Ascot, I’d probably have to (reluctantly) wear a fascinator. I do, however, have a bunch of knit caps/hats for warmth in cold weather.

    I, too, would like a perfectly fitting thinking cap.

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  12. I will exempt myself from this question. You all know what kinda hat I’ll be wearing. But if it came with AC you better believe I’d have that one too.
    I even took it off a few times the last few days when in the car or the tractor.
    Yesterday when I headed out to do ‘farm’ stuff, it was the already dirty, ‘Pioneer’ seed cap.
    When headed to town it was the clean ‘Meyers Seed’ cap. And when Kelly and I head out for a 4 wheeler ride to the mailbox, it was the dirty ‘Meyers Seed’ cap.

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  16. OT: my last haircut was in March, right before the virus shut down life in this place. Believe it or not, I’m getting a little shaggy. Today I have been driven bonkers. If I look slightly up, a hair (out of focus) hangs in front of my eyes. If I try to sweep it away, it comes back. If I get out scissors and whack the air by my forehead, the hair might disappear. Then it comes back. If I rub my eyebrows, the hair disappears. And comes back. If I carefully groom my eyelashes, the hair goes away and then comes back. The effect this has on my famous good nature is easily described: just think of the effect Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) has on Inspector Dreyfus (played by Herbert Lom).

    Tomorrow morning I have an appointment at Kathy’s Beauty Shop.

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      1. I have now watched these two recordings of “All Around My Hat,” back to back, several times, and they’re both brilliant. I’d be hard pressed to choose a favorite. It’s fun to see the young Maddy Prior in all her glory, and to see her, at least twenty-five years later, still full speed ahead. Steeleye Span is a band that has seen many changes of players over the years, but every permutation of the various players is great.

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        1. I watched three or four, but I thought the dance added a nice energy to this one. Also the audience participation.

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