Happy Derby

Unless you've been under a rock the past week, you know that this Saturday is the Kentucky Derby -- dubbed the greatest two minutes in sports. I beg to differ, but that's neither here nor there. But I digress. When people mention the Derby, most think of roses and horses. And when you see the women at the Derby they're wearing big festive hats. Here's a story about a different type of Derby hat.

This past Tuesday was the 'Rents day to volunteer and work at the bingo at the VFW. Since it's Derby week, they were having a Derby hat contest at the bingo. Not wanting to be left out, Mom set out to design and make a Derby hat. But this wasn't just any Derby hat - this was a recycled and remodeled Derby hat.

A year or two after Grandma went to the nursing home, the residents made Easter hats and wore them in an Easter parade up and down the hallways in the nursing home. Grandma's hat was pretty cool - it had plastic Easter eggs and plastic pearls on it and was pretty darned good looking. The week after Easter she sent the hat home with us, and since then every Easter Mom has hung the hat on our front door as part of our Easter decorations. So when she started thinking about her Derby hat, Mom decided to use Grandma's Easter hat. But not wanting to destroy or deface the hat, she sewed or taped everything to the hat - so it could be easily restored to it's original condition. She worked all day and most of the evening on Monday getting the hat ready.

Tuesday morning, I was looking at the hat and saw a price tag hanging from it. I grabbed the scissors and started to cut the tag off; since my mother's name is Minnie, we always joke about "Minnie Pearl" and if you know anything at all about Minnie Pearl, then you know she wore a hat with a price tag on it. Mom grabbed my hand and told me to put the scissors down. She said the tag had to stay on the hat. She turned the tag over and there we saw where they had written Grandma's name.

Mom proudly wore her Derby hat to the Tuesday morning bingo, and as soon as she got home, she proudly hung it on the front door. As soon as Derby is over, we'll restore the hat to its original condition.