Finding a sale...

Boy oh Boy! Don't we feel good when something we wanted to buy finally goes on sale. I don't know about you, but I don't like to pay full price for anything. I always feel as I have been cheated when I do pay full price. And when you go back and see something on sale and think of how much you paid, then you feel robbed. So, anyway yesterday i bought a pea coat for myself, one I have been wanting for a while now. it was marked down to half price. I love that. It is really well made for the price I paid, actually it is made well enough that paying full price is not bad either. In some rare cases an item is actually worth what it is being sold for.

The point I wanted to make though is that I almost fell into the trap of thinking that maybe at that price I should buy two of them. For someone who goes out on a daily basis maybe that would not be a bad idea. But I don't go out that much and I have two other very nice coats I can also wear. The point is that if i bought two of these coats, what amount of money would I have saved? Really none. Yes, I would have two for the price of one, but the idea is to save something. So, by just purchasing one I saved half. Makes sense to me. And if you think of it, if something were to happen to this coat in the near future, which I don't think it will, I am sure the stor will have a similar sale soon. So, enjoy your sales but buy wisely. You will feel better about yourself and I believe you will appreciate the item a little more.

my Fedora story...

This is my story of the fedora. I recall seeing both of my grampas wearing a fedora. I can't remember if they wore one on a daily basis, but i do think for one, my Dad's father did. I know there is a picture somewhere where my Mom's dad is sitting on a sofa with his leg crossed and he has a fedora on.

I always liked hats. I wore pilots style hats when I was a kid, then I started wearing newsboy caps. I also wore a newsboy style where the brim was sewn closed. I don't know the proper name, I think they are a flat newsboy. These were my favorite at the time. I had a black felt one which quickly became my favorite. I stopped wearing it when a gangbanger came and knocked it off my head and wanted to know what gang I belonged to. Well, I just decided to stop wearing it after that. I don't know wat happened to it, I strongly believe my mother threw it away. Maybe that was a good thing. Even though I was smart enough not to wear something which labeled me as a gangbanger.

As I got older I started wearing hats again. Mainly scull caps, baseball style caps and newsboy caps when dressed up.

Now I am in the phase of vintage fedoras. I really like the old style felt ones. I have found a few really nice ones on Ebay. I went a little crazy but what the hell, I think I deserve to treat myself every now and then. I researched them and their sellers the best I could and found that they all came from estate sales or second-hand stores. The folks who buy these are looking for specific things in a fedora to indicate they are vintage. You could go to a department store and buy a brand new hat which is styled after the original fedora, however, the materials and workmanship are no where near the quality of the vintage ones. One of the main things buyers in the know look for is the brand. Brands such as Stetson, Dobbs and Champ are just three of the good ones. Actually good is an understatement, these are great fedoras. I have been able to purchase mine in great condition. Only one of my fedoras which is a stingy brim trilby, shows the most wear in the inside headband. I conditioned it and it is better now. I did considered replacing it but it is fine the way it is. After all, it is vintage. The outside of this particular hat is in excellent condition. I am not sure but I think it is a beaver felt. It has a unique band on the outside which is made of braided feathers. The guy I bought it from said he has never seen a band as beautiful as this one. He told me he wanted to keep it for his own collection but his head size is much bigger than mine. I wear a 7 which is considered average.

I just bought black ones when I started to buy these. Don't know why. Then I branched out and got a couple of grey ones and a couple of brown ones. My brown Champ is like brand new. It has the original pin, feathers and wind trolley. The wind trolley is a cord sewn to the bow and then placed around the crown of the hat with a button attached. The button looks as if it is part of the bow. Once you bring the cord and button away from the hat by lifting it up from the right side of the hat, you can then place the button in your coat lapel. This was to prevent your fedora from getting lost if blown off by the wind. Pretty cool, don't you think. Only three of my fedoras have this wind trolley. It was an accessory which cost extra. I have read up on ways to install these to all my fedoras. Maybe I will. I thought of changing the outside band on a couple of my hats, then I decided against it. They are all in perfect condition and they are all original. This after all is what makes these hats vintage.

One of my brown hats, a Stetson Royal Deluxe, smells like pipe tobacco. I actually think this is really cool. I always liked the smell of pipe tobacco and I can picture a cool gent wearing this hat while smoking a pipe. You can't get any more vintage then that. At first I wasn't sure if I liked this hat because it has a grosgrain ribbon around the edge of the brim. But as I researched this I found that this hat actually dates back to the 1940's. Awesome! The lady I bought it from just knew it was old. She did not know much else of the value, lucky for me since this model of hat is selling for as much as $175. I got it for $25. A real steal.

Well, after all my shopping I have a total of 12 hats. Four of these are not great hats since they are not stamped with the name of quality brands. well, I take that back, one of them is, my white straw fedora, which is a safari panama hat from ecuador. The brand is Ultrafino. This hat is really cool. It was handmade. It is a summer weight hat. Now for my other hats:

Black Champ with wind trolley
Black stingy brim Champ
Black short brim champ
Black Royal Stetson
Grey Stetson with leather braided band
Grey champ with wind trolley pin
Brown Champ with pin and wind trolley
Brown Royal Stetson Deluxe with pin


Now for the others:
Lite grey, almost taupe felt suede with wide brim
White wool/felt with black band and wide brim, zoot style
Black wool/felt with white band and wide brim, zoot style

Some came with their original feathers but I purchased more feathers in different colors to adorn my hats.

I really feel great when I wear my hats, so I am going to continue to wear them and I will continue to look for those unique vintage buys. Can you just imagine the stories these hats could tell if they could talk. They are as old as I am or probably in the case of a couple of them, even older than I am.

Karma...

You can call it whatever you like, I choose to call it karma. The good things I do for people will one day come back to me. You noticed I did not say the bad things I do to people, since I strive very hard not to bring intentional harm to anyone.

So, good karma is what I hope I will recieve. I have recieved good karma on several occasions. I will mention the most recent.

I purchased something on Ebay, as I often do, but this time was a little different. The item was up for auction and I wanted to purchase it with Buy It Now so I could get it sooner. So I made the person an offer and they placed the item for Buy It Now at $5 less than I had offered to pay. I recieved my item and I was very pleased with the whole transaction that I sent the seller the additional $5. I let that go at that. I was happy with my purchase and I felt the seller had gone out of their way to please me, so this was the least I could do.

A week later I made another purchase from another seller on Ebay. I paid the asking price and to my surprise, (karma), the seller refunded me some of the purchase price because the cost of shipping the item was less than she anticipated. Now you tell me, did she have to do that? Would I have ever known that the shipping was less? You see she could have easily viewed that as a plus for her and pocketed the money. There would have been nothing wrong with that, I am sure it happens everyday, but my good karma came back to me...

Hobbies..

Hobbies are a good thing if we think it through. If our hobby involves collecting items, whether they be vintage or new, it can be a whole lot of fun but it can allso get very expensive. If you have the means to keep up such a hobby without hurting your financial situation, then it is a good hobby. However, if it is causing you to spend beyond your means, then the joy will soon end when you find yourself in financial problems. As

Hobbies don't need to cost much at all, in fact, they can be free.

Reading books can be a hobby. And we can get all the books we want at the Public Library. We can have a hobby of watching old movies on the tv service we already have. If you like to sew, knit or crochet you can easily make one of these your hobby.

Taking a walk on a daily basis can be your hobby. Riding a bike is another.

You see a hobby is something you enjoy doing for yourself which takes up some of your spare time and brings you joy and relaxation. It is a time to release some of the stress of work and everyday things. If your hobby starts to cause you stress, then it is time to look for another. You see that is where having a hobby which involves purchasing items can get stressful, and zap the joy of the whole thing.

Find something you like to do and do it. If you get tired of it, that's fine. Changing the way we do things can really benefit us and will aid in preventing boredom....

My year at Irving School...

My 7th. grade was at Irving Washington school in the WestSide. It was the only grade I attended that school. It was a school made up of Hispanic and Black kids for the most part. There were some Italian and White kids as well.

My teachers name was Ms. Bruni. She was a good teacher. I remember some of the girls in my class at that time. It is interesting that all the girls I remember were Black girls. They were, Angela Ford, Penelope Jones, April Washington and Denise Banks.

They we all very pretty girls. I remember Denise and April the best. Denise was a heavy girl but she was the nicest. She always had a smile. I recall letting her see my blue ring and how she took it and put it on and did not return it for over a week. I guess she liked me. April lived across the street from the school. Even though she lived so close, she was late most of the time. I remember how Ms. Bruni would look out the window after we had all sat down at our desk and she would say, "Well it seems Ms. Washington decided to join us after all" You see she could see when April left her house. April would come in quietly and she would take her seat. After Ms. Bruni would welcome her in April, who sat behind me, would tap me on the shoulder and hand me some homemade vanilla cookies. We would wait for the teacher to look away and we would eat our cookies. I never asked her to bring me these cookies but I never said no either. I guess in her own way she was telling me she liked me.

These were nice times. I am glad I lived in that area. I lived among all sorts of people so I grew up accepting all people, regardless of their color as humans just like me. I understood they had the same or similar thoughts as I did along with the same fears. I was able to at an early age learn that fundamentaly we ar all the same...

The white cane..

Last Friday, October the 15th., was white cane awareness day. I appreciate having a day set aside for folks who are blind or visually impaired. But did you know there was such a day? Did you know on Friday it was such a day? Chances are you did not. This is not your fault, not enough people are aware of this. We need to be more public about it. It would be a good thing since many folks out there not only did not know of the white cane day, they don't seem to even know what a white came carried by a person means. I can freely say this since I am blind and use a white cane. I have experienced on more than one occasion where my having a white cane means absolutely nothing to a driver or a person walking. It really is upsetting since I don't feel I should have to explain what the white cane means. The use of a white cane by the blind is international so there is nothing different from my white cane or that of a person on the other side of the world.

What does a white cane mean?

Well, a white cane first of all aids a blind person or visually impaired person to identify objects in his or her path. Finding curbs, stairs, doorways and ramps are just a few. What should it mean to you? It should let you know the the individual with the cane cannot see you, that he or she may need a little extra time to find the up curb or sidewalk while crossing the street. While most of us are fully aware of the flow of traffic and would not walk into traffic, it is your responsibility to look out for me. You must come to a stop if you see me crossing the street. Don't start blowing your horn as if to indicate I should not be in the street. I will not forgive you if you hit me with your car. And if you kill me it is your fault even if I am in the middle of the street. So if you aren't aware of the laws regarding the use of a white cane, then first you should not be driving, and if you want to keep your priviledge to drive, then I suggest you read up on the white cane laws and while you are at it, read up on blindness...

Vintage...

Vintage, this is a very interesting word. At least it is to me. I have notice how people use it to describe something old which carries some value, whether that value is sentimental or a monetary value. I have been shopping for fedoras online, my search has educated me on not only fedoras and their place in our society, but also the pride of wearing a vintage one. I normally don't ever consider purchasing a used item which is to be worn by me, I will by a used computer or phone, but never clothing. Well, not til recently, I found some vintage fedoras dating back to the '50's and '60's, which I could not pass up. I recieved one in the mail which feels and looks as new as the day it was purchased. Someone really took great care of this hat which shows the value it had for it's previous owner. Yes, I know that the previous owner is most likely dead, but so what? I will wear his had-me-down with pride as he once did. I have ordered a couple of more which I found online and I hope they are in the same condition as this one. I did not pay a whole lot for these, but I believe that the quality surpasses that of the fedoras today, or at least I am now aware that to purchase a fedora such as the one I now have at today's prices I would have to pay over $150. So you see vintage is not junk. I even find myself thinking about all the places this hat was worn to by it's original owner. If this hat could talk, man I am sure it has plenty of stories. Well, now it belongs to me and I don't know for sure but I believe it gives me the same feeling it once did to another gent.

So much talk about a hat you might think I am nutts. Well, maybe I am but I certainly am having fun learning about them and their origin.

I love to learn and not everything we learn needs to be earth shattering. Simple things and the reasons behind them interest me very much. When a story can be written about a piece of clothing, I think that is pretty cool!

Accountability..

You know in this day and age people speak of accountability as far as it relates to sports and stuff which is not that important in the big picture of real life. In sports for the most part it is just about winning or losing, all get paid regardless. Only the fams and the ones who placed the wrong bet lose. However, in real life whin one does not assume responsibility for ones actions, many can suffer as a result.

Instead of beating a dead horse about why things happened, I feel ones time is better spent on fixing what has gone wrong or picking up the pieces of what is left and doing the very best we can with what we have to work with. Just waiting for things to get better will not do it. We need to take action, immediate action! No one is going to solve things for us, but in most cases their are those who can help. Maybe we need to seek for help from individuals or institutions put into place to help those with the very same type of problems we are facing. Take advantage of what is out there. Don't wait to get a flyer in the mail with all the numbers and places where help can be found. Use the PC! Find out how and what you must do to start making things better. Don't wait til tomorrow. Do it now! If for some reason or other you cannot do this on your own, then have those who are able and are affected by the situation lend a hand. If you can not contact these people or places because your name is not on the contract or whatever legal matter it may be, then you must, if you are directly affected by the innaction of another, you must do all that is within your power to see things through. Maybe this means insisting that the certain call be made, that the certain letter be sent or whatever action is required. Make it your job to push the issue til it is no longer an issue. If you don't do anything, chances are nothing will get done and the matter will get worse, much worse. Allow others to be accountable for their inaction. Don't protect someone by not letting them know that things are bad. You are not helping anyone, and you are robbing them of the opportunity to fix things before it is too late. Why would you do that? Remember things did not get to this point overnight, so they aren't going to get solved overnight. But you can and must start taking all steps to make things right. Find the proper assistance and if the first one does not work try and try again until it works. If your first phone call has no results, call again, ask to speak to the person who can best help you. Make a personel visit to the bank or store or whatever institution that is the issue, speak to whoever is assigned to work with customers in your situation. Even if you need to take a day off work, remember in the long run this is for the best. Use one of you vacation days, or a sick day. Prevent this from going any further. It will not solve itself. If you work at it however, it will get solved or you will see more clearly what you must do. No one can make us accountable but ourselves. Not acting is the worst thing one can do. So find out what it is you need to do or help the one who is in the position to act to do so! Once the wheels are in motion things will get done one way or another. And remember that when it comes to leagal matters, if something is being actively worked on, no negative action will be taken against you. If you however do nothing then those in position will do what they have to do. They will not offer any help until you ask for it, and even then you must insist. It is you who needs the help, not them, and they owe you nothing!

Getting older, or better?

You know when I was a kid there were styles that I used to like a whole lot but never really got into them cause I would get laughed at. I have always liked the newsboy caps, in my hood we would call them 'Dago' Caps" since mainly the Italians would wear them I mean no disrespect to them, I now wear these caps on a regular basis. I recall my first cap, it was a grey tweed. I thought it was so cool. I was about 9 years old. I wore that cap everywhere. I stopped wearing it when some folks started making fun of me. Believe it or not, these folks were not kids, they were adults who should have known better. But if you were raised in a Puertorican environment, you know how much shit people talk.

Well, I figured I would wait til I was older to sport my hats. I own these in various colors. I still think they are cool. But now I am adding a style of hat which I have been waiting a longer time to wear. The reason for this is because the hat I am talking about is a gentlemens hat. I am talking about the Fadora. This type or style of hat has mainly been worn by older gents. I am now fully qualified to call myself an older gent, so with that said I will wear my Fadora with pride. My first of these hats is a white Panama fadora. I am wearing it right now. It is white with a black band. It was hand-made with products from ecuador. Next I am going to get a black wool fadora. This type of hat was made popular by the Gangsters and the actors like Bogart and Sinatra. Hey if they could sport a fadora, so can I.

I think that this style of hat is coming back into style since when I was doing my research on them, I found a lot of info directed at the younger crowd. I don't care if they are coming back or not. I am wearing mine cause I deserve and have earned the right to wear what I want to wear no matter who likes it or not. Hey and if you are a pretty woman, I will tip my hat to you when you enter the room...

My Dad's Dad...

I remember much of my grandfather on my dad's side. He was a very strict man. I remember he yelled alot. He and my grandmother would argue just for the sake of arguing. I was not really close to him, I don't think anyone was. He did not mind this. He moved to Puerto Rico, or I should say, he returned to Puerto Rico in the mid sixties. He worked and saved enough to have a house built out there.

One thing I recall him doing was smoking a cigar. He would by the cigars by the box. He did not smoke these all day long, I remember he would save this for the evening. He would sit outside and just smoke his cigar.

Another thing I recall him doing was, whenever anyone would come over to visit, he would offer the guys a shot of rum. I still remember how he would offer this. He would say, "Quier un palito?" This means would you like a shot?. It is a custom in P.R. to offer a palito. I never gave it too much thought, but the rum he offered and drank was called 'Palo Viejo' I now realize that the offering of a palito was based on the name of the rum. As time went on though every shot of rum regardless of the brand is called a palito in P.R.

In Puerto Rico you could always find my grampa sitting in his rocker outside, once the sunset, with his cigar and a shot of Palo Viejo. I remember that the rum was a dark rum, this is due to the aging process, and the sugar cane molasses.

In his own way this was how he relaxed after a busy day. He bothered no one and just went to sleep after his nightly shot and cigar.