When did men stop wearing hats?

Oh, I don't mean the cloth and cardboard-billed baseball cap with the company of the hour branded on the front of it. Those are the ones we see everywhere, the ones we wear so we can act as walking billboards for a company we know nothing about. We wear them with the bill folded just so, looking oh, so cool, but  not saying anything to the rest of us, really. We all just seem to blend in to a sea of sameness when wearing our baseball caps. We twist them sideways with the bill over one ear, or worse yet, sitting backwards on our pates, performing none of the glare-shading protection for which they were originally designed. They leave our necks and ears exposed to the scorching heat of the August sun, but we wear them for "fashion".

We wear a baseball cap to say what team we root for; we use them to be hip with the latest corporate slogan with which we have no connection. We wear them to be one of the crowd. We wear them to say what we can't say for ourselves.

And most men wear no hat at all. Why is that? Are we really afraid it will rub off more of our hair? Too late for most of the follicly impaired men in the world -- myself, included. I can't begin to count the times I've walked among the masses on a steamy, Boston-baked August day and seen a sea of naked heads, ears flapping in the breeze, and necks reddened to a nice lobster hue, and not a true hat in sight.

Ah, the ultimate words - 'true hat.' The true hat is a functional hat, dating back millennia, to the days of Greece and Rome and who knows, even beyond. In its basic form, it is made up of two parts: The domed crown and the wrap-around brim. Simple as that. No frills -- no logos. But, oh, what we have done with the basic form.

It was designed by necessity to ward off the heat of the sun while farmers worked the fields. Made of stiff cloth or straw, the perfect hat protected the delicate face and neck from sunburn and helped to keep the rain at bay long before the invention of the umbrella. War helmets from the Classical period down through the Middle Ages and into the era of World War I saw this simple but functional design crafted in metal for added protection from human folly.

In more recent times the basic crown-and-brim hat saw variations that added individualistic touches that made clear statements about who we were. Take the American Cowboy hat -- the Stetson we all instantly recognize. Likely evolved from the tri-corner hat of the American Revolution period, the crown is now mashed down in the center and forms a teardrop shape which rests gently on the crown of the head. The brim rolls crisply along the sides to almost meet in the front. Mired in dust and sweat-stained, the working cowboy hat told all we needed to know about the wearer.

The tilt of the cowboy hat spoke volumes. Low on the forehead, shading the eyes - beware: approach this hombre with caution. Riding high on the top of the head, forehead exposed - sit and chat awhile, this fella's got nothin' he'd enjoy more than talkin' of the weather and rememberin' the old days of cattle-drives and gunfights seen.

And then, of course, we come to the hat which we are probably most familiar: the fedora. With a smaller brim and crown, the fedora once graced the heads of most men in America back in the '20s and '30s, expressing our moods as much as any cowboy hat ever could. A well-worn fedora has a nicely angled front brim, hanging down just south of the eyebrows. The crown is creased and angled in the front to form two dimples, where thumb and fingers gracefully slide over and grip the crown, allowing us to raise it ever so slightly to acknowledge the passerby in a greeting of hello, before sliding back down to rest.

I suppose Hollywood did more to emphasize and destroy the fedora more than any other cultural force. Who can forget Bogey in the Maltese Falcon, or in the Marlowe films, walking the shadowy streets with the fedora low on the forehead, as he risked his neck to save the dame, or the bird? And will there be any better scene for a fedora than when Bogey walks away in the last scene of Casablanca, arm-in-arm with Louie, the fog rolling in across the airport tarmac and trench-coat collar turned up against the damp, talking about the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Was he really talking to Louie, or the well-worn fedora sitting low on his head? I think I know….

Fedoras went out of style in the movies in the '60s and '70s. I'm not sure why. Was it because the culture was changing and we stopped wearing them because they were old-fashioned? Did they belong to our parents time, and therefore considered very unhip? Probably. But I don't think we ever lost the romance of the fedora. No matter how much we rebelled against wars and government and Big Brother, we all watched those old movies growing up and we all secretly longed for the hard-boiled look of a Bogey, or James Cagney, or Alan Ladd in their film noir roles.

Hollywood did give a big-screen nod to the fedora in recent years. Meant in part to evoke a period mood, Indiana Jones' hat was nothing less than an acknowledgement of the period serializations the Jones movies were trying to evoke. Indy's fedora was an extension of himself, battered and beaten in the jungles of Peru and the sands of Egypt, it always cleaned up well when civilization called -- from walking around campus between lectures, to talking to government big-wigs when the need arose. And was there any doubt Indy would reach back under the descending stone door to grab his hat before it was sealed forever in the ancient fortress in Peru? No doubt whatever. It was the right thing to do, of course.

Which leads me to my hats. Yes, that's a plural. Hats. One of straw with a fabric underside in the front half of the brim to help protect against the rays of the sun. No burned ears or neck here in the summer heat. One of wool, and looking every bit the part of Indy's hat, perfect for the adventurous winter commute in zero degree wind chill, and little loss of heat from the top of my head. Besides, you never know when a dart-blowing Havitos tribesman might chase you through the subway cars of Boston. The hat could come in handy. Just make sure you grab it before the subway doors close….

One hat was found in a local antique shop, looking out of place with the bricabrac of the Victorians for sale once more. Set on a shelf with the price tag dangling, it called to me from across the years. Here was a hat that Bogey would have slid on as easily as he shrugged into that trench coat for a long night of dark alleys and trading barbs with the Fat Man. This was a hat that Sinatra might have worn, or Sammy, or any of the Rat Pack. This was a hat that Indy would have reached back to grab as that door was coming down. This was a hat.

I gripped it by the crown, holding it by the indentations and slid it slowly on my head. Perfect fit. I turned to the gilt Victorian mirror monstrosity hanging on the wall, waiting for someone with a lot of money and no taste to buy it. I slid the brim down, south of my eyebrows and looked at my reflection in the cold surface. Fog began to roll in around me and a clanging buoy sounded off the San Francisco docks. Greenstreet and Lorre came out from behind the armoire in the corner of the shop, a package wrapped in old newspaper tucked under Sidney's large arm. I paid for the hat and headed for the door. The fog was thick as an undertaker's shroud as it wrapped around me in the darkening street. I turned up my collar against the damp. It was going to be a long night and who knew what would come out of it in the morning. I pulled my fedora lower and headed for the south side of town…