Project Cubbins: Hat 481 -- Patience, Young Grasshopper Edition

Day 481 / Hat 481: Green velvet grasshopper hat with bendable green antennae, bulging white velvet eyes with brown, hard plastic irises and brown fabric eyelids (such detail!). Interior label reads: "Little Daydreamers by Elope," on one side and: handmade in China,  RN #91951, spot clean only." Fabrication tag reads: "55% cotton, 45% polyester."

This hat arrived in yesterday's mail (with another hat which you will see very soon, I assure you) and it was graciously loaned to the Project by someone who, with the exception of immediate family, has probably known me longer than any other loaner/donor to Project Cubbins. Her name is Amy Novak, she hails from Fairfax, Vermont, and we went to Rock Point summer camp together on the shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont, back in the mid 1970s. (My last summer there was the summer of '79 so we've known each other for at least 35 years -- probably more like 38.)

I haven't actually seen Amy since college, but thanks to the marvel that is Facebook we've kept in touch. She actually lives out here in Southern California (down Fullerton way) and the loan of this hat has extra-special significance for two reasons.

First, she's been an ardent fan and supporter of my whimsical quest since way back when I was was wearing single-digit lids. Second, and perhaps most importantly, early on she provided some extremely important motivation for me to make sure I followed this Project through to the 500th hat.

Having shown one of my very, very early installments (perhaps the very first one, I don't recall exactly) to her young daughter, she comments to me via Facebook something to the effect of: "The girl child doesn't think you're gonna make it."

As a result, in those few and far between times where sourcing a hat has been particularly challenging or on occasions where the non-hat-related life circumstances surrounding me have been so daunting and so overwhelming that it seems pointless to continue throwing hats in the ring, I think about that little girl I've never met and how she doubted me big time. 

As I type this I realize I don't even know really know her name. Nonetheless, it's "the girl child" who gets the hat-tip on this one, with the assist to her mom.

As Master Po might say in the "Kung Fu" TV series that was most likely on the air the years Amy and I were at camp, "It takes patience, young Grasshopper, patience." 


Related:
PC 381: Behind the Veil
PC 181: Head Full of Hound's-Teeth
A Year Ago Today in Project Cubbins


Q: OK, nice hat -- but what exactly is Project Cubbins, anyway?

A: One man's homage to Dr. Seuss and his second book, "The 500 Hats of Bartholemew Cubbins," which celebrated the 75th anniversary of its publication in 2013, Project Cubbins is an attempt to document the wearing of a different hat or piece of headgear every day for 500 consecutive days. No do-aheads, no banking of hats, no retroactive entries. PC started on May 27, 2013 with Hat 1.