DEAR MARGARET ATWOOD, I’D LIKE MY LUCKY HAT BACK

by Bobbie Jean Huff

Originally published by The Globe and Mail

Dear Margaret Atwood, I think it's time you gave me back my hat. You know the one, it's black, with a wide brim. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Poet Patrick Lane gave you that hat when you asked for it.

You were frequently photographed wearing it in the 1970s and later, in newspapers and magazines. I even recall seeing it on your head on one of your novel's dust jackets.

Writer Mark Abley published an article about you in The Guardian back in 1996, just after Robertson Davies died. One of the first sentences was: "When she walks in, the first thing you see is Margaret Atwood's wide-brimmed black hat, which serves its wearer less for the purposes of fashion than for camouflage."

The second thing he wrote was that you were "unquestionably – Canada's best-known author."

Not disparaging your writing skills or anything, but that hat was pretty important! It's an Amish hat – an Amish men's hat. I bought it at a market in Kutztown, Penn., when I was eight months pregnant with my first son, back in 1973. My father had flown me and my stepmother there from New Jersey in his Beech Bonanza. The flight was quick, but having an airplane phobia, I found it terrifying. My father, who flew a full tour in Europe in the Second World War, had a sense of invulnerability in the air that I didn't share.

I spent most of my time in Kutztown in a phone booth attempting to find a method of transportation back to New Jersey that wasn't 10,000 feet above the ground, especially one that didn't involve a sputtering engine, an air-sickness bag – or my father.

I spotted the hat as soon as I left the phone booth, having finally decided to try and find a local newspaper that advertised Kutztown apartments for rent, fully furnished.

Across the road was the market, and inside were Amish men, in their broad black hats, and Amish women, in long dresses and white caps, all of them bustling around, selling Amish-made things. On the counter beside the cake and pie cases was a stack of those black hats. I picked one up and examined it. It was made of felt and had a band around its crown. Then I asked the elderly Amish woman behind the counter if she thought it would bring me good luck. She just frowned at me and stared. I took that as a yes, handed her my money and joined my father and stepmother for lunch. As soon as we got back to the airport I put the hat on my head and refused to remove it the whole way back to New Jersey, even though my father kept complaining that it was interfering with his sight lines.

The hat travelled with me to Toronto, just before I gave birth, and it stayed in the city for a year (often on my head) until I gave birth to my next son and we moved to British Columbia. We had a friend in B.C., Patrick Lane, who owned a small boat from which he fished. One day, he invited us for a trip up the Sunshine Coast. Although I also have a boat phobia, I said sure, no problem. I'll just wear my good luck hat and all will be well.

And all was well. I didn't get sick (although my husband did) and although Patrick loved speed, especially when it came to navigating narrow passages between shoals, I didn't mind. My good luck hat protected me.

At the end of the weekend, Patrick asked if he could borrow the hat. I knew he could use a little luck since he would be facing some rather tricky interpersonal issues of his own in coming months, so I said no problem. He'd gotten us up the coast and back, safely. Anyway, I knew he'd be good for it. Borrowing means giving back, after all.

When we saw Patrick next, it was a few months later, around Christmas. I hated to do it, but I mentioned the hat. Five months was, I thought, enough time for a borrow. I was pregnant again, and living in the B.C. interior, far from doctors and hospitals. I could use some good luck myself.

And this was where you came in, Ms. Atwood. Patrick said, not at all apologetically, that although he'd fully intended on returning my good luck hat, he'd seen you a month or so before and you'd noticed the hat and admired it. Then you asked for it – and he gave it to you. Just like that.

I guess when you've written a few books, you're free to sashay around the country asking people to give up pieces of their apparel.

That was over 40 years ago. You're 77 years old now and have written and published countless novels, poems, essays, an impressive oeuvre by any reckoning. My good luck hat has certainly worked for you. I, on the other hand, have published about five poems, a handful of short stories, and four essays (counting this one). I am writing my second novel and have just started the process of trying to get my first one published.

I think you'll agree that it's my turn for the hat.

Kindly remit hat, at your earliest convenience, to Bobbie Jean Huff, care of The Globe and Mail.

Thanking you for your attention to this matter.

Yours sincerely, Bobbie Jean Huff