According to the English poet Alexander Pope, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” But I’ll add a corollary, namely that a lot of learning can be even more dangerous.

I know that doesn’t sound right, but bear with me, willya?

A perfect example was a barfly who haunted the local gin mills from the late 70s to the mid-80’s. He claimed to have been a cop in some Southern state, and for all I know, he may have been: though he never talked about it. However, what he DID talk, endlessly, loudly, and encyclopedically about, was handguns.

I’ve no idea how many different handguns there are, or how many have ever been made — I’d assume at least hundreds of thousands — but it seemed that fool knew them all. Certainly, from what I heard and from what other fellow sufferers told me, he never repeated himself. Of course, after seeing (and unfortunately HEARING) him in action once, the only people who sat near him at the bar were newbies. But no matter: The bartender was a captive audience.

Also, due to the infinite wisdom of whoever was in charge of such things, he had a concealed carry permit. How did I know that? Because he always had his sport coat open, flashing his gat for the enlightenment and awe of all.

While he never ran out of either subject matter or breath, he finally ran out of healthy liver tissue. And once again, peace reigned in the mountain valley.

Another example of the danger of too much learning — an odd duck named A. Saxon Brewster (the A probably stood for Anglo). He was perhaps the most highly-educated insufferable snot I ever knew.

He had advanced degrees in English literature from several prestigious universities and his burning ambition was to be a university professor. Although he got an endless series of part-time appointments at an equally endless number of colleges, he never got a full-time gig. He’d be at a place for a year, or at most two, before he had to pull up his tent, throw his briefcase on his camel, and move on to the next oasis.

He claimed he never got a full-time gig because the powers that be were threatened by his vast array of skills and knowledge. Knowing what I know of The Higher Ed. Biz, I figured it was because he was too arrogant to fit in with the junior faculty, but not arrogant enough to fit in with the senior ones. I mean, how many people anywhere, let alone a university, do you think could stand listening to some egomaniac brag about being fluent in Old English (oops, excuse me — Ye Olde English).

Beyond his academic snobbery, he also managed to mention at least once in every diatribe that he came from a Mayflower family; in fact, he was a direct descendent of William Brewster, a big mucky-muck in the Plymouth colony. While he thought some old fart from 15 generations ago conferred all sorts of props on him, no one else did (except maybe his Mayflower Society goombahs, of whom, thank Gawd, I knew none).

The point of all this is that knowing a vast amount of specific information has no relationship to anything. Or if ya wanna get down and dirty: The only people who’ll listen to your esoterica are those who need to (who’s almost no one) or those who want to (who are probably even fewer than those who need to).

While I understand this perfectly, I know I talk too much about things I know well, and am pretty much a crashing bore when I do. So I try to go into launch mode only with like-minded friends. For example, I know I can rap about word origins with Doc McHugh, swap Navy stories with The Silver Fox and my other fellow Squid, and can talk about Paul Smith’s Glory Days with Kirk Peterson and old-time alums. But until this past Monday I never found anyone I could with about talk hats.

There are all sorts of support groups today, but there’s not one for Hat-a-Holics. And I doubt there ever will be. That isn’t because Hat-a-Holics don’t exist — they sure do. But as opposed to the other support groups, Hat-a-Holism isn’t destructive to one’s sanity, work ethic, health or domestic tranquility. Yeah, sure, it can cost some serious gelt and eat up a bunch of space, but all-in-all, it’s a pretty harmless pastime. And beyond that, Hat-a-Holism — as opposed to alcohol and drug addiction, for example — can give us with a mere change of the lid, an instant change of persona. A beret is Continental, a fedora metropolitan. A black derby is Old Time; a purple one is Otherworldly. A leather cowboy hat is macho; a striped band skimmer is turn-of-the century sportif (20th century, that is).

(Seide Note: A baseball cap, unless in some way significant, is unworthy of either mention in this column or attention anywhichway).

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The Cosmic Kid and a Cosmic Connection

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So what about last Monday?

Well, I was sitting in my office, sipping java, noshing a croissant, and reading a Carl Hiaasen novel — the usual, in other words. At the table in front of me were The Cosmic Kid and a guy and gal I didn’t know. I didn’t pay them any attention, till I noticed The Kid’s friend pointing at the window sill next to me, upon which sat my hat. They chatted a bit more, The Kid up and the left, and after he did, the other fellow came over to my table and introduced himself as Toby.

Then he said, “That your hat?”

“Yup,” I said.

“Mind if I look at it?” he said.

“Help yourself,” I said.

Then when he looked at it (admiringly, I might add), I gave the vital commentary.

“That’s made by the San Francisco Hat Company — I think they’re no longer in business. I got it in Utah, in the summer, cuz it was THE best hat for the desert. It’s not straw. Instead, it’s made from the same thing as Panama hats — though Panama hats are actually from Ecuador. It’s from something called the toquilla palm and …”

On and on I rolled and rambled, like Old Man River. At this point in my usual hat discussions, I notice the other person staring glaze-eyed into the middle distance. But not this time. Toby, bless the dear lad, was actually paying attention.

How could this be, I wondered?

The answer was simple: He’s someone I thought I’d never find — a fellow Hat-a-Holic!

Once I finished the guided tour of my hat and he’d made various comments on its combination beauty/practicality, he started talking about his hats.

He does farming and is always looking for the perfect sun hat, which was why my hat caught his attention. We talked about sun hats in general, then his in particular, and then went on to other hat-a-bilia. He didn’t mention how many hats he had, just that he’s made a lot of hat racks to hold them all. At that point, the woman at the table — his partner, as it turned out — made some comment about how the hats were taking over the whole house. I nodded and said I understood how she felt and I sympathized greatly — not meaning a word of it.

Next, Toby went to his truck and came back with two hats to show me. (A guy who keeps two dress hats in his truck? I felt I’d just won the Tri-State Megabucks). One was a lovely pearl-grey cowboy hat; the other was a leather coachman’s hat that I immediately recognized as one made by The American Hat Makers. HOW did I know it was made by them? Not by magic, but by my having looked at their catalog, droolingly, and having bought my leather top hat from them.

On and on we talked until his partner mentioned they had to be somewhere, and they left. And once they did, the spell was broken … but only for a little while. For having met another Hat-a-Holic, one who lives mere miles away, has given me a sense of security: I now know that while others may scoff at my hat obsession, I’m no longer alone.

And this means there have to be many more of us, scattered all o’er This Great Land of Ours. It may not mean Hat-a-Holism is a sign of sanity, but it’s close enough for me.