Are my eyes really blue?

I finally dug in the bag of stuff I brought back from my last job - and in it was my everyday pipe, a bag of tobacco and my pipe Zippo. So I lit up out on the porch, and here I am. It's not as big a time commitment as a cigar would be.

Which makes me think about the hat.

January 2002. We go to NYC. Party with Tray, drink with Lisa, breakfast with Erica in Lower Manhattan - where a strong wind blew me into a shop and out with a hat. A Kangol flat cap in gray wool. Before long, I had a long gray scarf to go with it, and I had my whole Northeastern look going, representing Ireland or the North of England or Cooley High, take your pick. But out in California, you don't need the warm topper very often, if at all.

This past Christmas, down in Alabama, I went through a bunch of stuff my mom is trying to push off on me in her continuing attempt to clean out the house. Among the things there was one of my late father's hats that I never knew he owned. A gray Kangol wool flat cap. Which had to have been bought at least 4 years before I bought mine.

The weather's still warmer here than in DC, but I'm wearing a gray flat cap again.

ETA: Proof that the memory is the first thing to go - apparently E. didn't move up there until 2003. Which I guess sounds right, although everything in Lower Manhattan runs together - whether it's shopping, dining, or throwing Lisa's contact lens out the window. I don't think I realized it wasn't disposable...