For Big E

Mamacita's six year old son, Big E, likes my Art Fawcett pork pie hat. The first time he saw it, he immediately put it on and hopped around the living room shouting "Yee haw!" He thought that it was a cowboy hat, you see. "No, Big E," I told him, "it's not a cowboy hat. It's a pork pie hat." "A pork pie hat?" he asked. "Yes, a pork pie hat." He has dutifully called it a pork pie hat ever since, but I can tell that he's just humoring me. "Uncle Soletrain," he said the other day, "it really looks like a cowboy hat," and he proceeded to explain to me why. Reasoning with him did no good: he's convinced that it's really a cowboy had and that his stupid Uncle Soletrain just doesn't know what he's talking about.

Well, Big E, here's an explanation of the difference between a cowboy hat and a pork pie hat, complete with pictures. The hat above is Will's pork pie, which is the model that my pork pie was based on. Notice how the sides of the crown of the hat is perpendicular to the brim, how the top of the hat is perpendicular to the sides of the crown (there actually is an oval dent on top of the hat, but it looks like it's perpendicular to the sides of the crown), how there are no dents in the sides of the crown, and how the brim is flipped up (slightly) at the back and flipped down (slightly) in the front. Now consider an honest-to-goodness cowboy hat:
This picture is of a Resistol. It does have dents in the side of the crown, and they run all the way from the front to the back of the crown. The band is very narrow, too. But the biggest difference is the brim. It's much wider than the brim of my pork pie, and it's turned up on the sides, not at the front or back. Completely different effect, don't you think, Big E?

(Not that I mind being heckled by a six year old, you understand.)