Straw Hat Day

Greetings,

      Once again we come to the annual Spring event which marks not only a change in haberdashery, but also the transition of seasons and times in the course of life.  Here are my typical takes on the Ides of May.

Straw Hat Day

            May 15^th.   The harbinger of summer.  Away with the felt, wool, and tweed hats.  Bring out the Panamas, Kingstons, Outbacks, and Boaters.  In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Baltimore was the largest producer of the traditional Boaters (or Skimmers).  Now, they are all produced overseas, mostly in Italy.  The annual transformation, which used to be widely marked and observed by American society.  One not only switched to straw hats, but over the next week or so rugs were changed in the home from the wools and Orientals to the “light weight, cool” straw mat rugs.  The dark blue window shades, which in the cold winter days were pulled down to absorb heat from the distant sun, were switched to white shades to reflect away the heat of the glaring sun, to keep the home nice and cool in the long days of summer.  Of course, women, always having to be different, would wait to Memorial Day to switch their finery to summer whites. 

Emily Dickinson   † May 15, 1886

I Shall Know Why

I shall know why, when time is over,

And I have ceased to wonder why;

Christ will explain each separate anguish

In the fair schoolroom of the sky.

He will tell me what Peter promised,

And I, for wonder at his woe,

I shall forget the drop of anguish

That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

Preakness Day coming up on Saturday.

In the immortal words of Ogden Nash:

The Derby is a race of aristocratic sleekness,

For horses of birth to prove their worth

To run in the Preakness.

On the 100th anniversary of the Preakness in 1975, racing historian Joseph B. Kelly wrote:

“Inevitably, the Preakness and [Kentucky] Derby are compared.  Both races have been distilled in a manner which only time can accomplish, but they are as different as bourbon and scotch whiskeys are to the taste.  Their incongruity is involved with origin and background... Baltimore has left its imprint upon the race to give the classic a character and charm which set it apart from the more earthy Derby and the bland Belmont Stakes.”

The legendary New York Times sports columnist Red Smith observed, “One is always struck with the contrast between the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.  One is a garish, untidy, splendiferous display, all flash and noise and turnout and tumult, redolent of mint and the sap of corn.  The Preakness is a family gathering, smaller, quieter, more leisurely and infinitely more knowing in the horsey sense.”

There are also a whole host of traditions related to the Preakness.  The Johns Hopkins Hospital Turtle Derby has been running on the Friday eight days before the Preakness for 70+ years.  The Flower Mart at Mt. Vernon Square (this year held two weeks early instead of during Preakness Week).  The first real crab cakes of the season.  And, of course, the infield party; though in recent years the infield party has not always been purely family oriented.

Yours & His,

DED