1. Keeps the sun out of your eyes. (Duh!)
2. Leaves a nice depression line across your forehead.
3. You can't tip your hat to the ladies without...well...a hat!
4. Makes for an interesting conversation piece while boarding a plane. One time I had a flight attendant remark "I see you've been to Disneyland".
5. Helps avoid sunburn (at least on the top half of your head)
6. Makes you look like a gondolier instead of "Where's Waldo" or that one guy in Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video.
7. Sets you apart from all the other shmoes out there driving boats.
8. One of my gondoliers tells me that "chicks dig it".
9. Conceals hair loss (or "forehead gain")
10. I'd rather have bird crap land on my hat than in my hair.
4 comments:
Its not just gondolieri - I hardly ever go kayaking without my beloved Tilley hat - sun or rain.
I forgot to mention another benefit: if you wear glasses - the brim keeps the rain off your lenses.
I also received an e-mail from Ingo Stahl on the bavarian town of Wörthsee.
It seems that Murphy's Law is just as prevalent in Germany.
He wrote:
"Ciao, ciao Greg,
there is another reason to wear an gondolier`s hat:
It is a very effektiv protection against birds. They have great respect for it. Believe me, all the years am gondoliere wearing my hat, there was no hit on it. Some birds have sport to hit your bald patch. Twice when I did not wear my hat, I had to take it. You know these slimy white green bombs. On my left ear and one exact. I hear the bird shrieking:
ten points. ten points."
Thanks for the great laugh I got from your message Ingo.
I too have been crapped on, and I know how you feel.
The hat, to me, is a wonderful tool. Good for cold nights to stay warm. Good for sunny days to minimizing the double hit of direct sunlight and reflected light.
Bad on windy days though. Retrieving the hat is always an interesting process (but Greg I don't like chin straps!).
As for always wearing it, for me it is a tool, and so like the gondoliers in Venice I wear it when I need it. Let me knock on wood as I say I have been lucky not to be hit by bird droppings.
Oh Bepi, did you just hear that?
I believe I just heard the Murphy's Law switch get flipped.
Whatever you do, DO NOT TAUNT A SEAGULL.
This is one lesson I learned the hard way.
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