My dad was dying, but a goofy, turkey-shaped hat helped my family cope
LOS ANGELES — Every Nov. 1, I engage in an unusual ritual. As soon as the Halloween decorations are down, I unleash a turkey on L.A. — and the world. Not a live bird but a gravy-colored knit chullo (a.k.a. an Andean ear-flap hat), crowned with a cartoonish-looking, Pilgrim-hat-wearing turkey, with flappy knit wings that bounce with my every step.
It's an absolutely ridiculous piece of headgear that I make a point of wearing out in the wild — driving to work, running errands, that sort of thing — as often as possible until the day after Thanksgiving. I started wearing it seven years ago to cheer up my father as he battled the metastatic melanoma that would claim his life not quite two weeks after Thanksgiving.
Despite the
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