Loyal Scaiaholics know I look forward to writing a blog on the plane trip home from the Pendleton Round-Up in SuperOregon each September. You may also recall I only recently learned about hat-steaming.

“Sure, Scaia, make fun of the hat steamer all you want,” the Lord smirked as He read that blog three years ago. “We’ll just see what we can do about that.”

So I got my hats and texted my first boss, asking whether this felt like more of a straw or felt year for the rodeo. He suggested felt.

Jeff, you see, had peer-pressured me into buying a Stetson at the rodeo when I worked in SuperOregon. The following year, I had moved to Portland, the largest city in StandardOregon, and he pressured me into buying a felt hat because I had all this Portland money.

Even after 15 years, though, he’s still offering advice. This advice has included, and I swear I am not making this up, that even though he was my first boss in radio, and he still works in radio, that maybe fate is trying to gently encourage me to do something bigger than be a radio reporter.

But for this year, he suggested felt. The felt hat is a Resistol.

We met with his family at a local establishment to begin celebrating before the rodeo began. I showed him the hat. You can see that it had a rough trip.

“You’ll have to get it steamed,” he explained. And so we started the walk about ten blocks from Downtown Pendleton to the Round-Up grounds. When we got to the hat steamer, he really had to go to town on ‘er.

He had to get out an anvil and everything.

For ten bucks, though, he made the hat look great.

In one of those blogs above, I’ve also mentioned a guy who was wearing a t-shirt with the Canadian flag, but he was also wearing an American flag bandanna.

I noticed more American flag bandannas this year, prompting me to look up flag etiquette.

“If this is okay, I’m going to start wearing an American flag ascot,” I explained.

The American Legion reports it’s okay to wear a flag ascot or a bandanna or anything else that looks like a flag, as long as it’s not an actual flag. Expect to see more of those ascots when I’m around.

“This isn’t a fashion show,” he replied.

It wasn’t my fault, though. One of the calf ropers was wearing khakis.

Khakis!

Even the rodeo clown got in on it, declaring he didn’t realize Jake from State Farm was competing this weekend.

But listen, gang, if there’s a lesson here [and that’s a big “if”], it’s that we should be more understanding. We can all benefit from a freshly-steamed hat once in a while.

A public relations associate just asked me to attend an event later this week. He even offered a free Stetson. There’s a lesson there for young journalism students: Give in to peer-pressure and buy your own Stetson early. That way, you’re less likely to fall victim to payola.