The "My Traveling Hat" Contest has come to a close. Thank you to all of Cool Cleveland for entering and sharing your traveling hat stories with us!
Our Judges have deliberated and the WINNER of the 2008 "My Traveling Hat" Contest and two round trip tickets on AirTran Airways is Ellen Pill of Wooster, Ohio.
Ellen's story and the essays of our other top 5 finalists are posted below.
Remember that AirTran Airways offers great low fares to Atlanta, New York, Boston, Florida, and many other cool spots. Book your flight at www.airtran.com today!
Winning Essay:
Ellen Pill from Wooster, Ohio
"This hat has been with me for many years, in many different places - - however, in recent years, excursions from Cleveland to various points across the country have captured its very heart and soul. We—my hat and I—have traveled back and forth to California too many times to count, visiting parents, cousins, friends aunts... attending business meetings... My hat took me to Des Moines to bury my mother; to Milwaukee for my cousin’s bar mitzvah; to NYC for my niece’s college graduation; to Philadelphia to attend an international forum on ALS in an attempt to learn something that could save my late husband from dying of the illness. Monsieur Hat kept me safely covered as, recently widowed, I traveled to get away from the reality at home. When traveling to and from Cleveland – my hat has made me more new friends than I could shake a hat at. And without my hat, I could not tell my grandfather’s famous “Hat Joke.” This joke requires a certain kind of hat, and I am the only one in the family who possesses such. My grandfather – a rather small and jovial man with a thick eastern European accent - - would tell the hat story at the drop of a…. “A man walks into a bar and asks to have a beer to go. ‘I don’t have any to-go cups” the bartender replies. So the man takes his hat off his head and holds it out upside down and says to the bartender: “Here, you can pour the beer right into my hat.” So the bartender pours out a big glass of beer and then proceeds to pour from the glass into the man’s hat. He fills the hat – but there is still beer left in the glass. He looks at the glass and at the man. “What should I do with the rest of your beer?” He asks. The man seems puzzled for a minute, then he starts to smile – “Just put the rest right here on the brim!” he says as he proceeds to turn over his hat……..unwittingly dumping out all of the beer. It was around the point in the story when the hat is in the process of being turned over that my little grandfather would get all pink in the face and start to laugh so hard that he could barely get out the words to end the story. And that was always the funniest part of the joke. Recently, my hat friend and companion has perched upon my head while accompanying my daughter on college visit trips. Soon it will just be me at home. With my hat. One never knows what twists and turns life will take - - but my traveling hat and I have learned that as long as your hat has got you covered, the rain can’t hurt too much."
View the essays of the other finalists
Check out these traveling hat videos for some great ideas from Akron-Canton Airport:
Business Traveler's Hat
Shuttle Driving Cap
Picking Up My Friend Hat
Airline Hat
Vacation Hat
Assistant Director's Hat
Email a Friend About This
