My hats are a part of my history
ANTOINETTE JACKSON Mangia! Mangia!
I love hats.

I've loved them for decades.

Not the ones I wore as a child to keep the heat from escaping through the top my head into Chicago's cold winter air.

That was functional headgear.

Nor the ones Jones Commercial High School insisted that we wear in our junior and senior years as trainees for the business world.

Those were the hats rebellious teenagers were forced to wear.

And not even the tiara style hats with wispy veils that I wore as a bridesmaid thirteen different times.

They were strictly decorative and usually picked out by the bride to complete the ambience of her wedding decor.

I'm talking about the dressy hats from the l940's and 1950's. It was an era when no respectable lady left her home without a hat on her head or a pair of gloves in her hands.

Hats, I realized while looking through my family albums, could tell my life's history.

There's a photograph of my grandmother holding me as an infant. I have a full head of dark hair; Nonna is wearing a feathered hat.

There's Mom with my year old baby brother and me. Mom is wearing a flowered hat tilted to the side.

A commercial photographer who was going table to table at the College Inn in the Hotel Sherman snapped one of my favorite photos.

There I am, on my first date, with my white piquet bolero style jacket, white gloves, big smile on my face and a white hat with topped by a horizontal decorative cane. My grooming teacher at Jones would have been proud of her hat-bedecked student.

When my family moved to California in 1960, it was a joy to exchange my earmuffs and warm headgear for full brimmed beach hats.

At work, I wore a military style cap to match my Anaheim Police Department stenomatron's uniform.

My three-year career at the PD would later help me understand the Southern California policeman I would wed some years later.

During the mid-l960's, hats were worn less and less.

They didn't function well atop the popular Afro hairstyle and losing the formality of hats seemed symbolic of the era. I shed mine and returned to college during those tumultuous years.

At the end of the decade, I was proud to wear a graduate's cap and gown.

In 1974, with my swimming cap tucked under my lounge chair, I met Jack Jackson poolside at the apartment complex where we both lived.

In November, in Portland, Maine, surrounded by most of the Jackson clan, I wore a bride's head covering as we exchanged vows at his family's church.

A year later, when Jack started a new business, I helped him in the office. Later when I took over the responsibility of sales for Avalon Spas, I wanted to appear professional in a male oriented business.

When I called on customers, I dressed tastefully in pantsuits and always wore a feminine hat. As our business grew, I became known as "The Hat Lady" of the spa industry.

Both my husband and I traded our California hats for western hats when we expanded and then moved our business to East Texas in 1981.

I continued to wear hats when I went to work in advertising sales at the Athens Daily Review. In September 1998, I told one of my customers I would be losing my hair to chemotherapy soon.

Lonetta Chandler kindly counseled me, "No one will notice, Ann. You always wear a hat."

She was right. Except for when I wore my auburn or blonde "hair hats," people didn't notice.

Over the years some hats I've collected on the top shelves of my closet have special meaning. There's the fedora my father wore that made him look like he ran with Al Capone during Prohibition.

There's a straw sunbonnet worn by Sue Hoeser to the newspaper office the Friday before she died suddenly of a heart attack.

Her daughter Debbie granted my request for Sue's bonnet from her estate.

Next to that is the black leather hat I bought from a street vendor in Florence.

I'll probably keep those mementos forever. But there are at least 40 hats in my collection I rarely wear anymore.

Among them are eight newsboy caps, seven wide brimmed straw hats, six baseball caps, five Pink for the Cure caps, four authentic western hats, three red hats suitable for outings with the ladies, two hand-woven (now a lost art) palm Hawaiian hats and one Disneyland Mickey Mouse ears cap.

I've reached the time in my life when I need the closet space more than the memories.

I have decided to box up all but a few of my favorites and pass them along. Some will go to the Salvation Army Retail Store, but not all of them.

While we were in Canada, I noticed my cousin Maria's daughter Silvie was also a hat person. Most often she topped off her outfit with a smart cap or stylish hat. So, I'm packing up a dozen or so of my more fashionable fedoras and sending them to Silvie to enjoy.

If Silvie doesn't like them, I am sure there's something similar to Goodwill in Montreal.

Capellini with broccoli

Pasta with broccoli is my all time favorite pasta dish. Since local markets don't carry cappello or hat shaped pasta, capellini or angel hair pasta will do fine for our recipe.
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
9 cloves fresh garlic, sliced
1 ½ cups water
1 bunch fresh or 10 ounces frozen broccoli

1 teaspoon salt
10 ounces angel hair
Pepper to taste

In a large pan, lightly sauté the garlic in olive oil and set aside.

Peel and cut broccoli stems into bitesized pieces. Add to boiling salted water and cook for five minutes.

Cut flowerets into pieces, add to pan and continue cooking together for another 8 to 10 minutes.

Cook the pasta to just al dente. Drain, reserving one cup of the liquid. Add the pasta and broccoli to the cooled oil and garlic mixture. Cook ingredients together until just heated. If too dry, add pasta water.

Serve with fresh cracked pepper and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Serves 4.

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Antoinette Jackson is a Bullard-area resident. You may reach her at Antojxn@aol.com.