The Texas Country fans among you will recognize this post’s title as a lyric from the Jerry Jeff Walker song, “Manny Was A Maker of Hats.”
“Manny was a maker of hats./ Manny was much more than that./ He was the kind of guy you and I would want for a friend./ He was a regular guy./ With an old soul look in his eye.”
Since M and I have a cute (and probably annoying) habit of giving our dogs entire personalities, Manny the Maker of Hats has been playing in my head for the past three months. When you look at Manny, our stoic Greyhound, you can’t help think he has “an old soul look in his eye.”
But, to be clear, our dog doesn’t make hats.
Which is really unfortunate because it’s GO TEXAN DAY here. This may not mean much to the rest of the world, but in Houston, Texas, the kids all dress up in their finest boots and hats and Wrangler jeans. Also, M and I have TWO rodeo-type events this weekend, and only one (kind of old) cowboy hat between us.
So, I did what every Texas Mama with three western outfitters stores close to her house would do…I went shopping.
I learned that cowboy hats are expensive. I kind of remembered this from past shopping trips, but I was still surprised that a “real” cowboy hat costs as much as several Gap shirts, as much as a successful trip to HEB, and just about ten times as much as I wanted to pay for a hat my kids would wear once a year. At Baskins, which is a super-serious western store, I asked the (cowboy) clerk where the “regular” (read: cheap) hats were. He wasn’t thrilled to support my “fake-cowboy-hat quest,” (I mean, he didn’t actually call it that), but he did point out a stack in the corner, and each hat was only $30.
I picked out the one Sam is wearing in the picture, and I bought it big so he can wear it for Go Texan Days to come. And for the constant “shows” and intricate plays our kids produce. The other hand-me-down hats we around our house have survived years of being stuffed in a toy box and pulled out for bad-guy caricatures and singer play acting.
May your own Go Texan Day be filled with cheap hats that fit right, little boys who serenade you with their guitars, lots of BBQ…and your own Manny, with an old soul look in his eye.
