The missing Tyrolean

Hans Nindelschitz reports that he lost his hat on the 22 bus somewhere after Ashmont Station while the bus was travelling Talbot Avenue. He is a German exchange student at UMASS Boston on Harbor Point and his hat is a cherished possession. It is a forest green Tyrolean hat with the requisite green rope braid over the brim and a boar's hair brush mounted on the left side. The hat is studded with pewter pins that Herr Nindelschitz earned on group hikes through his native Rhine Valley. He attests that he hasn't seen any other hat like it in Dorchester, so anyone who spies it can be reasonably sure of its rightful owner.

Herr Nindelschitz says that the 8:05 PM bus out of Ashmont wasn't crowded so he took off his hat and placed it with his books on the seat next to him on his way home to his apartment in Stony Brook. He could take the Red Line from campus to Downtown Crossing and then the Orange Line to Stony Brook but he has found that the Red Line to Ashmont and then the 22 bus shaves a few minutes off his commute. With his hat and books at his side, after a long day of studying, this scholar fell asleep, lulled by the rocking of the 22 bus. He awoke at 9:11 when the bus came to an abrupt halt at the intersection of Talbot Avenue and Nightingale Street. His head feeling cold, he reached for his trusty Tyrolean hat and came up empty handed.

His books were undisturbed but his hat was missing. He felt around the bus floor and bent to look under the seat but there was no sign of his hat. He made his way to the front of the bus and asked the driver about where it may be. The driver stopped the bus in mid traffic and asked his passengers to search their seats for the missing hat. It really was missing.

At Stony Brook, Herr Nindelschitz spoke with the Transit Police and the officers on duty promised to issue an all points bulletin for the missing headgear. The sergeant at the desk said, "We'll do our best but that hat could be anywhere by now. It could be at the tip of Hull by now and if it is we'll never be able to trace it."

Anyone in Dorchester who happens to accidentally be in possession of an unfamiliar Tyrolean hat is encouraged to turn it in to the nearest MBTA police station so that can be reunited with its rightful owner. Today he was wearing a knit watch cap, popularly called a 'scully' in Dorchester, and while it is warm it isn't warm like he likes.