I don’t know, I think the most prominent hat worn around here is the ball cap. Does that make it representative of cascadia? Of course not. But if someone is wearing a hat, 99% of the time it’s a ball cap. Outside of the ball cap, it’s a mishmash, from peaked caps to berets.
The only accessory people born and raised in these parts never have are umbrellas. You can always tell the transplant carrying a brollie that gets destroyed from the gusts of wind that shove the rain sideways. The destroyed umbrella was even a continuing joke on the old TV show Fraiser. Many time Kelsey Grammer would walk into the apartment and angrily thrust his now useless umbrella into the nearby umbrella stand.
Ah, yes, you are undoubtedly right, the ball cap is the choice of the overwhelming majority. But being so common makes it unsuitable as an affectation I imagine.
I am firmly in the no umbrella camp. The things never seem to be around when needed, make a mess once on finally gets inside, and as you rightly point out are far too frequently destroyed by wind. Tis best to just brave it, or use a full sized one as a sort of cane.
“Many time Kelsey Grammer would walk into the apartment and angrily thrust his now useless umbrella into the nearby umbrella stand.”
I walk either 1¾ or 2 miles on my lunchtime walk, regardless of the weather (okay, if there’s snow that’s thawed and refroze, I grudgingly pass on those days!) and oftentimes it’s raining at that hour, and it’s a pain having to dry out a parka, poncho, etc. so I finally said to hell with it and bought an umbrella, forgetting what you’re saying about the wind gusts. In western Washington, an umbrella is indeed more like a kite. I swear at times if I was on a skateboard I could make better time than walking just by the wind alone. And I’ll have to concede that around here an umbrella doesn’t keep you dry. Just drier than if you didn’t have one, and not by much.
The one I have did survive last winter and is still in good shape. I guess I’ll see if it can get through the next one.
It was my working in downtown Seattle that settled the umbrella debate with myself. The buildings created literal wind tunnels, you could be walking down the street, turn the corner, and be nearly blasted off your feet.
My worst experience was probably 20 years ago, I had gone to work that morning carrying just a simple light rain jacket. As the day wore on, the skies got darker and darker. When I left my office at the corner of 4th and Union, I faced a walk down to the ferry terminal, all down hill. As soon as I stepped outside, I was drenched, the rain was coming down in buckets. I turned the corner to be blasted by howling winds and rain pummeling me, rushing up the hill from the waterfront that I had to walk into. Halfway down the block I was yelling "this sucks!", luckily no one could hear me.
I walked all the way down to the waterfront to the fast ferry terminal only to find out that the sailings were canceled due to the high winds and choppy seas. My car was parked at the terminal at southworth, so taking a ferry to downtown bremerton was out. I caught a cab luckily, which drove me to the fauntleroy terminal in west seattle, hopped on the car ferry shivering and wet from head to toe. After an hour, I finally was able to make it home. It was a monday night, and the Seahawks were playing San Francisco. I quickly whipped off my clothes, wrapped myself in my bathrobe, fired up the pellet stove, and stood in front of it trying to warm up my body, which was chilled to the bone. I was watching the game, although the picture was getting scrambled occasionally due to the storm.
Then just as I was starting to feel alive again, the power went out. And it stayed out for 10 days. Our subdivision we lived in had buried power lines, but the last pole feeding our area before the wires went underground had snapped completely in two, and PSE didn't come out to fix it until over a week later.
I usually carried one of those collapsible cheap umbrellas, but it would never have survived such an event.
Not much worse than unreliable electricity. When I lived in Snohomish we were served by the local PUD, and it seemed as if we would lose it quite frequently. Although the PUD was always able to get it back on fairly quickly.
Then when I moved to the woods outside of Index, that was a really different story. Same PUD, but we could be out for weeks. I started with a regular generator, but eventually switched to one of those automatic on one's, so when we lost the PUD, the generator just turned itself on and the house switched over.
The last move was here to Centralia, and it took me awhile to realize that we pretty much never lose power here. The City owns the electric utility, and it is amazingly reliable. So, it can be done.
The Lewis County PUD, I can say is almost as good as the Centralia City Light, to the point where it's probably a push. Although I'll always toss the advantage to the City Light, as my Grandfather worked for them from 1969 to 1990 and the boss of the light department at the time I was born was Paul Peyton, who was WM of Centralia Lodge in 1938 and was the member who caught wind of the availability of the elevator in the Tacoma Weyerhaeuser building that was being demolished and secured it for being installed in the Centralia Lodge building in 1956. That elevator has been a key part of our Lodge building ever since.
Yes, it all location location location. Where I live now is directly across from a fire station here in town. If we lose power, which is rare, it is a priority circuit that gets repaired rather quickly.
Proximity to some facilities does have advantages. Living across the street from a college results in us having blazing fast internet, at a fairly reasonable cost. Much faster and a bit cheaper than is available in our little downtown.
I think you may perhaps need to look into the world of affiliate links... if for no other reason than to help support the aforementioned affectations your profession demands. No sense giving away excellent advertising for nothing, and another great way for your readers to support your efforts!
I have thought pretty seriously about it, but don't want the pressure to write (either consciously, or more likely subconsciously) for advertising revenue. I think that would distort things.
That said, at some point, I've got to sell stuff. Books are where I'll end up with that. Real human written books printed on real paper.
Ernest Hemingway frequently wore a distinctive, low-crown canvas cap with an extra-long, water-repellent patent-leather brim made by Quaker Marine Supply called the "Oysterman". He famously wore this cap while sport fishing in Cuba, Key West, and Peru, as well as duck hunting in Idaho. BINGO!
OK, so that's cool! I never noticed before, but did a bit of looking after reading your comment. It seems that it was a favorite of Jackie O too. There are quite a few articles and such written about him, and her, favoring it.
I'm going to confidently declare though: my favored ugly hats do not look as goofy as these ugly hats! 😎
What's really cool though, is that I think it points again to place. I've been everywhere on the Pacific from Alaska through Mexico and while I've seen tons of canvas hats of the full brim style on people (from buckets to sailing) I don't think I've ever seen an Oysterman. But, apparently that Oysterman is a thing on the Atlantic coast. I just find it really neat how things have developed differently from place to place.
Thanks for passing this along! Even if I can't see myself actually wearing an Oysterman it was fun learning just a touch about them.
I don’t know, I think the most prominent hat worn around here is the ball cap. Does that make it representative of cascadia? Of course not. But if someone is wearing a hat, 99% of the time it’s a ball cap. Outside of the ball cap, it’s a mishmash, from peaked caps to berets.
The only accessory people born and raised in these parts never have are umbrellas. You can always tell the transplant carrying a brollie that gets destroyed from the gusts of wind that shove the rain sideways. The destroyed umbrella was even a continuing joke on the old TV show Fraiser. Many time Kelsey Grammer would walk into the apartment and angrily thrust his now useless umbrella into the nearby umbrella stand.
Ah, yes, you are undoubtedly right, the ball cap is the choice of the overwhelming majority. But being so common makes it unsuitable as an affectation I imagine.
I am firmly in the no umbrella camp. The things never seem to be around when needed, make a mess once on finally gets inside, and as you rightly point out are far too frequently destroyed by wind. Tis best to just brave it, or use a full sized one as a sort of cane.
“Many time Kelsey Grammer would walk into the apartment and angrily thrust his now useless umbrella into the nearby umbrella stand.”
I walk either 1¾ or 2 miles on my lunchtime walk, regardless of the weather (okay, if there’s snow that’s thawed and refroze, I grudgingly pass on those days!) and oftentimes it’s raining at that hour, and it’s a pain having to dry out a parka, poncho, etc. so I finally said to hell with it and bought an umbrella, forgetting what you’re saying about the wind gusts. In western Washington, an umbrella is indeed more like a kite. I swear at times if I was on a skateboard I could make better time than walking just by the wind alone. And I’ll have to concede that around here an umbrella doesn’t keep you dry. Just drier than if you didn’t have one, and not by much.
The one I have did survive last winter and is still in good shape. I guess I’ll see if it can get through the next one.
It was my working in downtown Seattle that settled the umbrella debate with myself. The buildings created literal wind tunnels, you could be walking down the street, turn the corner, and be nearly blasted off your feet.
My worst experience was probably 20 years ago, I had gone to work that morning carrying just a simple light rain jacket. As the day wore on, the skies got darker and darker. When I left my office at the corner of 4th and Union, I faced a walk down to the ferry terminal, all down hill. As soon as I stepped outside, I was drenched, the rain was coming down in buckets. I turned the corner to be blasted by howling winds and rain pummeling me, rushing up the hill from the waterfront that I had to walk into. Halfway down the block I was yelling "this sucks!", luckily no one could hear me.
I walked all the way down to the waterfront to the fast ferry terminal only to find out that the sailings were canceled due to the high winds and choppy seas. My car was parked at the terminal at southworth, so taking a ferry to downtown bremerton was out. I caught a cab luckily, which drove me to the fauntleroy terminal in west seattle, hopped on the car ferry shivering and wet from head to toe. After an hour, I finally was able to make it home. It was a monday night, and the Seahawks were playing San Francisco. I quickly whipped off my clothes, wrapped myself in my bathrobe, fired up the pellet stove, and stood in front of it trying to warm up my body, which was chilled to the bone. I was watching the game, although the picture was getting scrambled occasionally due to the storm.
Then just as I was starting to feel alive again, the power went out. And it stayed out for 10 days. Our subdivision we lived in had buried power lines, but the last pole feeding our area before the wires went underground had snapped completely in two, and PSE didn't come out to fix it until over a week later.
I usually carried one of those collapsible cheap umbrellas, but it would never have survived such an event.
Not much worse than unreliable electricity. When I lived in Snohomish we were served by the local PUD, and it seemed as if we would lose it quite frequently. Although the PUD was always able to get it back on fairly quickly.
Then when I moved to the woods outside of Index, that was a really different story. Same PUD, but we could be out for weeks. I started with a regular generator, but eventually switched to one of those automatic on one's, so when we lost the PUD, the generator just turned itself on and the house switched over.
The last move was here to Centralia, and it took me awhile to realize that we pretty much never lose power here. The City owns the electric utility, and it is amazingly reliable. So, it can be done.
The Lewis County PUD, I can say is almost as good as the Centralia City Light, to the point where it's probably a push. Although I'll always toss the advantage to the City Light, as my Grandfather worked for them from 1969 to 1990 and the boss of the light department at the time I was born was Paul Peyton, who was WM of Centralia Lodge in 1938 and was the member who caught wind of the availability of the elevator in the Tacoma Weyerhaeuser building that was being demolished and secured it for being installed in the Centralia Lodge building in 1956. That elevator has been a key part of our Lodge building ever since.
Yes, it all location location location. Where I live now is directly across from a fire station here in town. If we lose power, which is rare, it is a priority circuit that gets repaired rather quickly.
Proximity to some facilities does have advantages. Living across the street from a college results in us having blazing fast internet, at a fairly reasonable cost. Much faster and a bit cheaper than is available in our little downtown.
Skateboard with an umbrella sail seems like a superb idea to me! You should try it!
I think you may perhaps need to look into the world of affiliate links... if for no other reason than to help support the aforementioned affectations your profession demands. No sense giving away excellent advertising for nothing, and another great way for your readers to support your efforts!
I have thought pretty seriously about it, but don't want the pressure to write (either consciously, or more likely subconsciously) for advertising revenue. I think that would distort things.
That said, at some point, I've got to sell stuff. Books are where I'll end up with that. Real human written books printed on real paper.
Ernest Hemingway frequently wore a distinctive, low-crown canvas cap with an extra-long, water-repellent patent-leather brim made by Quaker Marine Supply called the "Oysterman". He famously wore this cap while sport fishing in Cuba, Key West, and Peru, as well as duck hunting in Idaho. BINGO!
OK, so that's cool! I never noticed before, but did a bit of looking after reading your comment. It seems that it was a favorite of Jackie O too. There are quite a few articles and such written about him, and her, favoring it.
I'm going to confidently declare though: my favored ugly hats do not look as goofy as these ugly hats! 😎
What's really cool though, is that I think it points again to place. I've been everywhere on the Pacific from Alaska through Mexico and while I've seen tons of canvas hats of the full brim style on people (from buckets to sailing) I don't think I've ever seen an Oysterman. But, apparently that Oysterman is a thing on the Atlantic coast. I just find it really neat how things have developed differently from place to place.
Thanks for passing this along! Even if I can't see myself actually wearing an Oysterman it was fun learning just a touch about them.
https://quakermarine.com/collections/oysterman
What kind of hat did Ernest Hemingway wear?