Vintage Style Power

I just returned from the 134th running of The Kentucky Derby. I have lost track of how many times I have attended the Derby. I think it is somewhere close to 25 but I do know that this was my 16th year in a row. I am always easy to find on the first Saturday of May: Section 116 Box D05. The Kentucky Derby is all about tradition and pageantry. Since 1875 when Aristides crossed the finish line under the shadows of the famed twin spires, each year up to 160,000 people make the journey to the same place to partake in this most spectacular event. Each year we dress to the nines on Saturday and in recent years men have begun to don their favorite hat like the women have done traditionally. This year I decided to bring out of the closet a vintage straw hat originally owned by Clay Powell of Richmond, KY. His wife Grace (Granny Powell to me) gave it to me when Clay died. I was in high school and while most high schoolers can’t imagine the future value of something like this, I did and I stored it in the Stetson box that she gave me with the hat. The straw boater was made by Wright Straw Hats and best I can place its’ circa it was made somewhere in the early 1900's. Wright Hats are based in London and i don't know how Clay would have gotten one back then but maybe he traveled to London at one time. As you can see from the pictures, the hat fits me as well as it probably could without it being made for my head. Typically hats this old do not fit men of today as our heads are larger now. I get this on authority as I did take the hat to a high-end hat store and the owner was quite impressed with the quality and condition of the hat. She was also surprised by how well the hat did fit me. So, I decided that this would be the hat for me on May 3rd, 2008. Throughout the day I was complimented numerous times on the hat and as I showed those who cared how old it was and let them hold it, the threads of tradition flowed through the hat itself. For me, it was beyond what I could imagine. As I stood on my chair before the post parade of the Derby horses and sang my Old Kentucky Home, what I felt was the tingle of being a Kentuckian, born in Richmond, Kentucky in 1962, wearing a hat given to me by another Kentuckian born 60 plus years earlier than me. Clay was a Pontiac car dealer. I never knew if he owned his lot or just had worked there, but by the time I was old enough to know him he had already retired. He loved his hats, his beer and he loved me like a son he never had. Clay and Grace are like Patti and me that with no children you wonder whatever will happen with those items that you cherished? Will someone care enough to keep them or will they just get tossed away, sold in a garage sale, or left to be cleaned away with the sale of a house. I wish there was a way to send a message to Clay that his prized straw boater was the hit of the Derby this year. It’s not every day that vintage has a name and a story. This straw hat does.