The Man in the Wooden Hat - John Fetto

The man in the wooden hat sat on the bench by the Marina. He had walked all the way from North Beach, and now he was tired. He wanted to see the sea. He wanted to see the sun glitter off the blue water and watch the white boats circumscribe their arc, like ballerinas across a theatre stage. It reminded him of the home he left sixty years ago, traveling from Italy to land in New York. But this was the Pacific, so far from his native Naples or his first adopted home of New York, it seemed so eternally new, it made him feel old. The water was never crossed by Romans or Venetians. Not even fought over by the British or the French. One Spanish ship entered, followed by one British ship decades later and the harbor was conquered. It was young and easy as a school girl just out of the convent.

He took off the hat, and let the sun warm his bald skull. The hat was made of balsa wood, light and airy, and inscribed with the words the community in which he had made his home had honored him, not for any great feat, but simply by virtue of the stubbornness of his genes. “The Mayor of Columbus Street,” it said, though he was no explorer, nor had he just stepped out of the convent. He put it on. He’d earned it because he was the oldest Italian on the street.