"Cock your hat - angles are attitudes." --Frank Sinatra

"Cock your hat - angles are attitudes." --Frank Sinatra

The Death of the Hat

Once every man wore a hat.

In the ashen newsreels, 
the avenues of cities
are broad rivers flowing with hats.

The ballparks swelled with thousands of strawhats,
brims and bands,
rows of men smoking
and cheering in shirtsleeves.

Hats were the law.
They went without saying.
You noticed a man without a hat in a crowd.

You bought them from Adams or Dobbs
who branded your initials in gold
on the inside band...

--US Poet Laureate, Billy Collins