I’d been without a proper cap since I lost my favorite in Ireland last summer, so before my San Francisco trip, I returned to Morris Bros., the Upper West Side purveyor of baggy T-shirts and school uniforms, where I bought my previous hat. I liked that ex-hat because it was one of those elastic band varieties that best fits my chubby head. The closest they had this time was “The Perfect Fit” Yankees cap in “Fitted Garment Wash,” which makes it look as if it’d been left on a hot car dashboard an entire summer, then driven over a few times for good measure. I wasn’t crazy about the logo, but it fit and protecting my balding head from the sun and the cold was of paramount importance.
On two separate occasions here in San Francisco, people in the hotel elevator used it as a conversation starter. “Oh, you from New York?” they’d ask, and we’d enact a rushed conversation abruptly ended by the elevator doors opening. It was tough to tell if this was genuine congeniality or the talk of a salesperson, who frequent hotels for meetings and conventions. Waiting for the restroom on my plane back to New York, another person struck up a conversation; by then I’d downgraded my “Are you from New York?” response to “Not originally.” This girl said she’d lived in many places ’round the world and decided that two years is the minimum amount of time that can pass before one can consider oneself a true resident of a city. Sounds about right. I guess I have to wear my hat during travel more often and strangers will talk to me.