Hatless, coatless, carless, a grey day to boot, the rain about to come lashing down, and how the heck did I get into this fix anyway? It's a long story, but I'll do my best to shorten it.

A long time ago, in another age, another land, I grew up when every man, woman, and child wore head coverings. Babies in their prams wore bonnets. Schoolboys and schoolgirls wore caps and hats, to keep off the rain. In a rainy climate it was the natural thing to do.

The majority of men wore tweed caps, and no self-respecting woman dared venture into a church head uncovered. Women's headgear took many forms, cloches, berets, the traditional shawl of the country, cowl on tailored cloak, the black hat of the widow, and the brightly festooned little confections that young girls wore to turn the heads of young men and those not so young.

My first hat was a man's cap, far, far too large, and too, too easy for my chums to send flying off my head. I hated it.

Next came a hand-me-down from an older brother, a genuine schoolboy's cap, complete with enamel and silver school crest badge. The badge was removable, and the cap was a snug fit, thus not easily flippable. It was out of place at the De La Salle Brothers' school on the Rock but, what the heck, it kept off the rain.

Transition from student to adulthood was marked by acquisition of a real man's hat, at around age eighteen or nineteen, and since then wearing a hat has been a life-long habit for me.

Buying a hat used to be effortless. Every good men's outfitter sported shelves of hats, winter hats, summer hats, all-weather hats, felt hats, fur hats, shooting hats, cloth caps, and rain hats. There was nothing to it. "Size, sir?" "Seven and an eighth." "Certainly, sir. Style?"

At one stage as a newspaperman, a snap-brim felt hat and gaberdine trenchcoat were mandatory apparel. The hat was always worn, the coat could be slung over shoulders or draped over an arm. A cigarette between the lips on the left side of the mouth completed the picture. Any old Humphrey Bogart movie brings on a spell of nostalgia.

This tale is drifting, like the cigarette smoke over Bogart's left eyelid. So did one newly bought hat. Drift, that is. Bought in Pimm's of Georges Street, Dublin, worn down Dame Street, past Trinity, over Burgh Quay and on to O'Connell Bridge, it was all of fifteen minutes old when a gust of wind whipped it off my head and sent it sailing down the River Liffey to the Irish Sea, in the general direction of Wales and other foreign shores.

It was a grey day, with the rain about to come lashing down, wet Irish rain. I felt like an omadhaun. (See Oxford Dictionary. Irish for idiot, vernacularly rendered "eejit".) The old expression "Hang on to your hat!" now had a new meaning for me.

As the years passed, the wearing of hats passed from fashion, and some great advertisements for hatters now exist only in the memory of true hat men on either side of the Atlantic.

Who, today, remembers the famous omnibus ads in Scotland of years gone bye? The first panel, "Great Scot! I forgot." The second panel, "Forgot what?" Third panel, "To get a hat." Fourth panel, "Where?" Fifth panel, "At Keith Scott!"

Then there was the one with the dire warning, "If you want to get ahead, get a hat!" It wasn't so successful, and the trend to bare heads continued into the present. Hat stores became increasingly rare, and department stores cut their selections of headgear to a minimum.

To find a hat of the proper size, the male of the species nowadays must travel far and wide.

This week a fruitless search through Canada's capital revealed the full extent of the decline and fall of the hatter's trade. Where once the leading men's store offered a full range of choice, now a few shelves or a single rack carried a sharply restricted selection.

Getting the right size in the right shade was an impossibility downtown. Suburban shopping centres beckoned. Mayhap there still remained one store with one hat of the right size and colour. East and west I drove, and east and west I drew a blank.

One shopping centre remained to be explored. Despite lowering skies and a forecast of severe rainstorms, off I went, convinced that today would brighten all my tomorrows. But from store to store the story remained the same. No luck, no hat.

And, when I returned to the parking lot, no car keys. I had locked them inside the car.

Hatless, coatless, carless, a grey day to boot, with the rain about to come lashing down.....

The End

Note: I am happy to report that since 1997, when this piece first appeared on "A Home Page with an Irish Flavour", there has been a re-emergence of headgear in the wardrobe of the North American male, and unhappy to report that ofttimes it has taken the form of a baseball cap.