Take Your Hat Off!

I was talking to an older lady recently. She lost her husband a few years ago. He was a typical South Texas rancher, down to the standard silver belly hat. She told me that her husband didn’t care much for the manners of men who wear hats these days. He didn't understand why the younger generation was totally ignorant of how to wear a hat and the etiquette involved. I guess it is indicative of the fact that we don't teach young men manners anymore. I think we ought to bring etiquette back with a vengeance.

 

I am reminded of a young fellow I know. He is of the generation that wears one of those elastic band caps with the perfectly flat visor. They leave the stickers from the store on the underside of the visor. The cap usually has the logo from some yankee sports team on the front. I personally wouldn't wear a cap like that to a low-rent chicken fight, but to each, his own. This guy wore his cap into a certain South Texas restaurant where the sea food is magnificent. There is a sign on the door that reads “Gentlemen please remove your hats.” The people who own this place are very serious about this issue. It is known far and wide that to eat in this place you need to take your lid off. This young jackanapes didn't want to take off his cap because it might mess up his hair. He spent a great deal of time getting it the way he wanted and was particularly vain about it. Why he made the Einstein-like choice of putting on a silly cap, I have no clue. The owners almost had to ask him to leave before he finally took off his hat. My inclination would have been to snatch off the cap and raised a knot on his head with a serving spoon.

My father taught me how to wear a hat. He taught me that a hat looks coolest when you tilt it over your right ear. He taught me that a snap-brim fedora looks great with a classic leather jacket. He also taught me when I needed to take the damned thing off and show that I had some manners and class. This was a matter of learning by example, as I don't recall ever being specifically taught the rules. So I have decided to write up my own little list of hat etiquette rules. They might not totally match up with what others were taught, but I would wager that there pretty close.

Dave's Hat Rules

1. Take your hat off when you meet a lady on the street or in a social situation. When you are introduced for the first time to a lady whip off your hat off and shake her hand. This shows good breeding. These days it surprises most women so much that it kind of throws them off guard. Usually I get a pleasant smile and a look of surprise.

2. Take your hat off when you sit down to eat. It shows reverence to the God who provided the food. If your an atheist, agnostic, or devotee of Ashtar or something, then remove your hat in honor of the people who prepared the food.

3. Take your hat off when you go into a ladies home. It is out of respect for the sanctity of the home. You can leave your hat on in some bachelor's bulls nest, or some dude's “man cave,' but take it off as you walk into a proper home.

4. Church. Take off your hat in church. Why have men forgotten this? I've seen perfectly sane non-bonehead guys walk into church with their lid on. You should take of your hat when others pray, and once again, if you don't believe, do it anyway out of respect.

5. Tip your hat to a lady on the street. In Texas we don't tip our hats to other men. They are  lucky we don't just hit them with a short length of rebar.

6. You can leave your hat on in a dance hall. I have heard some rumors that this wasn't allowed back in the “old brown shoe” days. I think that it's perfectly fine these days. Maybe at a formal dance like a prom you might want to take off your hat. I am long past the prom stage so I guess I am in the clear.

7. You can leave your hat on in anyplace that could be designated as “a beer joint.” It's probably not a good thing that your hanging around in a beer joint. You need to leave your hat on in case you have to get away in a hurry. You wouldn't want to forget your hat and go back while chairs were flying around the place. In fact the true test of a good Texas hat is that it will frighten women and children and starts a fight in a Wyoming beer joint. They call them saloons out west.

8. My brother-in-law Rocky says that you should switch to straw hats about Easter and then back to a felt hat somewhere around labor day. I'm not sure about this. A lot of the old timers wore a felt hat all year around. I have noticed that my friend Craig seems to do this. This seems to go for western hat wearers as well as the fedora types. You never saw Broderick Crawford wearing a sporty straw porkpie, no matter how hot it was. Straw hats are for sure more comfortable in the heat, but I wear my felt to formal things even in the summer.

9. When the flag passes by in a parade, or they run it up the pole at the ball game. Take off your hat. If your just not patriotic, than I suggest you go live in Sri Lanka. Of course a lot of young men have forgotten this rule and I think it is perfectly acceptable to gently remind them by hitting them upside the head with any convenient object, a tire tool for instance.

All joking aside we should teach our children, especially our boys, manners. The rules of chivalry, opening doors for ladies and older folks, hat etiquette, proper introductions, should be enforced. I know there are some women who who think these things sexist. The truth is that these signs of deferment to women and our elders show THEIR superiority to us, not to indicate that they are weaker or lesser humans.

Anyway, next time you meet a lady for the first time, take your damned hat off!