The shining sun and mild temperatures on this beautiful Brooklyn day here in Red Hook suggest that the nice weather is coming after a winter that seemed to go on forever.
I suppose it wasn’t a terrible winter as we really only had the one big snowstorm, at least that I can recall. Having grown up here in New York, I’ve certainly seen worse! Winter 2010-11 comes to mind immediately.
I think it seemed to go on forever due to all the chaos between a new mayor and the crisis in Ukraine and Omicron or whatever the hell else Mother Nature felt that need to throw at us, leaving the sanity of most of us as one of many casualties.
But Spring is here!!
Not to be pessimistic, but even the arrival of Spring brings with it its first casualty…my Samson Stages hat.
You see, I returned to New York after spending the better part of a decade in Los Angeles. My loyalty to my hometown and intermittent home sickness made me wear my New York Islanders hat all over the Left Coast when appropriate.
Damn I loved my Islanders hat. It looked good. It fit my fat head nicely. And by ‘fat head’ I don’t mean I have a large ego but I just literally have a fat head. Genetics.
But once I started working here at Samson Stages, I saw that my Islanders hat had seen better days. And then one day we got a shipment of brand new hats here at the stage. And I traded in my Isles’ hat for a Samson Stages hat.
And I liked it. It fit my head nicely. It looked nice on my head. A black hat with some red stitching.
I was styling!
So here I am, wearing my Samson Stages hat all over the place. Representing!
And then today, on this beautiful first day of Spring. I load up my truck with some returns after another successful job here at the stage. And then, doing my diligence, I walk around to Hicks Street to make sure I locked all the doors before I hit the road.
And then….WOOOOSH!
A gust of wind, on a mission, charges north on Hicks Street, blowing my fleece around making it look like a special effect from an 80’s hair band music video and then…rips my Samson Stage hat off my head as if that was the prime reason for blowing!!
And when I say it lifted the hat off my head…I mean it lifted the damn hat off my head. It lifted the poor thing a good 20 to 30 feet in the air and blew it north down Hicks Street so fast I think it would have left a vapor trail if there was any more moisture in the air.
For a second, I considered running after it. But by the time that second was over that hat was onto its final resting place, which I’m guessing is the Buttermilk Channel. Plus I’m not sure I could have caught it if a tortoise ran off with it. My running days ended somewhere around the time when high speed internet seemed as advanced as warp speed.
So there I was, hatless. The mess of whatever hair I have left on my fat head swirling in the wind, this time looking like a has been from an 80’s hair band desperately trying to hold on to his glory days by making a music video today that looks like it was from the 80’s. I couldn’t be seen in public like this.
I went back inside the studio to see what I could do to the mess on my head.
Not much apparently. I’ll have to do the two hour drive on the BQE to the LIE looking like a madman.
However, hope springs eternal.
The front door buzzes. We have a delivery.
I accept the delivery. What could it be? I’m exhausted so perhaps I should just go home and worry about it tomorrow.
But I’m understandably curious. So I open it up. What is it?
A whole box of brand new Samson Stages hats! A brand new style! All black! Looking sharp!
And of course black is slimming…which is good for me!
I put on my new Samson Stages hat.
I look like I below on the cover of GQ. Well not exactly, but…not bad!!
It’s time to head home. Traffic awaits.
And Spring is here. Let’s rejoice!!
