On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 12:27:39 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/28/2014 7:36 AM, John B. wrote:

When I was a young lad all the ladies that attended the Protestant
churches wore a hat to church. At the Catholic church it seemed to
vary a bit with which mass they attended with the early risers often
wearing a scarf. Probably all changed these days.
\
You are right, high school girls wore scarf's but when the weather
really got cold so did a lot of married women - keeps the ears warm
while you are walking down to the store :-)

There's no accounting for fashion - especially for women's fashion,
which seems to change on a much shorter time scale than men's fashion.

But even men's fashion is random and unpredictable. To look only at
hats, we now have ball caps with big flat bills, perhaps worn backwards
or sideways, for the inner city crowd; unless they're modern urbanists,
whose coolness now requires a porkpie hat. There are more ordinary ball
caps for those identifying as "country"; unless they're
"country-western" in which case they'll wear a cowboy hat, despite never
associating with cows.

All of which are _so_ much more sensible than fedoras, straw boaters,
bowlers, top hats, tri-corns and whatever came before... not to mention
military ceremonial hats, gold crowns, fezzes and the like.

One of my favorite books is "Daily Life in Holland in the year 1566,"
mostly for it's wonderful illustrations by Poortvliet. As he says,
after documenting over a dozen styles of men's hats: "It really didn't
matter what you had on your head as long as you had on something."

Well, really, it probably did matter. A man's choice of hat is intended
to demonstrate his identification with a certain culture or sub-group of
society. Except, that is, for a decade or two following JFK's
inauguration, when he - followed by the Beatles - declared that to be
part of the proper group, one must NOT wear a hat.

Our desire to be part of a clan, tribe or "in group" triggers our deep
need to wear hats, no matter how weird the hat may look to those outside
the group.

And the styrofoam manufacturers are saying "Thank God!"

If you move to a place that is HOT you will likely find that a
substantial percentage of the people wear a "hat". But the type of
hat will be dependent on fashion, to some extent - a bloke who is
outdoors in southern Texas all day is probably going to wear a hat
that keeps the sun off, at least while working.... but he might well
have a "go to town hat" for holidays :-)

But mankind's do or die efforts to be a member of a specific group is
a whole different story. It would seem to deny the great American
effort to see everyone as equals.
--
Cheers,

John B.