Grandpa’s Hat

Noah ambled down the beach, deep in thought, deep in a funk. Ashley had said some cruel things as she packed her stuff. She had called Noah aimless. She had called him a loser. Perhaps it’s not so cruel if it’s true, but Ashley’s tirade was a sucker-punch. He hadn’t seen it coming.

She was right, of course. The handyman service he had started with his buddy Paul had done no better than pay the bills, and meager bills at that. Noah hadn’t begun to earn enough to save for a wedding, or buy a house, or raise a family. Ashley loaded her car, snarled a few more cruelties, and took off in search of a better boyfriend. Noah stood there, stunned, long after her car disappeared in the distance.

Walking the beach helps to clear your head, as if the waves roll into your psyche and drag away debris as they wash back out. Noah needed this walk more than usual. He had plenty of debris to sort through.

Amid a swath of seashells, Noah noticed a beat up camouflage hat, encrusted with barnacles like craters on the moon. He hated seeing garbage on the shore, so he tossed the hat to the berm at the back of the beach. As he walked on, he thought, “Grandpa Charlie had a hat like that.”

Noah had done well enough in high school, and he had considered going to college. His grandpa had left him some money, enough to have covered most of his tuition, but Noah would have had to pay for the rest. After his dad left, Noah’s mom had worked hard to support the two of them, but she hadn’t earned enough to save for Noah’s education. Given the challenges of paying for college, and lacking motivation for studying, he chose to work with Paul instead. They learned a lot together, and had some fun, but four years in, they had made little progress in building the business.

Noah picked up a shell, examining it as if it was an idea in his head, and then cast it aside as if it was a lousy idea. He went through a lot of shells that way.

Mom had wanted him to go to college, to finish what she had not. Grandpa and Grandma had insisted she go to school, because they had not. It was a reach for them to afford it, but they sacrificed to give her opportunities they had not given themselves. They were crushed when Mom told them she was pregnant, not so much about the pregnancy, but that Mom planned to quit school and get married. When Noah was born, they vowed to help him succeed where they had not.

The tide was out, the waves gentle, and the sand loose. It was like walking through pudding. Noah’s head felt much like his feet, struggling to put one thought after another.

Grandpa Charlie had died three years earlier, when Noah was only 19. Cancer rudely stepped into their lives and took Grandpa long before his time. He and Noah had always been close, Grandpa serving steadfastly as surrogate Dad after Noah’s dad abandoned them. Still now, when the universe hinted a memory of his grandpa, Noah often shed tears.

Noah remembered one of their last times together, taking Grandpa’s old boat out to fish along this very shore. Noah thought they were there to fish, but Grandpa had other motives.

“You know, it’s not too late to think about college,” he urged. “You’re a smart boy — you could get a degree in no time.”

“Grandpa, I’m doing fine. Paul and I are getting more jobs all the time,” Noah said, trying to convince himself as much as Grandpa.

Grandpa Charlie had been smart too. He had dreamed of college, and becoming an engineer, and building great things. But the draft lottery had other plans. He escaped Vietnam duty relatively unscathed, but he returned a changed man. After one tortuous patrol too many, his ambition had gone AWOL. He wanted only to go home and lead a peaceful life.

“Damn it, Noah!” Grandpa growled. “You have a chance to make something of yourself. Don’t blow it. I should have gone to school, and I didn’t do it and to this day, I’m mad about it.”

Noah rarely heard Grandpa raise his voice, and Grandpa rarely shared stories from his youth. But as so many 19-year-old manboys, Noah was inadvisably self assured. He disregarded Grandpa’s lecture.

“College just isn’t for me,” Noah said. “I can’t see spending all that money to learn how to write more papers.”

Grandpa grabbed his hat and slammed it down on the seat beside him. “College isn’t about papers!” he raged. “College is about learning. It’s about opportunities. It’s about becoming who you were meant to be!”

Like life snatching Noah’s opportunity from him, a gust of wind snatched up Grandpa’s hat and blew it into the wake behind the boat. Grandpa was so furious, he never looked back for it.

After they returned, Grandpa had little to say, but Noah could tell he was still mad. A few months later, Noah stood sobbing over Grandpa’s grave, despondent over losing his grandpa, but oblivious to Grandpa’s message.

Three years later, and three years further removed from college, Noah mindlessly stepped over a rock on the beach. He often seemed to step over things, oblivious to what might seem obvious to others.

“I’m too old for college,” he thought. “That ship has sailed. Maybe I should get into construction. There’s more money in that.”

But Noah knew he was kidding himself. It took time and work and money to make real money in construction. And most of the people who made money in construction had college degrees.

He thought about Ashley, dismissing her as “not the right girl”. But until she had driven away, she had been right enough, he admitted to himself. Noah knew he wanted a family, a loving wife, beautiful children. And he knew he wanted to provide for them, to give them more than his Mom could give him. Where was he to find all that?

He thought about his Mom, and all that she had sacrificed for him. He wanted to provide for her too, to help her retire one day. He owed her that.

He thought about Grandpa, and all the lessons he had provided. He wanted to make Grandpa proud, to honor Grandpa’s legacy.

Noah pictured Grandpa sitting in that fishing boat, his face back-lit by the setting sun, and tears once again welled up in Noah’s eyes. He truly missed that man.

And then, he remembered the hat. Back down the beach there was a camouflage hat, just like Grandpa’s. He scoffed — it couldn’t be. But he had to go back and look. He retraced his steps and scanned the berm, and there it was.

It was frayed and filthy, covered in barnacles and ocean slime, but still mostly intact. Noah scrubbed the front of the cap to see if there were any markings. The insignia was faded almost beyond recognition, but Noah made out the bayonet and flame of the 198th infantry. His grandpa’s unit. His grandpa’s hat.

We don’t know how the universe speaks to us, and we know not why, but we know that sometimes it does. Noah heard the universe loud and clear. Grandpa still wanted him to go to college. He clutched the hat and walked back down the beach, now driven to fulfill Grandpa’s wish.