Beach side you have your upscale crowd and your everyday crowd. Hamptons or Wildwood, N.J., Cape Cod or Atlantic City......all along the Eastern seabord are encampments of like minded folk, reveling in summer festivities. Mountain top, in the Catskills, or the Poconos, the summer cabins are rented, the lakes are full, summer stock is packed with New York actors looking to get away from the heat inducing sidewalks of the Big Apple.
Summer has been thus as long as I can remember....except for fast trips to Europe with every other American, German, and English tourist, summers in the Northeast revolved around where your friends went, where your family went , and as adults, where your friends go, and where your family goes not. The hat of choice for the summer months is by request, something pack-able, easily forgotten on a beach towel, left on a dashboard, stuffed in a suitcase. The poor thing gets abused more in a month on the road than three months in the closet.
My solution is a wardrobe of three hats: something large and exotic looking, something quasi normal, for town and country, and something novelty and quirky. This way all bases are covered and I'm happy. Not to mention the hats get out more.........and that makes them happy, too.
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In Texas, "hot time" and "hat time" gloriously combine. You simply cannot dance outdoors without the proper coverage. In Scarlett's time the Georgia sun may have caused freckling; today we know it as "photoaging."
Here is my most recent outing with an Ellen Christine hat.
Summertime means we get the Broadway shows here, and the "Drowsy Chaperone" was in town. As a "preshow," the Dallas Dance Council set up an outdoor stage, and several tap dance groups shimmied and smacked their irons all weekend. As a finale, any dancer who wanted to perform the National Anthem of Tap - the Shim Sham - could pop on stage and jump to it. You don't have to ask me twice.
For my number under the Texan Sun, I chose Ellen Christine's light straw fedora with striped band. Apart from the sun protection and the sassy appearance the fedora offers, a dancer wearing a hat adds a new dimension to the show: You can flick it, tip it, lift it, spin it, roll it down your arm or place it over your heart.
That's where I like to wear it when I take a bow.
...and I hope you leave them all in tears of joy!
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