Anita’s Blog — Fashion and Style in the Park

Our faithful crew of Ramsey Park volunteers take precautions against the worst of the summer heat. Here’s how:

• taking plenty of water breaks
• working less strenuously
• planning shaded ventures
• heading for the breeziest spots
• working less hours
• wearing hats

Watering some of the heat-stressed specialty gardens around Harlingen’s Huge Ramsey Nature Park’s Ebony Loop gives us workers a psychological relief but one of the coolest things is adding a hat to the mix.

Sun protection is probably the number one reason to wear a hat while working outdoors for our crew. Better, according to those who recommend it, would be smearing sunscreen on exposed skin. Sunscreen advocates may not do a lot of work outdoors and therefore have not experienced the product mixing with sweat and stinging the eyes.

For face protection from the sun’s rays, wearing a hat is the way to go.

Christina Mild wears a hat no matter the time of year. She has a great variety of garden headgear and it’s always fun to see what hat she’ll be wearing.

Hats with the broadest brims offer the most face shade. My favorite of Christina’s is her colorful “Great Wall of China” hat. There’s a story to the name, you’ll have to ask when you see her.

Frances Barrera wears a more traditional and stylish garden-club straw number, also with a broad brim. Even with shade-producing hats, sweatbands are still a necessity for many of us.

Ventilation is another important hat quality to consider. This reason resonated with me, particularly in the heat of the summer. I dug out my old pith helmet which allows airflow to the scalp. Also called a safari helmet, these were popular in the tropics and sub-tropics in the mid-19th century until the 1940s. Mine is a newer version and also works well over a sweatband.

It was a popular thought that Europeans should wear this pith helmet style while in the tropics to avoid sunstroke. Now, medical opinion touts wide brimmed, light headwear in order for people to avoid skin cancers as well as to avoid overheating.

According to some brief Internet research from a popular company specializing in outdoor hats, comfort and durability rank in the top five reasons when considering hats.

The fifth consideration is style. A snippet from one website advised that before you buy a sun hat, make sure you don’t look like a total fool wearing it, unless of course you just don’t care.

That made me laugh because the more I work outdoors, the more I give up fashion, style and caring what I look like. With clothes and hair totally soaked with sweat, and Frank close by with a ready camera, it does sometimes give me pause that my personage isn’t camera-ready.

After 20 years in the military where attire perfection is demanded from headgear, straight gig line and on to the blacked edge of highly-polished footwear I’ve come a long way, or perhaps a long way removed from style.

The Thursday morning team members the last couple of weeks have offered a variety of style in their headgear choices.

Greg Storms, who spends most of his days outdoors, wears a hat always and is careful to protect his eyes from the sun’s ultraviolet rays with sunglasses.

Volker, generally in a Willie-Nelson-kerchief style headband, has taken to wearing a well-ventilated hat with the kerchief.

Frank Wiseman, in honor of summer, sports his newly-purchased tropical hat in desert camouflage. He’s going for the most face protection against the summer sun with a wide brim.

Mark sports a lighter shade of desert camo in a bucket style hat with a narrower brim and vented crown.

Ball caps and visors are always popular and handy choices as shown by Delia Lowe, Greg Storms, Leslie Wilder and Sally Merrill.

Sunglasses not only are important for eye protection but lend a lot of personality to a sunny experience.

Follow our team on Facebook to keep up with our summer fashion parade and progress around Ebony Loop. Photos by Frank Wiseman and myself.