Forgetfulness necessiated new hat

You always forget something.
That’s one of the ironclad rules of traveling: You always forget something.
So as we headed out last month for a vacation and family visit with our grandchildren in New England, I inevitably found myself wondering what I had forgotten.
I knew that I’d packed both our big suitcases as well as our overnight bag, a cooler, gifts for the kids and a few other miscellaneous items.
But I knew I’d forgotten something.
Right about the time we passed through Celina, Ohio, I remembered.
“My hat,” I said. “I forgot my hat.”
In some ways, that was understandable.
I’m not really a hat guy — the late Jay Miller used to tease me on a regular basis that I needed to be wearing a hat — but like most American men I have a bunch of them.
Some are what used to be called “gimme” hats, as in “Gimme one of those hats.” Those are freebies that accumulate in the hall closet. Then there are hats tied to specific events, ball games or outings. And some just seem to appear. They may be breeding in that closet for all I know.
I knew the hat I’d planned to bring along. I bought it at Lotus Fest in Bloomington last September when Connie and I got together for that festival of world music with my old buddy Jim Klopfenstein.
I also knew where it was. It was sitting jauntily atop a bust of Buddha in my study, giving that figure of Eastern enlightenment an offbeat appearance.
Ordinarily this would not have been a problem. As I said, I’m not really a hat guy.
But vacations translate into lots of time outdoors and lots of time at the beach and lots of time in the sun. And that meant I was going to need a hat; both Jay and my wife would have insisted on it.
So, strangely enough, I spent some of my vacation time keeping an eye out for a new hat. I tried on plenty, but none of them seemed quite right.
The one that fit the best was a marked-down item at the L.L. Bean outlet store in Concord, New Hampshire. But it made me look like I was going to a costume party as Indiana Jones. And it wasn’t marked down enough to get me to open my wallet.
Finally, as our free time wound down, I was hat desperate.
We’d booked a boat trip out to the Isles of Shoals, off the New Hampshire coast. The cluster of islands is about 10 miles out of Portsmouth harbor, and it takes about an hour to get there. We would have a little over an hour to hike the island, then it would be another hour trip back to the harbor.
That’s a lot of time to be out in the sun and weather on the sea without a hat.
I was in desperate need of headgear. Fortunately, the guy selling refreshments on the boat had more than one choice. I picked the one that didn’t make me look like a complete idiot.
In fact, with the logo of the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company and the image of the small ship that took us out that day, it looks pretty jaunty.
Now I just have to remember to wear it every once in awhile.