An Unexpected Find

And what it might say about us

Some days ago I read the linked essay, and found a lot of truth within it. I hope that you’ll take a moment to peruse it:

Men Should Stop Wearing Shorts

Certainly in a Masonic context there has been ongoing discussion, for decades, about what Masons wear to Lodge, what that says about the value they place on our Ancient Craft, and what it communicates about the importance of our work.

Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash

One place at which deliberate choices are quite often made is in the hat worn by the Worshipful Master as he presides. For a long time these were primarily Top Hats, but I (thankfully IMHO) rarely see those in the East now. Today, in the Lodges I visit, there is a pretty good variety in hats. Bowlers, Fedoras, Cowboy, one Worshipful Master I’m quite fond of even wears a Flat Cap.

But one doesn’t see Ball Caps, or Snap Backs, Trucker Hats, or whatever name one uses to refer to the ubiquitous man’s hat here in the United States. I presume because they just aren’t considered formal enough.

I’ve got about a bazillion of the things, scattered throughout the house, having worn them my entire life. But for the past decade or so, I’ve tried to wear them less. Swapping them out for more serious hats. At least some of that has to do with my skin. I’ve got bad skin. It doesn’t tan. It’s either pale as a ghost, or badly burned, there is no in-between. So I do a lot better with a full and wide brimmed hat. My wife and daughters don’t suffer from the same problem, the sun doesn’t impact them at all. Italian blood I suppose.

When standing in the East, I most often wear a Western hat. A Cowboy hat. Why? Because it is an American hat. A hat for the American West. And I believe that our clothing, particularly our hats (if we choose to wear them) communicate our values to others, and I believe in the traditional values and outlook of the American West. I also wear lightly colored hats (Silverbelly to be specific) although most Worshipful Masters who wear Cowboy hats choose black. I choose light hats because as a kid, watching TV, the good guys wore white hats, the bad guys wore black hats, and as Freemasons we are charged to be the good guys!

As Freemasons, we are all familiar with apron cases. Those black, hard sided or soft sided, oversized briefcase looking things that we use to store and transport our fancy aprons so that they don’t get dirty or harmed.

And if we have high value hats, well we probably have something along the same lines for our hats. We probably have a hat can to keep our fancy hat clean and properly shaped while in storage and transport.

Me? Well, I’ve got a whole closet filled with hat boxes and cans, each holding a cool hat. It’s certainly not an efficient use of space, but as a high quality Cowboy hat will cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, a sixty dollar hat can to protect it seems like a really solid investment.

Just like our Apron Cases.

I mean I could carry my gold and purple Grand Master’s apron to Lodge in a vintage Spam Lunchbox, but then the Grand Secretary will whine about it. This I learned the hard way.

My oldest granddaughter loves nothing more than swimming. So for her upcoming ninth birthday, Melinda and I are taking her (and the rest of the family) on a swimming vacation at one of the massive resorts on the Las Vegas strip. We chose one with an exceptional pool, and rented a poolside cabana so we need not leave the pool.

That’ll be great.

All except for the fact that the Grandaughter has my skin.

The poor kid burns in the sun.

So a couple of days ago, I took her to a fancy Western store so that she could pick out a straw hat with a huge brim in order to keep the Las Vegas sun off her face, ears, and neck. Luckily for me, she didn’t argue about the need to wear such a hat, and she found one that she really liked.

While we were there, I noticed that the store had really stocked up on their hat cans, and added some variety.

Now a hat can for a Cowboy hat is a really large piece of luggage. Some will fit in an airliner’s overhead bin, but most are just too large. They are made out of thick hard plastic, and generally your options are color, and if they have a mirror inside.

But, as I say, the store had some variety that I’d not seen before. They had a bunch in marbleized plastic. Faux marble looking things. Smooth and shiny, rather good looking. I’ll stick with the plain plastic though, hate for folks to think that I’ve become a dandy.

It was then that I saw them though.

Hat cans, luggage, for Ball Caps.

They were actually nicer in both design and quality than the Cowboy hat cans.

What an odd thing, I thought. Baseball hats just aren’t all that expensive. Plus they are super easy to travel with, because lacking a brim in the rear they can be worn while seated with a head rest.

But, maybe that’s not the point.

We Freemasons of a certain age, we who have officially entered our old farterry, well we might tend to view the really casual clothing so often worn by young men today as displaying a lack of care.

We might view those T-Shirts and Ball Caps, generally covered with a message or advertising as really casual, something one throws on without any thought.

But hat cans for Ball Caps sort of throws the whole ‘without any thought’ thing out the window.

Storing and transporting a Ball Cap in a hat can certainly shows pride in appearance.

My point in all of this is that we do very well to remember that Masonic lesson:

“You were neither naked nor clad because Freemasonry regards no man on account of his worldly wealth or honors. It was therefore to teach you that it is the internal and not the external qualifications of a man that should recommend him to be made a Mason.”

I think that every generation looks askance at those that came before, and those that come after. It seems to be human nature to focus on the flaws of the generation above us, and to worry about the generation behind us.

But we likely do well to remember that while the ‘kids’ are different from us, the ‘kids’ will probably be A-OK.