Well damn...

Thirty years in Texas and I had never owned anything like a cowboy hat (for want of a better term) or sombrero. A lot of it was my mode of travel: A Tilley hat or a t-shirt tied around my head like an Arab had it covered, both of these will scrunch away to nothing for transport.

This past week I took possession of a simple wool-felt hat, a hat blank with a simple liner, $40.



For those who might not be in the loop, wool felt is the cheapest grade. Rabbit fur felt is next followed by beaver felt.

The superiority of fur, and especially beaver fur for hat felt being what drove much of our Frontier history.

Took the wool-felt hat blank out for a test drive today. Three-hour afternoon hike, 100 degree heat, black wool-felt hat blank on my head. Late July in South Texas.

All I can say is that the R-value of wool must be phenomenal: No unusual amount of heat transmitted through the hat. And perhaps some evaporative cooling, when I bent down to tie a shoe, sweat dripped down in abundance, running down along the underside of the brim. If anything COOLER than the Tilley hats I have been using forever.

'Spect all them vaqueros and cowboys knew what they were doing after all

From my perspective, a $40 wool-felt hat blank is just about ideal; it has that essential wide brim, wont break the bank if lost, and at that price can be worn out and replaced indefinitely.

For a working, using, everyday hat, are the beaver and rabbit fur blends worth the money?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Birdwatcher

Tilly hats be the way to go..........I don't own a cow-me-boy hat either.

You're in good company with that hat...!

I still have my Dad's Stetson. It is a 10X Beaver, that was given to him back in 1957 when we moved to Kissimmee Florida.
Fits me like a glove.

Beaver felt is king. Some might remember a while back I posted a thread on the best type of water proof hat (wide brimmed). I was even looking into oil skin for a hat. What I settled on was a leather hat, Aussie type cowboy hat. Large brim, but not as wide as what you'd expect for a cowboy hat.

Well, I still love that hat. Use Mink Oil on it and it's water proof. But it's warm in the sun. Keeps it's shape very well, but this one has a wire brim. I suspect without that wire, it wouldn't.

So on to beaver. The key is to either get VERY lucky with a pre-made hat that happens to fit perfect, or, the right way is to have a hat maker make one for you. When/if you get fitted, account for hair. I shave my head and if I go too long between shaves, my hats don't fit just right.

Anyway, beaver is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. And about as water proof as you can get.

There are much cheaper ways. The wool blank you have being a prime example. And my leather one being another. But, unless ya lose it, the beaver will last forever with minimal care. So, YES. Worth every penny. But a lot of pennies.

BWer, nice hat. I wear Tilleys (cotton) but also a "Tilley-style" KOM (wool) hat in cold wet springs or falls.

By the way, will be leaving for Ghana Thursday. Will say, "hi", to all your old friends. Ball cap with a syn neck gaiter there.

Your blank is actually pretty close to what real cowboys wore. They didn't wear what we now call cowboy hats.

It looks like it's from the Swampman collection.

Snork!

The original cowboy hats were dual purpose. They served to keep the sun off in the summer and in the winter, they'd use a bandana to tie the sides down over their ears. The modern cowboy hats sort of keep the sun off (they turn up and lose their ability to shade) and they're worthless for keeping ears warm. They're a lot more cosmetic than useful.

Since baseball caps got popular, the skin cancer rate in farmers has skyrocketed.

I'm jealous! Oughta be the about the peak of the rainy season IIRC, never mind showers, just go stand outside in the evening

And here's hoping you don't meet Giardia, my formerly close companion

Speaking of giardia, you MUST take the time to eat at a real chop bar by the side of the road (hey, 3 billion flies cant be wrong ). I highly recommend fufu, groundnut soup and dried tuna; a meal sent by Onyame hisself straight from heaven

Only thing possibly even close to better is banku, groundnut soup, and dried tuna.

NEVER use your left hand to eat, and remember, real men drink the soup after all the fufu/banku is gone (hey, long as you dont also drink the water afterwards you'll be fine).

Speaking of drinking, you MUST also go to a roadside akpeteshie bar (after all, your driver will prob'ly be driking there too). All liquor is poison, akpeteshie (tranlates to "kill me quick") makes no bones about the fact.

The trick is, pretend its water and drink it like you were thirsty, that way by the time your body reacts it'll be too late. Try and sip it and you're lost. Dont worry either that some guy coughing his lungs out just used that same glass, the akpeteshie will take care of that.


For the REAL akpeteshie experience, ya gotta wake up in the dust of a village street with goats and chickens looking down at you curiously as they pass. But I doubt you'll have the time to delve that deep into the local culture


And speaking of drivers, and akpeteshie, NEVER ride in the front if you aint driving. Stay any legnth of time and you'll see the remains of another head-on collision aboout every time you take the main highway.



Take photos, in a perfect world posted on a thread here.

And dont forget the paregoric



Safe Journey,

Birdwatcher

still beats hell out of a ball cap or bandana head. my stetson beaver is downright cool once it gets good and soaked....really doesn't give up much to a straw in the summer, and much nicer in the winter.

Ya, I bought it specifically with an eye to pre-1840's Texas.

Only thing gonna be hard to find is, to what extent wool felt was used in that time period.

Birdwatcher

Bird, you are probably the only hombre on the planet that could get nostalgic for Ghana.

Naah, thats 'cause you aint seen it like I have.

About the friendliest place on that whole continent. As an Obruni (White man) pretty much ANYWHERE you go in the 'sticks you have a roof, a free meal, and all the akpeteshie and/or palm wine you can handle, free of charge.

This from people who literally ain't got a pot to pee in.

What you'll get too is a bunch of good conversation, thats what Ghanaians do.

You might get that beaver hat a bit dusty tho'

Birdwatcher

Take that felt hat, soak it good, and wear it - air conditioning, and it'll conform to your head perfectly. DO NOT remove until relatively dry. DON'T leave in the sun, as it will shrink. WHEN (not if) you make that mistake - submerge again!
Mark

Keith:
I trust that other than endorsing Tilley hats that this finds you and yours doing well this fine.

To the original query Birdwatcher posed on whether or not a larger number of X's thereby indicating more rabbit or beaver fur in the hat makes it last better, I'd say it depends.

I've talked to Okanagan cowboys who managed to kill a good hat every couple years, but then they expose it to a lot of snow and rain, which combined with the sun here seems to speed the deterioration of the felt up somewhat.

When I first moved here I ran a Biltmore hat that was mostly beaver as I recall and it lasted almost a decade before it began to really fall apart. The dye held up very, very well however and the color didn't run one bit over the years.

By the way they are a Canadian made hat - Canuck plug inserted here.
http://www.biltmorehats.com/aboutus.htm
http://www.smithbilthats.com/hat-history

The Biltmore near the end of it's run, when I was just starting out on mine - or so it seems.


My good wife then bought a Smithbilt for me - these made in Calgary - and it's been a pretty good hat although the band is getting pretty ratty and the felt on the crown is showing some cracks. This hat is a lower grade felt with more rabbit fur content, but the dye is holding very well in it too.

Somewhere in there I picked up a wool felt Bailey for hunting too and though the felt itself has proven to be very tough, the original brown dye has faded into an olive drab green.

For a $100 hat, it's been pretty good really. Here's me and the girls having an Okanagan style tailgate party a few years back now.


Before I leave this, I've got to share a cowboy hat story with you all.

A buddy of mine used to kid me about my cowboy hats and tell me that the "real cowboys" that he knew all wore ball caps. I'd always respond that a well fitted felt hat tended to stick on the four corners of my noggin - the product of German ancestors no doubt. Having one's hat stay where it's supposed to can be one of those wee things in life that are quite comforting at times or so I've found.

Anyway in the fullness of time he decided that he wanted to go on a horseback hunt with me and so we did.

After his ball cap got brushed off by a Ponderosa pine branch for about the fourth time - necessitating his having to ride back, dismount, rehat and then remount, I slid my mare over beside him and casually noted, "Most of the real cowboys I know wear ball caps......"

Would you believe replied with a less than charitable two word phrase?

The day ended OK for him though in that he shot a nice two point mulie with a unique rack that tasted just fine. Here's the scanned shot of me finishing packing up his mulie - note my hat is still in place.



Hopefully that information was at least slightly useful to someone out there tonight. Thanks for indulging my ramblings as I unearthed some hat memories from days gone by as well.

All the best to you and yours this week Keith and to you too Birdwatcher.

Dwayne

Never been to big on covers.

Guess I have to get use to them in a few months.

I wear a baseball cap most of the time. About the other 20% of the time I will wear either a stetson or a resistol.

I'm pretty sure there are some members here that wear these after reading their post, fill in whoever you think they are on your own.

As it should be.

I like ball caps, gotta a Twins cap on right now and I look uber cool. I look like a complete idiot in any kind of 'cowboy' hat. lol

A hat thread? Birdy, you rock, buddy.













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I'm fond of a boonie style or ball cap when outdoors, but don't wear one on a day-to-day basis. On occasion the urge grabs me to toss on either my Stetson or Porkpie. I have been known to wear a scally cap as well, but rare these days.













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4x Resistol silverbelly for me. Old school rule is straw after Easter and Felt after Labor day.

Love it. Way cool, Dwayne.

What, you've never seen 'The Dogs of War'?

Having been to or briefly through a few African nations (Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania), I can attest to meeting some of the friendliest people anywhere. Of course, when one lives in a hut made of cowshyt, one must maintain a pleasant and positive outlook on life. By in large, a fun bunch, those folks. Don't worry, be happy mon!

Apologies. Devil made me do it.

It's cheating to have a lovely lady wearing the hat

Don't think I ever owned a "cowboy hat". Most of the time if I'm outside for an extended stretch it will be either a flats hat, which is like a ball cap but with the side skirts to cover the neck & sides of the head. less extensive stays in the sun I have a "Aussie-style" (whatever that means) felt hat which looks decent and gives decent protection. It was satisfactory on the sunny trip to Quemado, at ~7000' elevation.

Hunting in cold weather - or fishing in cold weather I'll wear a balaclava/neck gaiter...assuming I can ever find the silly thing again

I did the skin cancer thing 20 years ago, and prefer to avoid a repeat.

Birdy, read this one again. When next in Fredericksbrug there a place north of the main drag (maybe Texas Jacks) that has a lot of straw (lonesome dove type hats) and they are nice and big. Think about it for summer wear. You can go pre 1840's in this place.

http://www.texasjacks.com/hats/StrawHats.htm

I bought the middle one, nice hat in the hot summer sun.
Also have lot of 45 LC stuff if your into that, arms and holsters. Fun place to shop.

Mo' lids.













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The sun came out today and I went out without a hat all day. My shaved head is still as white as it was the day I shaved it. Not near the intensity up here you guys have to face down south.

I used to wear ball caps as my only hats and only when necessary, but in the 80's I started hearing of more and more Bow River guides having to get parts of their ears chopped off due to skin cancer, so I started wearing brimmed hats... I tried canvas boonie hats and then went to crushable felt hats (which I still use a lot when in the backcountry) but I've pretty much gone to wide-brim hats for most outdoor activities lately.

Birdy, I like your wide-brim felt hat. It should serve you well. Don't worry about "historically correct" styling, either. My wife has thousands of pictures of hats, dresses, suits, and other attire worn in the 19th century, and there's every style hat you can imagine. FWIW, I've got a copy of a drawing made of a Tennessee outlaw named James Copeland, and his hat would fit in just fine in a 2012 Texas rodeo.

As for material, as others have said, beaver is best. And you don't have to pay through the nose to get one, either. My wife picked up my latest 20X beaver hat at the thrift shop in town a few months ago for $30. Got the boys at the local western boutique to steam it and block it to fit my odd-shaped head, and it's a beaut.

Well Leighton, I see Birdy does have a straw pre 1840's

We get a little sun down here. Makes for good skin cancer.

I wear Tilly and Boonie hats every day I'm outside. I've had enough biopsies thank you. My friends think the Tilly hat is gay and I look like a snob wearing it. I've seen some worse! My friend does the cowboy dances with his wife and showed up one day with his cowboy hat on. I looked at him and asked if he bought two of them. He said "no, why?" I said "so you could crap in that one an cover it up with the other!" His son laughed and let out little chuckles the whole ride home.

The first time I visited my Aunts and Uncles in Oklahoma, my Uncle Ralph gave me a straw hat right off the plane. We went right off to a cattle auction. It had to be 100 degrees and the sun was the hottest I ever felt in my life. My arms were singed in no time, and I was so glad to have that hat! Cowboy hats are a must in that hot sun.

I have 2 that see a lot of use depending on the weather:

Mine doesn't have the bill!
Mark

And your standing in your new (maybe) future boat. Your straw is just like mine except I have to keep mine clean so I wear something else most of the time.

At least you cleaned the mirror L. Interesting pic of your hat.

They don't make 'em like they used to applies here. I have my father's Stetson from out of the 1930s. It is made of Nutria and it is a very high quality felt, more so than Beaver.

He always told me a few things about a good hat. The brim will hold it's shape but still be flexible enough to fold when struck by a hand or rope. This is something you won't find in hats made today.

He also said no ranch would hire a hand that rolled his own cigarettes or wore a straw hat. The reason was; you won't get any work out of him because he will either be rolling a cigarette or chasing his hat.

Bailey made cowboy hat most of the time. Ballcap while driving and a toque in the cooler weather.
My Bailey has a good 25 or so years of rain and snow across the brim, still holding up well. Can't go wrong spending good money on a quality hat.

Cherish that that picture of your father....that is way cool....

You never met him but you would have loved him...

This is an old Resistol "Black Diamond" [I think they were 20X] I've had since the 'eighties and still wear year round huntin' and fishin'.I had a stampede string installed since I wear it in an open jeep and in my boat.

It has served as a rifle rest on some longish shots from Mt. to the Rio Grande hunting M.D.

I've got a couple of good custom hats made by Rand and Huskey,a white 30X resistol for funerals and weddings ,an old 20 X Resistol silverbelly that's better than a 50X nowadays that I wear for everyday.

I'll probably die under this un' though.

Smoke, bud.

It was quite common. Bever was only for expensive top hats at that time.

Here's one I made using a white blank exactly like yours.

Right. Observe. Recognize.

Brown Bailey felt in winter, Stetson straw in summer.

That's because you still have all of your hair.

High comedy for those of us who had actually been IN Ghana In mean, those menacing soldiers at road blocks were actually saying polite and ordinary greetings in Twi.

Anyhow, I do have some video footage of the Peace Corps selection process and of me going to Ghana, back when I used to keep handguns in the fridge and squish roaches by hand. Enjoy



My mum kept all my letters. Unfortunately the one where the soldiers came to our school and commadeered all the kids to haul sacks of cocoa got lost. Long story short; I went too (of course), all in all the most heavily armed crew I've ever sat around and got drunk with.

However, one where I went on an offshore fishing trip is still around. Here it is, as written in Ghana, 31 years ago

This just ONE YEAR after the "Dogs of War" came out, filmed in that very same area of the coast Well, hey, if I get to be even more studly by association, I'm down wit' that....

Bompata Secondary School
Box 10
Bompata A/A
Ghana, West Africa
July 23rd 1981

A volunteer who is leaving gave me some American stamps so I can leave mail off at the Peace Corps office in Accra to be pouched over and mailed in the �States. I especially wanted to send a letter this way because I haven�t written in a month and this will probably be quicker....

...Back in June I went to a three-day Volunteer�s conference at Dixcove. Dixcove is a fishing village on the coast of Ghana just west of Takoradi. I was able to make it down from my site in one day. Dixcove is the nearest thing to a quaint fishing village that I�ve seen in Ghana. Its a small town with narrow, paved streets set right up against a quaint little cove or bay.

In Dixcove we stayed at the castle. The castle is a 300 year old Royal Africa Trading Company trader�s fort set up on a hill overlooking the town. It�s a middle sized small fort made of stone complete with cannons and battlements. We could stay there for 5 cedis a night which over here is a pittance. The walls of my room were about five feet thick, it was like staying at Fort Ticonderoga. From the battlements was a great view of the sea and the golden beach fringed with palm trees stretching off into the distance.

I stayed four nights. The conference was supposed to be so that Peace Corps Volunteers could exchange information and ideas. It was a rousing success, only four people showed up. Of the three Volunteers who had organized it, one got a hernia and another had come down with giardia (dysentery). Another Volunteer who would have come was flown back with to the States with hepatitis, meningitis, and malaria all at once.

As it turned out there was just enough of us to fill a table down at the bar while we got drunk. Dixcove is an active fishing village and we could buy spiny lobsters really cheap. On the third day I was there I was wandering around town occasionally joking with the locals in Twi. Actually they spoke Fanti, but Fanti and Twi are close enough to be mutually intelligible. They really like it when an Obruni speaks Twi and some fishermen invited me to come out with them.

Their boats are long wooden canoes about 30+ feet long and six feet wide, they are carved from a single tree trunk and are much more graceful and functional looking than the term dugout canoe would suggest. They are round-bottomed with squared-off gunwales. The sides are carved and colorfully painted. The canoe I was in had a 40 horsepower Yamaha outboard set on a wooden transom out to one side at the back and another 25 horsepower Evinrude kept on board as a reserve.

The seats were a series of wide planks across the top. In front was a small t-shaped mast about six feet high . Up in front were two small wrapped bundles hanging from a nail, probably some kind of spiritual insurance. Half of the canoe was taken up with a great pile of netting.

The fishermen themselves are brawny characters all built like football linebackers. The canoes were pulled up about fifteen feet from the water in a long row. To put them in, two planks were laid parallel from the canoe to the water. Then everyone lifted one end of the canoe and wedged a pipe underneath as a roller. The boats were immensely heavy and putting them in was a community effort.

To lift one end the fishermen would brace their backs against the side. Someone would say �Ibo� and everyone conversationally replied �Ibo� and then heaved in unison. It was all very casual and not a regimented �heave ho� effort. After each heave the canoe would be another few inches down the beach. The suddenly the pipe reached a fulcrum point and the canoe rolled most of the way. From there, by coordinating their efforts with the waves the canoe was soon afloat.

After it was floating they loaded it up with two big drums of petrol and a big jerry can of fresh water plus a plastic bag containing our blankets. No life jackets. Around town the fishermen dress well in blue jeans and t-shirts on the boats they wear tattered rags.

There were six besides myself in the canoe, ranging in age from the boss in his mid-thirties down to a boy of about twelve. Most boats only had three or four crew. After we were al loaded up we paddled a little ways out into the cove before starting the outboard. The paddles were painted and carved from a single piece of wood and had trident-shaped blades.

We left around noon and for the next six hours we just motored south away from the coast. I would say we went about 25 miles offshore. I was sitting way up in the front, the were all sitting in the back except for the boss who was standing on the rearmost seat with his hip wedged against a long steering oar that was lashed to the stern. Next to him sat the guy who operated the outboard.

The seas here are deep blue in color with shafts of green light when you look down into the water. The sun was behind a high thin haze of cloud but I still got pretty red. There was a light breeze and the sea was in long rolling swells about ten feet high.

We were going into the waves so that as we went along we would climb a long slope of water. For a brief moment at the crest we would get a good view of the surrounding but then we would pitch down the far side, sometimes with a bone-jarring impact that buried me in spray. It would have been pretty easy to get thrown out.

There were a lot of canoes who left at about the same time we did but they made no attempt to stick together and as the afternoon went by we just gradually dispersed.

Occasionally as we motored along a flying fish would suddenly erupt out of the water in front and glide stiffly off between the waves. There weren�t many birds, just an occasional term or petrel. The seas here is actually pretty barren, there are no barnacles or seaweed along the shoreline and no seagulls either (Dixcove has vultures instead of seagulls).

Going out, they trailed a fishing line and we caught a couple of 18 inch tuna. Live tuna have a silvery, mirror finish like polished steel and they are perfectly streamlined to the point that they resemble some kind of undersea missile as much as they do a fish. After it was caught it vibrated around the bottom of the canoe with frantic energy like a wind-up toy, but out of water it quite suddenly died.

We also caught a dolphin fish about the same size, a beautiful green and yellow thing that vibrated around the boat like the tuna for a few moments before suddenly dying

Around sunset they cut the engine and brought out the paddles. Two of them stood up and started to play out the net and the rest kept the canoe broadside to the breeze. At this pint I was pretty helpless, all day we had been pitching and heaving and now we were bobbing and weaving, I could hardly tell which way was up. Those guys were just walking casually up and down on the benches while I could only crawl and grope my way around.

The net was at least 400 yards long. Every 100 yards or so they attached a float with a lit kerosene lantern. As we drifted downwind the net formed a long straight line pointing upwind. The net itself was made of cotton twine with about a four-inch mesh. It hung down form the surface about 10 or 15 feet. The way it works is whatever swims into it gets tangled up in the netting, the small stuff swims through.

It was well after dark by the time they got finished playing out the net. Then they fired up a charcoal brazier and cooked the tuna. At this point I threw up over the side so I didn�t eat. Shortly afterwards they gave me a space in the very stern of the canoe with my feet wedged against a fuel drum to keep me from slipping down. They slept on the benches.

It might have been relaxing except that everything was wet and there was just enough of a breeze to make you feel cold. Also, as the canoe rocked and tipped, the stars appeared to veer drunkenly all over the clear, dark sky. I didn�t sleep very much.

At least there were no mosquitoes. Twice in the night the boy got up to bail out the canoe as there were some cracks in the grain which let in water. Off by the horizon were the lights of another canoe and once a freighter passed by all lit up.

One thing that was beautiful though, the stars of the Southern Cross, just visible above the horizon.

At first light they began to haul in the net. It was cloudy so I didn�t see the sun rise. At first things looked pretty grim, for the first 200 yards all we got were about 8 2ft tuna, some of which were partly eaten. We also got a couple of small squid with a body about as long as my forearm. The squid were the only things alive in the net.

After this initial disappointment things began to pick up. They pilled in a 3ft shark and then a little later they pulled in one about 10 ft long. They were both grey and white with black tipped fins and cat�s eyes. Both sharks appeared to be dead, but they beat both of them vigorously with the paddles to be sure.

Towards the end they hauled din a bunch of 2ft tuna (by �tuna� I mean any one of a number of similar species) and a dead dolphin about ten feet long also. Shortly after they hauled this in we saw a small group of dolphin about 50 yards off, perhaps hanging around their friend.

All of the larger kills were laboriously untangled from the net and allowed to flop heavily down between the benches, the tuna either fell or were shaken out. It was well after sunup when we started back. On the way back they fired up the charcoal grill and I gorged on fresh roast tuna steaks, it was really fine.

The clouds dissipated and the sun shone down with full force. The open tropical sea is a hostile place. What with the reflection from the water it was like sitting in a microwave. I ended up sitting hunched under a blanket and felt like I got burned right thought it. The crew just lolled around comfortably in the sun.

Going back was a lot smoother than as we ran with the swells. On the way we passed another fishing canoe like ours with three unhappy-looking men standing in it. Probably their motor had broken. The people in our canoe pointedly ignored them and motored right on by, I didn�t ask why.

It was afternoon before the coast appeared on the northern horizon and we got back to port around two. Hauling the canoes up the beach was pretty much a reversal of putting them in the water except a long nylon rope was tied to the prow. We did about as well as anyone. I saw a swordfish and there were hammerhead sharks on the beach.

Women and kids started in first thing chopping up the sharks and dividing up the fish. They gave me a good-sized tuna and I gave one of the fishermen my good denim shirt. I gave the tuna to the lady at the castle to cook.

The fishermen make out fairly well compared to most Ghanaians with traditional occupations. The men at least live well and dress well when not working and among them an air of machismo and professional pride prevails. The Protein deficiency which plagues much of Ghana is probably non-existent at Dixcove.

On the other side of the coin they make three trips a week which means six days and they also spend long hours stringing out and repairing the nets which probably occupies much of the seventh day.

The following day I went back to too Accra to spend the night and returned to Bomapata....

Birdwatcher

VERY cool story Birdwatcher! I bet Ghana was quite the experience.

*sigh*

Not really close.

OTOH, this must be one of them upscale, snooty Akpeteshie bars.

,"Shweh!".... sure is a joy to hear so much spoken Twi again, makes me laugh just to hear it recalling all the jokes and funny stories exchanged... over alchohol for the most part....

Observe the correct technique; and note how the guy pours a little out on the ground first as libations to his ancestors. Anyhoo... I'm thinking you would fit right in...



Birdwatcher

Thats one fine hat

Is that hand-stitching I see on that item of clothing underneath it?

Birdwatcher

Hat and jacket are hand stitched....

The X's represent whatever the hatmaker wnats them to represent. There is no standard.

I have bought a custom 100% beaver fur felt from http://www.buckaroohatters.com/ His speciality is cowboy hats. He also has a Facebook page with lots of photographs.

Another good maker of fedora's is http://www.vintagesilhouettes.com/

The X factor is mostly marketing hype. There is no standard on what the x's represent.

There is a felter in Winchester TN that makes most of the custom hatter's felt bodies. I went up there a week or 2 ago just to observe the process. At the time they had beaver, white rabbit, brown rabbit and nutria fur. They make differet mixes of those furs depending on what the customer wants. Nutria is a little rougher than beaver but not as rough as rabbit. It makes a darn good hat.

This is a link to an older video
Winchester Hat Corp - Making Fur Felt Bodies

Birdie, sounds exciting if you are twenty-three; at sixty-three, ah, not so much..
Pic's I will do..

Great pic's Kamo et al; great hats too. Great thread overall!

Intentionally pouring booze on the ground? We call that alcohol abuse here. No sir, THAT does not compute!

Great stuff about your Dark Continent days, Mike. Some day I'll tell you a story about my brother and I wandering off from the Hilton and winding up in a Nairobi slum. The story ends with my brother and I being chased through alleys and shanty-structures. All I can say is, not all Kenyans are world class runners... Good times.

My old black Stetson saw a whole lot of good times...

This crushable wool felt fedora has seen a lot of hunting, fishing, canoeing, hiking, and general outdoor use than any other hat I own. Dunno who made it. It's not my first choice for the hot Tejas summer, but it packs easy on an airplane and clamps down nicely on my noggin. Never has blown off in 20+ years.

Here is a link to a whole bunch of Texas hats atop a whole bunch of Texas cowpunchers.

http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/smith/collection.php?asn=LC-S59-311&mcat=3&scat=44

Enjoy.

L.W.

Obruni = ? Cracker? Imperialist? Ghostface? C'mon, teach, spread the skoolin' around already.

You should've volunteered to be the guy who beats the drum to the work efforts.

Hookay, fer you and Prairie both, I recall the EXACT dialogue that won me the fishing invite because it was the sort of schtick I used often.

Marketwoman: "Obruni, naah, wo coh heh?" -
Obruni = White man, naah = a drawn out constanant with no exact meaning, sort of like "er" in English, wo coh heh - where are you going? (actually a friendly greeting used in ordinary conversation).

Me: "Schweh! Men'yeh Obruni, me ye au Bibini!" - Schweh! = Another meaningless constonant], the rest = I'm not a White man, I'm an African!"

(peals of laughter from the other side, )

Marketwoman: "Wo bwa!" - You're lying!

Me: "Daabi, am pah!" - No, its true!

Marketwoman: "Wo krum ne heh?" - Where are you from?

Me: "Kumaasi" - Kumasi (capital city of the old Ashanti kingdom)

Marketwoman: Wo din de seng? - What is your name?

Me: Prempeh - Prempeh (the Ashanti royal family name, implying I was a actually a son of the Asantehene, Head Chief of all the Ashantis )

Well, while we're talking Africa I'll throw in another epic, last posted by me on the Africa forum maybe three years back, so maybe it can bear repeating.

Its pretty cool too, even if I do say so myself....

Bompata Sec. School
Box 10
Bompata A/A
Ghana
West Africa
August 31st, 1981

Dear Family,

I got your letter of July 31st. In a way I was glad to hear the package showed up as it means that there was no foul play at this end. Its quite a common thing for pouches to be rejected on grounds of irrelevancy. As I said in a previous letter a good ploy seems to be to throw in a bunch of vegetable seeds and to keep the irrelevant stuff relatively small, maybe a couple of shirts or razor blades.

Actually a diplomatic pouch for a Peace Corps Volunteer has low priority and its common for a pouch to take 2 months to arrive. The chief advantage of a pouch is relative security. I agree that it was pretty outrageous for Peace Corps to take so long.

The big news is that myself and another volunteer took a week long 70 mile hike through the boonies from Agogo to Atebubu. The rest of this letter will be a long and tedious account of the hike. All of the other relevant news will have to wait for the next letter which shouldn�t be too long in coming as I expect to spend much of September here at Bompata and I will be more inclined to sit down for many hours writing. These letters take me a long time to write.

Back in July I was fishing around for things to do and when looking at a map of Ghana the Afram Plains caught my eye. The Afram Plains is one of the most sparsely populated regions of Ghana. In Ghana there is a broad belt of sparse population north of the Ashanti homelands, historically the area was depopulated by slave raids and tribal wars. So when I was visiting Dave W. at Aburi in July I asked him and he said he was interested so on August 3rd he came to Bompata and the next morning we took transport to Agogo with our backpacks.

The first day we went twenty miles to the Afram River. I had done this a few months earlier if you remember with another volunteer, or anyway if you never got that letter I had been as far as the river before. It was much the same as last time. Ten miles along a single lane dirt road leading through a dense forest preserve to the village of Ananakrum. Along the way we encountered a guy with a single shot shotgun, this he found necessary to unsmilingly examine as we approached, not exchanging a greeting as Ghanaians usually do.

Not to make a production out of it, but I do recall I separated from Dave so as not to present a single target. Nothing came of it but the incident stands out in memory because it was so unusual. After Ananakrum there was a sudden change from forest to savannah woodland and we walked 12 miles to the river following a track.

It was a long, hot walk. As I said, much the same as last time but much greener on the savannah at this season with waist or chest high grass. We arrived at the riverside village of Sekeduase (�Sekeduaseh�) at dusk and they recognized me from the last time there. There were some people from the Ewe (�Eweh�) village across the river who straightaway put us in canoes to take us across the Afram River.

You might remember last time we waded across and it was knee deep. This time in the rainy season we had to take canoes. The canoes were crudely made from three pieces of wood, one for the bottom one for each side and they leaked abominably (that means badly). They were about 15 feet long and the guy in the back paddled with an old board while a small girl amidships bailed. It was a pleasant five minute canoe trip down a small tributary and then up the Afram proper.

The Afram River would be called a creek in the U.S. Its at most 50 or 60 feet wide. It was very quiet gliding through the dense brush at twilight. At the Eve village we got a warm reception enhanced by the fact that they were drunk. They remembered my name (�Mister Mike�) and they thought Dave was Mister Bob as he and Bob P. are both tall and skinny with red hair. It turned out most of the village had gone to visit their home town in the Volta region in the southeast of Ghana. There were only about 10 people, including children.

There were two people who spoke English, a young looking man of about forty and the woman I wrote about last time. Straight off they gave us akpeteshie (gin distilled from palm wine) and started pounding fu-fu. The man brought out a large rodent that had been caught in a wire snare. It was as big as a woodchuck and looked like a cross between a woodchuck and a porcupine. I think it might have been a brush-tailed porcupine. It was freshly dead and still relaxed and flexible. The hair and spines were singed off it was gutted and hacked into random sections before being tossed into the pot.

That night we slept under mosquito netting in a mud hut. We agreed to stay the next day as they were so happy to see us. I could�nt eat anything all day on account of eating that rodent the night before. It was very gamy tasting, something like pungently strong pork rind. The next day my insides were running like water and I still had the taste of the meat in my mouth. Actually I might have eaten something but they put that meat in everything. Dave wasn�t affected at all.

Staying there for a day we were able to watch the comings and goings of the village. It�s a small village of about ten mud huts about 20ft x 10ft with thatched roofs. They had no windows but a gap down each side let in a sort of diffuse light under the eaves. In addition there were two or three larger structures consisting of a thatched roof supported on a number of posts. Cooking and sitting around was done under these shelters. The ground was hard sand that was swept clean every day and we could walk around barefoot (no hookworm or dung). They had a large well-tended flock of chickens and numerous sheep and goats that hang around the cooking fires stealing scraps and vegetable stuff.

These people were Eves. The Eves (�Ewehs�) are the ethnic group that occupy the southeast corner of Ghana and Southern Togo. They are culturally distinct form the Ashantis and speak Ewe rather than Twi. In our hike we were to meet a number of different peoples from many parts of Ghana who had moved in to find land in this sparsely populated region.

During the course of the day it became apparent that the main business of the village was trading in akpeteshie although they also fished the river seasonally. It turned out that in the adjacent bush were many palm wine tappers who distil akpeteshie and bring it in large plastic tubs and jerrycans to this people who people act as middlemen, sending the stuff on to Accra via Agogo.

Several times during the day groups of people arrived headloading large containers of akpeteshie. Commonly they also carried carcasses of small antelope spread flat and crudely smoked, these would fetch a high price in markets of Konongo and Agogo. We stayed in the hut of the English-speaking man. He was pleasant enough to us but it was apparent he was a hard aggressive entrepreneur in his business dealings. He kept a large plastic drum of akpeteshie in his hut and everyone stayed well supplied.

We were planning to leave the following morning but when morning came we had to wait several hours while they made breakfast. It would have been an unthinkable breach of etiquet just to take off. The sun was high before we were planning to leave and they practically begged us to stay another day. Because they were so hospitable and because we were pretty buzzed from liberal goodbye draughts of akpeteshie we agreed.

The next day we were bound and determined to leave so we were careful not to drink too much akpeteshie. We couldn�t just up and leave but rather etiquette or whatever demanded that we allow them to fix us breakfast. They killed a chicken which is pretty much red-carpet treatment around here and the woman prepared a really fine meal of akpele and chicken stew. Akpele (�akpeley�) is an Eve dish made of corn meal and gari (ground dried cassava) cooked to the consistency of grainy mashed potatoes. Like fu-fu it is eaten with the fingers. It was the best local dish I have had in Ghana. This morning we went easy on the akpeteshie and were in a fit condition to travel.

I gave them a kilo bag of sugar I had bought in Lome (sugar is very expensive in Ghana) and I gave the woman a 1,000 C.F.A. note (African francs used in the surrounding francophone countries. 1,000 C.F.A. equals about $3.35). At the bank 1,000 C.F.A. is worth about 9 cedis but on the street she could get about 130 cedis for it. It was about 12 before we were able to leave. At the last moment our host agreed to come along as a guide as he had some deals to make in an outlying village.

That day we only covered about 10 miles. The vegetation was patches of forest interspersed with areas of woodland savannah. The trees on the savannah were smallish or medium sized and were spaced so that most of the time we walked in the sun yet at the same time we could�nt see more than 100 yards in any direction.

We were glad of a guide. The paths we followed were easy to follow but not infrequently forked and branched and we would soon have gotten lost by ourselves. Occasionally we crossed areas acres in size where the well-weathered bedrock came to the surface creating large open areas of bare rock or short grass.

At this season the whole country was very green and lush with thick waist or chest high grass on the savannah. The whole Afram Plains area is pretty flat.

Our host wore an old gabardine raincoat, this turned out to be common attire. The long sleeves protect the arms from the abrasive grasses crowding the path (at he end of the day my forearms were scratched up and irritated) and the coat provides good protection from the tsetse flies which were abundant in places.

Every couple of miles we would come across small collections of mud huts where palm wine tappers lived. Some of these were Northerners, others were Ewes or Ashantis. These huts were located in patches of forest. The forest usually meant water plus the oil palm which they tapped is a forest tree.

About half-way along on our journey that day we stopped at one such place. They took us to their still which was basically two fifty-five gallon oil drums (one for boiling the other for condensing) plus the tubing which dripped into a large plastic container. We had some palm wine and some akpeteshie but we didn�t worry as we had a guide. Most of the people we encountered spoke English and had been to school. They had moved to the area to tap palms and were probably not planning to stay long.

At one place close to a tiny hamlet called Yaqui we came to a small stream flowing across an open area that had carved a deep rounded hollow in the bedrock. This was a sacred stream of some sort and our host drank from it while speaking greetings to the local deity. As we crossed the stream we had to do a little dance in tribute as we walked along.

We arrived at the place we were to spend the night at about 5 o�clock. This was the place our guide came to do business and we didn�t have a guide to go any further. These people were Northerners. There are numerous tribal or ethnic groups in Ghana. Broadly speaking they can be divided into Northerners and Southerners.

The traditional garb of Southern men is the cloth (like a toga). Southern culture lays heavy emphasis on the funeral as the big social event. The native religion involves fetishes and ju-ju although a great many people, probably the majority are nominally Christian. The women are relatively unsuppressed and are approximately equal to the men in social status though of course limited to certain roles in society.

Southerners are loud, open and talkative and will loudly shout at and greet strangers which can be a mixed blessing. Examples of Southerners are Ashantis, Fantis, Akwapims and Eves among others.

Northern men traditionally wear heavy cotton one piece shirts and like a smock or long nightshirt-like garments of light cotton that reach to the ankles plus loose-fitting trousers. They usually wear a small cylindrical cloth hat. They often have extensive tribal scars on the face. I don�t know about the traditional religions but a great many Northerners are Moslem.

They tend to be reserved and quiet and not inclined to shout at strangers although they are usually very hospitable to White people at least. The women are subservient to the men and some Northern groups at least, traditionally remove the clitoris of the women. Northern Ghana is poorer than the south and a great many Northerners come to the south to take jobs as night watchmen, laborers and nightsoil ([bleep] bucket) collectors.

The village as such consisted of two long huts, each containing about four separate rooms in a row, plus a shelter on poles under which the cooking was done. Like the Ewe village they had numerous goats, sheep and chickens. About 20 people lived there, maybe five men and an equal number of women, the rest being children, every one of different ages.

We met the headman of the place in his corn patch. He was a tall rough-looking man who looked like the bar-keeper in the movie �Jabberwocky� if anyone saw that movie. We followed him to his hut. Our host was soon involved in a long and not altogether pleasant harangue over business and after a while a large sum of money changed hands. Meanwhile we drank akpeteshie while the sun went down. Hanging in front of us was a whole freshly snared duiker still with the wire around its neck.

Then men were rough illiterates who wore ragged western clothing � coat, trousers and a battered cap of some kind. They carried old worn single shot 12 gauge shotguns. They hunted and set snares for game, drank a lot from the still and had farms in the bush. The women were less remarkable and per Northern custom did�nt speak to us but kept quietly in a group with the kids around the cooking fire, eyeing us curiously and talking and giggling in low tones amongst themselves.

They were hospitable enough, they killed a fowl for us, fed us corn and fu-fu (the fu-fu being a regional adaptation I think) and served the inevitable numerous rounds of akpeteshie. The women pounded the fu-fu in the northern fashion, a number of people with pounding sticks stood around a single large wooden pestle and pounded in series. The men were pretty taciturn and reserved, the women and kids don�t count as we did�nt interact with them much during our visit. Two of the men were thin and were forever coughing and spitting, I figure it had to be tuberculosis.

Things warmed up considerably socially when I gave them one of the kilo bags of sugar. They got to talking about hunting. Their shotguns were pretty interesting. They were made in England and had falling block actions based upon the old British Martini-Henry military rifle of the late 19th Century. They said the guns were 30 years old or thereabouts which seemed about right.

They loaded single, crudely cast round ball into the brass shell, an arrangement which can hardly be accurate for any great distance. Apparently much of the hunting is done at night using a brilliant carbide lantern to freeze the game. They brought out a couple of horns, one of the horns may well have been from a bushbuck the other two were from what everyone call a bush cow. Near as I can figure a bush cow is a race of the African buffalo, or if it is not a buffalo it is something very similar. I�ve heard bush cows are smaller than buffalo proper, this may be so judging from the horns.

The problem is I haven�t got to a relevant textbook yet. A game warden I met in Birem told me the big game present on the plains are hartebeest, ( a large antelope), bushbuck (about whitetail size), bush cows and elephants. The hunters told me the bush cow is dangerous when shot at, which is also true of the African buffalo. In any event, bringing one down with the guns and bullets they use is no mean trick. No one bothers the elephants, no one has a gun capable of downing one.

That night they offered us a bed covered with a couple of antelope skins under mosquito netting, this was a problem as it was apparently the bed of one of the men with T.B. We weren�t too anxious to sleep anywhere around the huts. Fortunately it was a beautiful night and Dave had the foresight to bring a ground cloth so we begged off and said how as it was so nice out we would sleep out in the clearing.

The worst part of the trip was forever having to worry about catching something. All along the trip we were able to get people to boil our drinking water but when we could�nt we treated it with iodine pills hoping they would work on the amoebic dysentery, schistosomiasis and guinea worm. Schisto you know, guinea worm is a charming parasitic roundworm that gets to be a couple of feet long before burrowing out alive through the skin and emerging. We had to bathe with stream water and were also exposed to schisto that way. Sleeping sickness isn�t widespread in Ghana and we brought along chloroquine for malaria.

The next morning we took our leave amid much akpeteshie after being served chicken and rice. Our Eve host was returning home so we said goodbye and thank you. One of the Northern men showed us the to the next village, Mempecasa, three miles away and told us to head for the town of Birem (�Brim�). Mempecasa is Twi for something like �I don�t like to argue�. Many if not most Ashanti place names mean something.

Mempecasa was a two or three hut hamlet out on the savannah surrounded by a large cassava plot. There were a couple of women there, two kids, and a group of men. The men were sitting around drinking akpeteshie under a tree. It turned out that one of the men under the tree was going to Birem in a few hours so we had nothing to do but take off our backpacks and wait.

So we sat around and drank akpeteshie, they were complaining about the elephants damaging their farms around the village. Two of the men were Krobo palm wine tappers (the Krobos are one of the Southern ethnic groups) who were also waiting for a guide as they had just arrived in the area. The bottle we were drinking out of was interesting, apparently an antique(this was a first, people always use a glass, I had never seen anyone take akpeteshie from the bottle).

One of the men was a crazy man (insane). He was loud obnoxious and unwashed. He kept grinning at us and trying to shake our hand, actually he was a rather friendly guy as crazy men go, in a little while he left us alone and fell asleep.

By now it was clear we couldn�t get anywhere without a guide, the trails we were following were just paths through the bush that often faded out or forked. We ended up wasting about two hours at Mempecasa until the guy started off for the next town about 9 or 10 miles away. I fell asleep too.

The guy who eventually brought us to the next town was also a hunter carrying a shotgun with a little black and white dog at his heels. We traveled in a group in single file with the two Krobos and the woman carrying a load on her head. Whenever we had a guide, which was most of the trip, he set a fast walking pace. This got us where we were going but did�nt give us much time for looking around as we would have liked.

As I said the next town was 9 or 10 miles away. The first half of the trip was across the savannah, occasionally crossing bare rock areas and sometimes sloshing through wet areas. The second half of the trip was though dense forest.

The next town we came to was a large one, I figure about 400 people. The town we were aiming for, Birem, was only about three miles away and kind of a twin city to this one. It was a fairly prosperous looking place with many houses having tin roofs and fitted shutters and doors. The people were almost certainly Ashantis although we didn�t ask.

We sat around for about an hour waiting for the tappers to go to Birem (�Brim�) so they could show us the path. No one shouted at us, not even the children which is highly unusual for Ashantis. A bunch of people, especially children, stood around staring at us. We found out later that we were the first White people to visit in five years or more (no one remembered exactly how long).

When we headed out we found the path to be broad, well travelled and unmistakable so we drifted apart from the others as we walked along. It was a pleasant 3 mile walk through dense forest down a broad well-tended path, a road really, that ran straight and level between the dense undergrowth and immensely tall trees. It was late afternoon and the sun slanted down at an angle. There were groups of turkey-sized hornbills honking and flying around in the treetops.

We arrived at Birem towards dusk, there was a big funeral in progress, a man had died of a snakebite and there was a big drunken crowd wearing red and black cloth. We caused quite a sensation just materializing out of the bush. The first place they brought us to was the house of a prominent man in town. We sat in his courtyard surrounded by a curious press of people. They sat us on small wooden armless chairs with leather seats and backs and decorated with large brass tacks. These chairs are commonly found in Chief�s houses and used to seat visitors.

They followed the traditional Ashanti etiquet when receiving visitors. First they served us liquor. They brought out a new bottle of Schnapps (no small thing out there in the boonies as it turned out) and a speaker for the head man served us from a single glass one at a time. After we had drunk the speaker in flowery speech, asked us why we were there. he then interpreted out replies to the head man.

In this case the speaker was necessary as the head man didn�t speak English. Our host was a rather careworn-looking smallish man (about my height) who was probably pushing fifty. He struck me as being good humored and quietly competent. After that we were brought to the Chief�s house. The chief�s house wasn�t as fine as the other man�s house. His courtyard was dirt floored rather than concrete and wasn�t completely enclosed,

By this time it was dark so I couldn�t see the Chief very well. He was a heavy middle-aged man. About this time it started to rain so everyone crowed under the eaves of the buildings surrounding the yard.

The formalities this time were adhered to with akpeteshie. When we were asked our reasons for being there the Chief didn�t believe us, he speculated on whether we were emissaries come to stir up trouble between the local Kokombas and Nunumbas. I think I mentioned the recent fighting and killing between the Kokombas and Nunumbas in my last letter. They are two Northern tribes.

Fortunately I had my Peace Corps ID which smoothed things out a bit, especially as the Speaker was a man form Mampong who had come for the funeral. Mampong is a large town near to Kumasi which has had volunteers in the past. Still we were taken aback, this was the first time I have had to produce my I.D.

After that we walked back to the first man�s house. On the way I got to talking to a young man who taught at the town elementary school. It turned out the real head of the town was the first guy. He had installed his brother as Chief to take care of all the traditional ceremonial foppery while he quietly went about the business of running the place. Further the brother was drunk after the funeral celebrations and he wasn�t as influential as his brother anyway, something of a figurehead. I was not to worry about the Chief as he was drunk, and he would do what his brother said anyway.

That night we slept in the head man�s house. The Chief sent over a dish of Oto. Oto is plantain boiled and mashed with a fork to the consistency of coarse, lumpy grated cheese mixed with palm oil and various spices. It was served with some kind of sea fish, probably from a can. It was very good, a close second to the akpele and chicken we had at the Ewe village.

We decided to stay the next day at their invitation. We wanted to show them that we were who we said we were and we were curious about such a large town (700 people) so far out in the boonies. Plus it would be like denying the people a big event just leaving the next day. The last Obruni in town was an Italian five years or so before. He had told them that he was going to start a big agricultural project. He had them set aside a large area of land and then left, they haven�t heard from him since.

Like the other place it was a fairly prosperous-looking place with one or two houses having plaster and paint over the mud blocks. The elementary school teacher acted as our guide around the town. They had a tiny three room elementary school. There was no secondary school in the area and most children in the town never got past elementary school for this reason.

There was a small church in town, a hut really. The Minister walked in from the next town 15 miles away about once every two weeks. Worship of the local god was also popular, there was a well-kept round hut on the outskirts of town. One part of town was the Seventh Day Adventists neighborhood, or maybe they were Jehovah�s Witnesses, I forget which. There was no post office in town, no police and clinic or organized modern medicine.

The town had the feel of a well-run and harmonious place. It was clean with well maintained large pit latrines outside of town. Using these was something of an experience, you squatted precariously on two narrow wooden planks poised without handhold above the crawling mire ten feet below, you develop all kinds of skill in the Peace Corps.

The main rooms of our host�s compound were well furnished but the furnishings were old and carefully preserved. In common with most houses of prominent men in villages the appearance of material prosperity was carefully maintained. The cabinets were crowded with boxes and containers of various commodities such as talcum powder, soap, toothpaste, sugar and milk. Most of the boxes were years old and empty.

He had an old record player, and a selection of scratched old records. He had a newer portable tape deck but not many tapes. While we were there they played his music on one or the other, using up hard to get batteries. We slept on the floor of the living room. Our host had a big metal four poster bed but he didn�t want us to sleep on it as lately it had become infested with bed bugs.

As I said he was a good humoured, quietly competent man, not what I would tend to expect of an Ashanti big man. In the morning there was a steady stream of townspeople who came to consult with him on various issues. He had three wives and I think twenty-one children which probably accounted for his careworn appearance.

During the day we went to visit a friend of the teachers who was an avid hunter. He had a bunch of hartebeest skins and gave us some bush cow meat. Eating what was probably buffalo meat might sound pretty exotic, a number of times on our trip we were given some sort of game. Almost all of the meat though was old and smoked into oblivion and was usually some meager grizzly scraps that people would never buy in the States. The bush cow meat was no exception, it could have been anything.

That evening however at the head man�s house we were served with what I think was duiker meat. A duiker is a small forest antelope that stands about knee high and is caught in snares. It was fresh and they gave us the best cuts. One family had a docile pet monkey. Monkeys are common on the plains and a problem for farmers though we didn�t see any. They are considered very good to eat.

We went to visit the Chief again, His house was furnished much like his brothers plus he had a small television which he could watch when he had batteries. He made us give him our addresses so he could check up on us if necessary. He seemed to me to be in a pretty frustrating position. He was accorded all the ceremonial trappings and official functions of a leader but without any real power. We gave him some tins of tuna fish and Dave gave him some bars of soap he had.

That evening we sat in the courtyard pretty much to satisfy the curiousity of the children of the head man. The vast majority of his children were girls between the ages of 5 and 15. Which brings to mind the thought that some poor devils in Africa have ten or fifteen little sisters. At any rate we were surrounded by a giggling horde who closely watched our every move.

One was a five year old female African version of Rodney Alan Whipple. She was imitating our facial expressions so I showed her the Obruni gesture of raising the eyebrows, crossing the eyes and sticking out the tongue while putting my thumbs in my ears and waggling my fingers. This she imitated pretty well in a five year old way which everyone thought was really funny. They were fascinated by our Obruni hair and once in a while I would mess mine up so that it stuck out crazily in all directions. My hair has gotten fairly long and this was also a big hit.

On the whole they were a surprisingly attractive bunch who were going to be really pretty when they grew up. Should I be in the area some 5 or 6 years hence I shall have to stop by.

The teacher who interpreted for us was about 21 years old and was sharp. He spoke English very well though he had grown up in town and never got past lower education levels. He lamented the fact that he had never gotten the chance to go to university but he seemed pretty content. It turned out he was due to inherit from his uncle plus he would get first pick from his daughters.

We gave him our last bag of sugar intending that he should give it to his uncle, our host. However he sent the sugar to his house apparently without telling his uncle so we had to scrape around for a can of tuna and Dave�s last two bars of soap which was all we had left for gifts.

While we were in town we refused numerous offers of akpeteshie as we were growing tired of looking at everything through a fog. Twice a week a tractor towing a trailer came to town along a track winding across the savannah from the nearest big town which I believe was about thirty miles away. Birem was located at the edge of the large forest area and the savannah.

We were able to get away fairly early the next morning after breakfast. We were escorted out of town by the head man and a mob of children who stood and noisily waved to us as we disappeared behind a bend. Before we left we met the hunter friend of the teacher who in an offhand manner announced that one of his children had died during the night. No one reacted appreciably tot her news. Near as I can figure it must have been a new born baby which died.

According to custom after it is born a baby and its mother are kept in seclusion for a period of time . At the end of that time the baby is publically presented and given a ceremony called the outdooring. If a baby should die before the outdooring custom forbids outward expressions of grief and the child doesn�t even get a formal funeral. If a couple should lose a few such babies in succession the next baby is given a series of rather extensive facial scars which is supposed to make the child ugly in the eyes of Death. In addition the baby is given an unattractive name such as vulture or slave, all of which is intended to discourage Death from taking that baby also. One of the language instructors during training last year bore those facial marks,

They gave us a guide so this day we moved at a rapid pace, the town we were aiming for, Adonso, was about twelve miles away across the savannah. We didn�t hit any more large parches of forest, by now we were getting far enough north so that wooded savannah predominated. Like before we were walking through chest-high grass in the sun although the trees limited how far you could see, a pretty curious combination. Fortunately that day was overcast otherwise it would have been quite uncomfortable.

The savannah was sparsely but fairly evenly populated, and quite often we came across small isolated farms or villages. These people were displaced Northerners of various types. We met Kokombas, Dagombas and I think Nunumbas and another tribe whose name I forget. To me they were all pretty similar. They were poor, even wretched, with tiny thatched roof mud huts and, extensive facial marks, and using various Northern innovations as round corncribs made from woven grass mats and little round chicken coops which largely resemble Dutch ovens.

Most of them were dressed in nondescript rags as they were dressed in their work clothes. Without exception they were friendly and hospitable and different ones gave us roast corn and groundnuts (peanuts). The crops in this area were different with a heavy emphasis laid on yams, beans, groundnuts and corn. At Bompata the main food crops are cocoyam, plantains and cassava and to a lesser extent yams and corn.

Once a female bushbuck ran across the path ahead of us and our guide, who was carrying a shotgun, ran out to the side trying to get a shot but he didn�t see it again. That was the only large wild animal we saw. I looked a lot like a whitetail.

We arrived at Adonso about three o�clock somewhat sore and weary. It was a tiny Ashanti village. We were surprised at how small it was on account of it was marked prominently on the maps. We were kind of let down because we had been hoping to grab transport to Atebubu from there. By now we were getting kind of tired of the bush. We had seen what he plains were like and were fed up of being afraid of the water and afraid to bathe.

At Adonso we rested up about an hour. It turned out the last White person in town was an American three years ago who may have been Peace Corps. Among other things he was conducting a wildlife survey on the remoter plains to the east. The people were very friendly and wanted us to stay the night. It would have been good to do this as it would have been a big treat for them to have Obrunis in town but we heard we could get transport at the next town so we pushed on.

The next town, Ayinwafe (�Einwifi�) was about as big as Birem. It was three miles from Adonso across flat savannah. We arrived at dusk and got a boy to bring us to the Chief�s house. There we were given the usual warm reception and served the inevitable akpeteshie. There was however an old lady there who was hacking and coughing and spitting. So we had to be afraid of T.B., afraid of the water, afraid to bathe, and when a young man offered to find us some girls we refused in part because in Africa you have to be afraid of various interesting forms of V.D.

They sensed our unease and I think interpreted it as disdain for their living conditions. In addition there was one of the most obnoxious kinds of Ghanaians there. A loud, aggressive drunk man who is an expert on Obrunis who thinks he knows exactly what you are like and who gives replies to other people on your behalf. He also wanted our address on account of how we were rich and would be able to help him acquire various material possessions.

That night the usual crowd of curious children gathered around which wasn�t so bad. We could speak a little Twi and they could speak a little English. One of them was a 14 year old girl who unlike the others was fluent in English. Her father had sent her to school in Atebubu. It was very apparent what an advantage it was to go to one of the better schools in a big town.

It turned out that there was a tractor from Atebubu (Ateybubu) due the next day but it wouldn�t arrive until late in the afternoon and it would�nt go back to Atebubu until the morning after. We decided to push on the next day to a town six miles away called Seneso. At Seneso we were told was a big agricultural project with a constant stream of tractors going to and from Atebubu. We certainly didn�t want to hang around another day.

We left early the next morning without eating. I thought the people seemed pretty offended that we should just take off that way but it couldn�t be helped. We were still about 25 miles from Atebubu and we really wanted to get there that day. If we stayed while they prepared a meal it would be ten o�clock or so before we could get away. Rural Ghanaians have no conception of hurrying and we would have had to sit around waiting hours while they pounded fu-fu and prepared soup. We didn�t have anything left to give as gifts.

One of the men asked me for a pair of socks so I gave him a pair of my socks. I think also they might have been offended because we refused their pillows the night before, even though we were sleeping on mats on concrete. The reason was we didn�t know if we were getting the one of the old lady�s pillows. I don�t worry abut head lice, everyone has them. They haven�t been a major problem for me because I shampoo my hair every other day.

The six mile walk to Seneso was pretty wet. For long distances we were sloshing ankle deep through water flowing across the track. The terrain was more undulating and there were some large open treeless areas so that we could see longer distances. We were both feeling worn out which was surprising as we really hadn�t been pushing that hard. Africa is a very hostile place. This thought came to mind one time when Dave stepped off into the bush to relieve himself. I sat down to rest at the side of the track and I got painfully stung by an ant. It seems like the whole place is trying to kill you, if not for the continuously applied medical technology I would very possibly be dead by now.

The river before Seneso was knee deep and we waded it easily. Seneso itself was a tiny hamlet overshadowed by the large agricultural project. There were a bunch of sawn timber buildings, some corrugated metal construction and a modern looking bungalow on stilts complete with numerous air conditioners, the project had its own generator. There were a bunch of tractors sitting around including a couple of big new East German four-wheel drive tractors. From the surrounding field it didn�t look s if the project was operating very efficiently and many of the tractors were broken.

Today was market day in Atebubu and most of the workers had gone in for the day. There was a group of about five sitting around who gave us a warm reception and water and roast corn. They told us that later in the rains during September, the river became much deeper and flooded the surrounding savannah.

About two hours later we got a ride in a tractor towing a trailer for the three hour ride to Atebubu. We arrived in Atebubu in late afternoon. I�m growing tired of writing so I will only give a brief description of the place. It is a smallish town with a paved road running through it. It has running water but no electricity. It is a regional capital and it has many governmental offices there. Also there is a big U.S.A.I.D. office center. There�s a bunch of agricultural projects surrounding the town so that there were some large rectangular machine cultivated fields , you don�t see many like that in Ghana. The countryside is flat, open and at that season, very green and fertile looking.

The Peace Corps in Atebubu, Mike P., wasn�t there when we arrived but we slept at his place and he showed up the next day. The people of Atebubu are a mixture of Brongs, Ashantis, and various northern types. The Brongs are the most northern of the southern ethnic groups. Palm wine is hard to get and expensive in town. Pitou was the big local drink.

Pitou is made from one of the northern cereal grains, I forget which one, and it tastes like you are drinking beer half way through the fermentation process. I stayed in Atebubu three days before returning to Bompata. The little kids in Atebubu saw enough Obrunis that they knew to shout things at us. I�m going to leave off now.

Yours,
Mike



Ah, the good ol'days


Birdwatcher

Great stuff, Mister Scientist.

BTW, here's a thought for you, and some of the other teachers here. Not my idea but I got to sort of experience the wonder of it. In 7th grade my brother had a teacher who gave the class a homework assignment that required that each student write at least a page and a half of words describing everything going on in their lives at the present time. There was no right or wrong, but that you were to be totally honest. Suggestions were made to describe their recreational pursuits, friends, family, love interests, dreams, fears, whatever.

The day the assignment was due the teacher then did something no one expected. He passed out a stamped envelope to each student, and had them write their name and address on it. He then told the students to put their assignment in the envelope, and to seal it. He then collected them, and announced that in 10 years he'd send out the letters.

Amazingly, my brother one day, while meeting at the folks' place for a meal, grabbed the mail and to his initial confusion, followed by shock, saw that the teacher had done exactly as he'd promised a decade prior. The words were fascinating, and a literal shot of time, told to a young man by a boy ten years younger-- *himself*, of course-- in his own words...It really was bizarre, a time capsule of sorts, as the things he wrote about were that of a boy speaking, being unread for years, until the letter came...

I always thought that was awesome of that teacher.

Steve you need to diversify!

Nice! You're in for it now, though. The hat police will be along shortly to judge you for your sin!

I only scrolled through the first page of posts, so I hope that my joy isn't premature, but I am ecstatic to see hats recognized for what they are, which isn't caps. Thanks!

Hey Leanwolf, I opened your link and was really suprised to see it was about Erwin E Smith. He came to Arizona in 1909 and took a bunch of pictures on the OR ranch. They were included in a book called Life on the Texas Range. My grandfather Fred Bennett Was the wagon boss for the Boquillas or sometimes called the San Pedro division of the OR.
What is really neat is your link shows a lot of photos that aren't in my book. Cool the way you can link the photos to the ranch.

Thanks, Fred

4th of July Stetson




Combination Walleye fishin/Juneberry pickin/ future riverboat gamblin hat.

;-{>8

Awesome shot.

Left field stupid joke/play on words that just bubbled into my noodle: what's the name the greatest of all the fish jazz musicians in the world?


















































Salmonella Fitzgerald, naturally.

Hey, no bottle throwing in the back!

This one goes with the .375

here's an old straw stetson, use it for sneakin' up on the babies....spotted veal with no bullet trauma:



still go with a ball cap for redneck riverside garden/fireworks parties:



this old dirty silver I got from Daddy;



Gracie prefers straw, although she does the bandana thing fairly often, too:



but I've killled some critters in a ball cap, when the opportunity presented itself:



given a choice, I'll take a cowboy hat most times.

Fifteen yard penalty to you and kamo gari for unfair use of good lookin wimmin models.

She's wearin a hat???



Just kiddin, just kiddin.

There are lucky hats...








..but I prefer the felts

Great shot, Doc. That D'Artagnon meets the Most Interesting Man in the World look suits you.

lol! I just read Birdy's Africa logs again. Guy was getting back to nature/roughing it indeed. But lessons, both life and survival based were learned there in those years. Perfect illustration below: standing around a shady place where food and beverages are a'flowing, with a empty plate in hand and wearing a listless, lost, hunger-filled, haggard look. He knew damned well that one of the gang was going to take pity and offer him sumptin' eventually...

Missed this before. Llamas! Badarsed! lol Way cool.

Here are a few pics with hats.

I think that hat actually belongs to Mrs. Tide, but he saw me tramp outside with my straw on, and decided he had to have one.


I have always been a terrible shot with a slingshot. He smoked me that day.


I was assigned to our Training Academy for a couple of years. This was opening day for a new class of Cadets. I just noticed the caption on the yellow picture frame over my shoulder. As tired as I get of this job sometimes, I am proud to be a Trooper.


Wouldn't be fair if I failed to post a pic of Mrs. Tide in the hat she wore till close of business yesterday. Today, August 1, 2012, is her first day of retirement. I am proud of her for the way she worked the job. Many of her gender want to work in the log woods, but can't handle their end of the saw, so to speak. She did. Congratulations, babe.

`

Thanks for posting that, CT!!! Please pass on my best wishes and congrats to MrsTide on the occasion of her retirement.

She's canning peaches for her Mother this morning, so I can catch her in the kitchen. I'll let her know for you.
Thanks,
Joel

Indeed, it does.

Naah, just average Tbird World 101, I mean, the 14 million Ghanaians at the time (up to 25 million at present) woulda thought I was just living normal. Only people raised in relative soft luxury as we all here were would consider it undue hardship .





"Listless, lost, haggard" appears to be my usual demeanor except when in front of a class, people often remark on it, most likely I was lost in thought. I do Spartan and hardship pretty well, but generally get confused in the face of abundance. Having taught teentagers for 25 years now, I'm pretty sure I have a mildcase of autism, ADHD, or maybe both. Back when I was a kid, wierd was just a different sort of normal

I am dressed well for the S.Padre in that pic, the sun is NOT your friend, especially for White folks. Only place I got bare skin exposed to the sun in that pic is my legs below the knee, them mostly underwater when fishing.

Well hey, you're a conspicuous gourmet, I talk about food in this one and music. Back in 1980 Bob Marley, already the most popular entertainer pretty much everywhere in the World except the US (all we got before then was an insipid cover of "I Shot the Sheriff" by Eric Clapton).

I never really heard of Marley until I got to Africa, and I was like, "dang thats good, who IS that?". People there who didn't speak English could recite his songs word for word.

Weren't just reggae over there, besides traditional music (the Ashantis pride themselves on being the best drummers in Africa, which is saying something), Motown was big as were other Black American artists.

Otherwise some folks here might recall Jim Reeves, the country/gospel artist. Jim Reeves was ENORMOUSLY popular in Ghana, and I'd hear stuff like his rich baritone version of "The Old Rugged Cross" in the most unlikely places

Bompata Secondary School
Box 10
Bompata A/A
Ghana West Africa
March 30th 1981

Dear Family,

First of all excuse me for not having written for some three weeks. I didn�t write the letter because I didn�t have enough news to write a letter, the second two weeks I was really busy. To go back to some time ago the only thing newsworthy that happened the first week was that I went to Konongo to market on the weekend. There was one of the frequent local gas shortages that weekend and I wasn�t able to get a lorry back to Asankere or Bompata.

Towards evening I was able to get a car to Mawso, figuring that I could walk from there. The car was very slow and we arrived well after dark. I met one of my form three students, Frederick Yerboah, and he put me up at his place until morning. They were very hospitable. It can be pretty gratifying visiting some of the towns around here because of the welcome you receive. In the morning he placed me on the bush path to Wenkyi (pronounced "Wenchi") which was a short cut home. Not much happened the remainder of that week.

Early the next week (Monday) all the students except the form five students had to leave because of lack of funds to feed them. The form five remained because they are to take their �O� levels in June. They have a tremendous amount of work to do at this time while studying and reviewing. Added to this is the fact that we haven�t been able to finish all the required syllabus.

I was teaching as often as they would let me. Then just this past week was the mock �O� level exams. They were a lot of work to write up and following them was a marathon marking session all night by kerosene lantern to get all the papers graded before the students left.

The barn swallows are coming back through in numbers again on their way back north. The cattle egrets are getting really tame. They come right up around the buildings now. Its gradually getting to be wetter and raining more often now. This time of year [start of the rains] is the closest to spring in this part of the world. Everything looks greener, the grass is growing again, and the dust is out of the air.

About a week ago I broke out in raised red spots up and down one side of my body and chest. I felt fine otherwise and would be a bit surprised when I took off my shirt to find a whole bunch of new red spots had appeared. They went away but a few days later a new rash came, this one was red and blotchy and itched. It covered the front of my chest and abdomen and part of my left arm, this is just going away now.

Otherwise I felt fine and I don�t know what it is/was. It could be schistosomiasis, the parasite often gives an allergic reaction as it developes inside of you. When I go to Accra in a couple of weeks I will get a skin test. Schisto is curable, its just one of the annoying things around here. I don�t know if I have it anyway.

There is a chop bar in Bompata where I often go to eat. I can go down and take a leisurely Sunday brunch, eating my fu-fu and palm nut soup and snails to the leisurely rythmitic pounding of the fu-fu mortar, casually brushing away the flies and keeping the chickens and goats at bay.

Now that the rains have come the giant snails are back and they are bigger and uglier than before. When you eat them they are big and rubbery and you sort of reduce them in your teeth to a more manageable lump rather than chew them. They look just like a snail. There is the �foot� that is the grey slippery part that the snail sticks out when it crawls about. The tentacles are retracted by the snail when it was dumped into boiling water.

Above the foot is a whole bunch of odd-looking tubes and wiring. When I first got here I was too squeamish to eat the innards of a snail but now I just ignore the strange-sounding pops and squishes when I chew. Also I now eat fish heads in the soup where I used to leave them.

The volunteer before me, Bob P., once got the tubes and wiring of a snail hooked around his epilottis and nearly choked to death. They still talk about it in the village, in fact they talk about us a lot. I tell them that before the White man came they probably had nothing to talk about.

One thing I don�t usually eat here is meat. The meat here comes from goats, sheep or various little wild animals (usually bush rats). Goat meat has a strong flavor which I dislike when it is made into stew or soup. But apart from that the meat often tastes rancid and rotten as there is no refrigeration here. The meat can sit around for a day or two before being eaten.

The animals around here are pretty scrawny and don�t exactly give grade �A� carcasses. More often than not the �meat� is liable to be a rubbery piece of thick skin or some of the innards. Or your liable to find the whole left hind foot of a giant bush rat in your soup, claws and all. All of these things I could get used to, the real reason I don�t eat meat is for fear of getting a tapeworm, the animals run around everywhere and conditions are pretty unsanitary.

One night this past couple of weeks I had one of those few memorable experiences. I had walked two miles up the mountain to the well at Wankyi to bathe and get drinking water. It was a bright moonlit night and just as I was walking down the hill into Bompata, someone who had a tape deck (a few people in the area have been to Nigeria to work, they often come back with portable tape decks) started to play Bob Marley Rastafarian music from Jamaica. Rastaman fits Africa like a glove. It was really fine watching an African village in the moonlight with that theme music provided.

Lately I have quit cooking over kerosene as it leaves too much soot over everything. Instead I cook over charcoal. I buy the charcoal at the local markets its locally produced and doesn�t come in briquettes or anything like that. I discovered that dry leaf frond of the oil palm make excellent kindling to start the charcoal. Charcoal burns very clean and hot.

One night a couple of weeks ago I burned my farm not being able to find the time to burn it in the daytime. What I mean is that I burned off the dry bush that I had cut a couple of weeks previously. It made quite a spectacular bonfire under the stars. Some students came and told me that I was violating an African taboo buy burning at night and that I would spoil the land for farming but they helped me to pile brush on anyway.

Since then, I haven�t done much. Soon I will turn the whole thing over with a mattock and plant winged beans. Winged beans are a new wonder crop from Indonesia for the tropics. They are supposed to be high in protein and you can eat all parts of the plant plus they put nitrogen into the soil. So we�re supposed to help introduce it to new areas.

Last weekend was a big celebration at Agogo for the 50th anniversary of the hospital there. The Ashantehene (Chief of all the Ashantis) and the President of Ghana, Dr Hilla Lehmann, was there also. Security for the head of State here is very casual. It was easy to see the president and anybody with a rifle could have bumped him off.

Well that all for now,

Mike


The "introduce the winged bean" thing never took root.

And note my penultimate sentence, you thought I was joking about the "Dogs of War" thing

Birdwatcher

I've got a big football shaped melon apparently and have never found a cowboy styled hat that would fit properly (tight on the front rear, loose on the sides). Given the fact God has seen fit to remove the natural sunscreen he allowed me to have for too few years, I definitely need one. Now... based on this thread, I'm going to seek out a blank. Hopefully nutria for nostalgic/home reasons.

wore this hat quite a bit when guiding, it worked well for keeping rain outa face while trying to glass and outa the back of your neck due to the wide brim, but pretty well sucked when hauling meat out on a pack due to the stiffness of the brim, course wasn't that big a deal cause you got so hot packing meat, you didn't want anything on your head for very long, raining or not.









in recent years I've tried the Tilley, though it's not really stiff enough to keep heavy rain off of you, but it is nice that you can wad it up unlike the old oilskin I used in the above pix






though like most of you guys I often use ball hats of some variation for hunting too, and often wear one around town when the sun is shining brightly or more my hair is best left covered up (often, lol)

[quote=DocRocket][quote=CrimsonTide]



That is a very funny pic. lolololol

No wonder you find Keystone beer palatable.

The hat you are looking for has a "long oval" shape. They can be purchased as such. Or, you can buy a hat stretcher ( http://westernbootsales.com/proddetail.asp?prod=THJ-01 )and customize the perimeter by shaping it on a sander. Works. Steam is your friend.

I have found a blank is any good felt hat on sale. ;-{>8

same-o here...can't pull off the cowboy hat thing...I look like an azzhole with teeth...and a hat....

Ball cap-o-rama!

Hey, ingwe, cowboy hat - ballcap, it's all the same! (I may need this post someday. I won't get an opportunity like this again.)

The kid on the left looks exactly like he just mistakenly trusted what he thought would be a fart. The kid on the right looks like he is trying to swallow a tennis ball.

Reporting day for a cadet class is a day they never forget.

Hollywood couldn't beat that.

Ya seriously underestimate your potential, pard.

What Oldtrapper said. I never tried felt before but you can shrink, stretch and/or reshape it multiple times pretty easy.

Here's te advice I got on a re-enactor forum...

Step 1 is put a lining in it. Why? 1) PC 2)practicality...you really want dyed wool rubbing against your forehead all day as you sweat?

Step 2 is to shape the hat intentionally.
Start with a period image. That will give you a documented & practical target (thus saving $$$$$$ & increasing functionality.)

If you need to cut the brim to match the image, do that first. No extra points for leaving the clamp marks on the edges of the hat.
If the hat you are copying has binding on it, do that next.
If the hat you are copying is cocked or tied up, do that last. Know in advance that the hat will need to be creased & shaped after the fact if you do it this way.

Put the hat on in the shower & shape the hat. I use fairly hot shower water. A ton of black dye will come out of a wool felt at blank, but it will still be black & won't stain your skin.

Now...shape the hat so that it matches the image & sloughs the water away from your head. There will be some trial & error in this & it may take a couple attempts.

Step 3 is to allow the hat to dry outside. A volleyball resting in an empty plant container is good. If you let the hat dry on a flat surface, you'll undo all your shaping.

If the hat is tight now, it'll be REALLY, REALLY tight when it dries, so don't panic if the at remains just a little big on your skull. Also lookin at the "target" image, see if te at rests on the wearer's head at angle. You aren't tryin to be a 20th Century DI from Major Payne or Full Metal Jacket (I think), so having the hat sit at an angle on your ead may be the way it was expected to wear. You may want to consider that option.

Step 4 is to allow the hat to fully dry & try it on every so often to see if you remain happy with your progress. If not, repeat the shower thing. You and the hat will become one- it becomes part of you & you become part of it. Kinda zen...... Think of Humprey Bogart. The hat even reflects your mood.

Step 5 is to lightly apply clear shellac to the crown and top or outside of the brim.
This will dry & give your at better ability to turn rain.

Final step-wear the hat to walk the dog or work in the garden or clean the gutters.


..and....

I have a wool felt round top hat and it does fit snug after getting wet and the brim will get floppy. Here is a couple of tips you can do at home to help. If your brim gets too floppy and you want to add stiffness to it, spray it with hair spray on the top and bottom side of the brim only and lay it on the table. If it is too small use your hat jack first. To keep it from sirinking and to get it water proof so it will not srink and keep you dryer spray it with camp dry

I'm liking my hat blank as-is; low crown and a wide flat brim all around. If you go that route, the hat-jack is a must, $17 online, $20 at a local western-wear place.

I would suggest getting one with a strip of liner around the head like I did. These people have reasonable prices and quick delivery...

http://jas-townsend.com/index.php?cPath=6

Birdwatcher