'Way, 'way back when we were really young, the parents of three very young children, he was already in the habit of wearing hats when the occasion warranted. Not just toques for a Canadian winter, but wool fedoras with some dash to them, with an overcoat of wool and good cut, even when we barely managed to pay all our bills on a modest salary, when the first mortgage monthly on our modest little bungalow was $40, and the second mortgage far less. And we still struggled to pay the weekly dairy costs for milk, eggs and cheese delivered by the dairy itself and deposited each morning in response to a note left by me in the little doored cubby built into the side of the house at the side door.

I can recall his going to a haberdashery that was located in a small shop downtown many years ago to acquire one of his later cotton-mode fedoras. It would take many years of constant use but they would inevitably wear out and have to be replaced. The last such hat I can recall him acquiring was at Lake Placid in a shop that seemed to stock just about anything, yet geared to the tourist trade, when we had gone there for some hiking in the Adirondacks one spring. There was one other he bought, at a second-hand shop, a leather hat made in Australia, weatherproofed and used on many occasions, but a tad too large.

Currently he was faced with a dilemma. Where to go to replace his tired, torn and worn old hats. We thought hieing ourselves down to Byward Market seemed a good bet, at Irving Rivers' famous store. Sure, there were hats aplenty, even bowlers and top hats but of the fedoras there were several, though made of felt, not cotton. In any event, as happens so often when he looks for a hat and there are some to be had, there's one size only. It's large and nothing else, while he takes a small; he has a neat cranium to house his big brain.

Finally, I urged upon him a trip to a nearby shop we'd never before been to. It's called the Apple Saddlery. A strange, warehouse-appearing place located off the beaten track as it were, with its parking lot an old-style gravel and dirt affair.  In its vast interior we discovered rows and rows of hats of every description and among them hats that appealed to my husband's sense of utility and style; above all in various sizes, so he was able to find three hats of different types to fit him.

And we came away satisfied customers.