one good reason to put on a hat and one good reason to take it off

The telephone rang today–can you imagine? I suppose you can, suppose in fact that such a happening is not so rare where you come from. But let me tell you, around these parts the phone rings about as often as Moses comes knocking at our door, which is to say, never.

It’s a fact I jumped clear out of my seat at the breakfast table when it happened, knocked Aunt Kitty’s scones clean off the table. And what would you expect?

I suppose it would have been unbearably disappointing if that telephone call turned out something boring, like a goat loose on the road, and it’s the truth Aunt Kitty eyed Ben before she lifted the phone off the cradle and mumbled quite confidently, “Wrong number.” But indeed it was not!

It was Aunt Kitty’s uncle died, and this the first I ever heard his name. Nevertheless, Aunt Kitty’s scones sat there on the floor for the rest of the day while she fussed over me and Ben and what in the name of all that’s holy were we to do about making ourselves presentable for the services.

Now why a stranger like that should merit me puttin’ on a hat–a real hat, with flowers and bows on it–I can’t say I know. But Aunt Kitty, she says it’s the proper way to show respect, and this as she pinned her own ridiculous hat to her head the next morning.

Well, I don’t mind telling you I felt a right fool, wearing a garden on my head, and maybe I argued just a little bit, and maybe, just maybe, there was a little bit of a whine in my voice. Certainly though, nothing to justify Uncle Ben telling me I was carryin’ on like a stuck pig. Anyhow, the truth is I practically was a stuck pig by the time Aunt Kitty was done with her bobby pins.

For two hours we drove, the longest two hours I ever knew. There’s no gettin’ comfortable with a hat stuck on your head and pins poking you every which way. We pulled up to the graveyard and Aunt Kitty and me ducked beneath the windows so as no one would see us when the truck let out it’s backfire. (Ben says that truck’s just like an old man–sometimes it’s just gotta clean out its pipes with a little cough. Problem is, lately it’s cleaning its pipes every time he shuts off the engine, and there’s just nothing little about that cough.)

Well, we stood around the grave and the preacher did his preaching. The wind picked up and Aunt Kitty kept elbowin’ me for fussin’ with my hat. And the wind picked up some more. Matter of fact, that wind picked up so much it carried away a bouquet of flowers. And some lady’s handkerchief. And the preacher’s notes. And while the preacher was standin’ there stuttering and flipping pages in his Bible, that wind up and carried away mine and Aunt Kitty’s hats.

I don’t know as I’d ever heard Aunt Kitty laugh before, excepting those grown-up kind of laughs that never really amount to much. This was a real laugh, the kind that shakes your belly, and I’d swear that laugh pushed our hats even farther up into the sky than the wind ever could all on its own.

All this talk about showin’ respect and do you know what I was thinking in that moment? When God showed up in that burnin’ bush, did he tell Moses to put on a hat? No, he did not. Neither did he tell him to fancy up his hair or to clean up his clothes. “Take off your shoes,” God told him, and that’s what Moses did, cause really, who’s gonna argue with a bush that’s on fire and talkin’ to you?

Well we stood there bare-headed for the rest of that service. The rain started falling about two minutes after we lost our hats. By the end would you believe I was actually wishing for that ridiculous hat? A wet head is what I got. A wet head and a look from Aunt Kitty that most certainly said “I told you so.”