The day he was killed by a shot to the head, President John
F. Kennedy was gifted with a Texas cowboy hat. The man who gave it to him said
they wished to protect his head from the Texas rain. (Is “Texas Rain” slang for
something down there? Like maybe gunfire? After all, there’s Texas Toast, and
there’s Texas Tea, so maybe they were using a local colloquialism.) But the
president didn’t put it on, and said he wouldn’t put it on until he was back at
the White House the following Monday. So I have to wonder, has there ever been
a cowboy hat ad suggesting he would still be alive if only he’d worn that
cowboy hat? (There have been other Kennedy assassination-related ads, like the
one for a guitar shop that showed Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby, but
Ruby’s playing a guitar, and Oswald is singing into a microphone, and the
policeman with him is playing a keyboard, and the joke board game “Scot Free”
from The Kentucky Fried Movie.)
Here’s what I think that guitar store’s ad looked like:
