Don't Ask, Don't Tell (About the Hat)

Seriously, Daddy must have between 50 - 60 baseball caps. I hasten to add that he has never played baseball, doesn't follow any teams of any type and hates to be outside for too long. Why so many???? The hats are all about fashion! Uh huh, I said Fashion! My daddy is 90 years old, but he has always been a fashionista (of the dude variety)! As long as I can recall, Daddy has liked to dress up (mostly on Sunday), but he would take such time and effort to decide just which tie went best with which shirt and suit and then the right shoes had to be added. Then, the hat, the hat, the hat was the crowning glory of his emsemble. In those days, it was the felt men's "Sunday" hat or in summer, the killer straw hat.

Now that he's in a nursing home (please don't call it that when you meet him. He calls it the hospital, the school or home), we shifted to baseball caps to keep the fashionista thing going. I can't tell you how many days that I have pressed the "emergency button" beside his bed to have a nurse come running. The "emergency" was that his cap didn't match his outfit! Yes, they were ticked, but also yes, they learned to avoid those "emergency calls" by properly matching his caps to his outfits. Renata takes so much effort to put together his Southpole jeans with the perfect shirt and puts each emsemble on a separate hanger with a tag marking the proper day of the week. I have sorted the caps (by color!) on the top two shelves in his closet, so all they have to do is look up and get one that matches. It's no wonder that Dad is the BMONHC (Big Man On Nursing Home Campus)! He is totally and completely sharp every single day and all residents and most families know him.

On one of those days that I had to take dad to the doctor, I had allowed my normal two hours before the appointment window to be sure that I didn't have to rush him (he hates that!). On the way into the appointment, Daddy got lots of hellos, nods and compliments on this outfit, but one lady stopped, took time and bent down to talk to him. She was directing her conversation directly to dad and he was loving it! All of a sudden, I heard her ask him, WHICH WAR DID YOU FIGHT IN? (Yes, it was this loud. People assume that the wheelchair affected his hearing). Imagine me, raising one finger as if I was about to say "aha". I did this to interject that he has never served in the military and that the cap simply happened to be just the right shade of blue. We never paid any attention to the fact that it had the emblem of the Marine Corps! Just as I opened my mouth to say these things, I heard daddy say "I can't always remember which war". At that point, I closed my mouth, because the lady started to gush and tell daddy that it was ok, that it really didn't matter, that she just wanted to thank him for his service. I lowered my hand and waited til it was over and pushed on to Dad's appointment. We still haven't taken that cap out of rotation (it's still the right shade of blue).

But, I have started to realize that the approving nods are sometimes about the emsemble and sometimes about the hat. I've taken the position of Don't Ask, Don't Tell when it comes to the hat!