Hats off to Google spies

Last week I was talking to my great friend, Gary, telling him that I do love me a good hat.

I had just gotten a beautiful felt camel-colored hat that I think will be instrumental in ruling the world, and told him as much.

He sent me a picture of newsboy caps he had gotten all the men in his family for Christmas, and I officially went nuts.

I have kind of a thing for newsboy caps, as they were the head covering of choice for my late Dad. He had several.

When Dad passed away in 2008, the things members of my family wanted of his tilted toward the sentimental - his Underwood typewriter, his vintage Coors golf bag, his Yashika box cameras, his bowling ball (little known fact: Bob Hamilton was a 300 bowler) and of course, his signature collection of newboy caps.

My son ended up with my favorite of his caps, a brown tweed that takes me back to his best days; and my daughter has his 16 pound bowling ball, bag and all. Luckily her six-year-old son is a bowler and that 300-sanctioned ball may just be a legacy.

I’m still working on slowly stealing the typewriter.

Last week, Gary sent me a brown tweed newsboy cap as a gift, and I was beside myself and remain that way because my husband Bobby won’t take it off.

It looks good on him, so I’m dealing with it.

Over the past few days, Bobby and I have had some really nice walks down memory lane because of that hat, which culminated in finding out my phone is spying on me, or at least my words.

Bobby played football for the Iowa Park Hawks, graduating in 1977. My Dad was on the sidelines throughout all those years doing one of the things he loved best, covering Hawk football.

Bobby remembered that Dad wore a newsboy cap on the sidelines, and described it perfectly, 45 years later.

Something that seems off-subject, but is really on-subject is that one of the great delights my dad got in life was jacking with people who sent unsolicited mail.

It was before the days of cell phones and email, or what I like to call the 1990s, and mail was the way companies drove you crazy. If it was a good day, Dad would get unsolicited mail that included a postage paid returned envelope. It was like Christmas to him.

He would find everything he could fit in that envelope with unidentifying information and send it back to them at their expense.

It was one of his simple, twisted joys.

Fast forward to 2022, and I opened my phone this morning to an ungodly number of ads for newsboy hats. I didn’t even Googlebox them, I just talked about them in what I thought were private conversations with my husband.

It is a little freaky, but I think it might have something to do with paying for the sins of my father.

But I think I’ll look good doing it.