On Hats and Freemasonry

I'm supposed to be wearing a hat...

Freemasonry is bounded by tradition. Surely it could not be otherwise given the tremendous age of our Ancient Institution.

One of these traditions says that I’m supposed to be wearing a hat. And that basically, no one else gets to wear a hat.

Now of course there are nuances to this tradition. Worshipful Masters are supposed to wear a hat while presiding over their Lodge. All others must be bare headed. Except when outside. When a Lodge is out of doors, well then everyone can wear a hat.

That last is particularly good for me, for I’m bald, and my ancestry is English. The top of my dome can not handle the slightest touch of the sun. My old grandfather used to wear hats too, for just that reason, but he didn’t do it consistently enough, nor with good enough hats, so for the past twenty years the doctors were carving bad things out of the skin atop his head. I hope to avoid such a fate. It’s also good, because you know, I’m on the western side of Washington’s Cascade Mountains. It rains here. A lot. Just a Saturday ago I was at an outdoor Third Degree, with rain falling on us the whole time.

But all of that rambling aside, the thing is, I’m the Grand Master, and as such, I’m supposed to be wearing a hat. I don’t though, not inside anyway, and that seems to surprise people.

I didn’t really wear a hat much when I was Worshipful Master either, so this little buck of tradition is I guess a long standing thing for me.

The funny thing is, I rather love hats.

But I avoid wearing hats Masonically I think because of the nature of the hat.

You see, tradition says that not only should I be wearing a hat, but that properly it should be a top hat.

I find the universally strong tradition of the top hat especially odd given the fact that Freemasonry is much, much older than the top hat. Freemasonry was already ancient when someone dreamed up that distinctive style of headgear. I wonder, why don’t we, if we are going to truly honor the ancient ways, wear whatever kind of hat men were wearing in Edinburgh in the year 1700? It seems that would be more appropriate.

Beyond the oddness of their unofficial adoption as a Masonic symbol of authority, top hats just aren’t a thing anymore. You can buy plenty of replica top hats online, made out of cheap materials for costume use, but a real top hat? Carefully crafted from beaver pelts? Well, I’ve only ever seen the real thing for sale, in a real hat shop, a single time, and that was in Mexico City, directly across the Zocalo from the National Palace. Rarefied air indeed.

I notice that some who have gone before me have adopted the opera hat. An interesting choice. Opera hats look like top hats, they are much less expensive than the real thing, and they fold up. Interesting, but not top hats, so one must wonder if these men are not bucking the tradition much as I am.

Most who wear the top hat however end up borrowing. Over the years many if not most of our Lodges have built up pretty good sized collections of very old top hats, in pretty rough shape. Most guys will find one that sort of fits and call it good, donning it for the occasions that demand.

Well, I might be alone in this, but it just strikes me as strange. I don’t want to drop upwards of a thousand dollars for a real top hat, and I’m not going to wear something cheaply made for costume use. Opera hats look good, but again, they aren’t top hats, and I just figure that if one is going to buck tradition, he might as well buck it all the way. Besides, I can’t really imagine wearing a silk opera hat outside, in the Seattle rain. Lastly, while I certainly would not object to a used top hat, I’d only wear one that was in suitably good condition to merit wear, and I’ve never run across one. They are just too old now to have survived the decades well.

So what’s a poor Grand Master to do?

To be honest, I don’t have a clue.

Some Grand Masters in this Jurisdiction have worn cowboy hats. I think those hats to be perfectly appropriate. While Seattle may be known for airplanes, software, and online bookstores that will now sell us everything that exists, Washington is much more than Seattle. Much of Washington is cattle country, and cowboy hats are not out of place.

So, I wore a cowboy hat to my installation. Not some beater, but one of the finest examples of the form. A twenty x beaver for those who are in the know.

Now previous Grand Masters who have adopted the cowboy hat have worn black. When contemplating hats though, I decided to avoid the black cowboy hat. We’ve got a tradition in this country, from our cowboy TV shows of decades ago that divides the good guys from the bad guys. That penultimate good guy, the Lone Ranger, well he wore a white hat. The bad guys wore black. So I settled on a traditional color with an odd name, silver belly. Think off white.

I think that this is a perfect and elegant solution to my hat quandary, but it has one severe drawback.

Every time I put on that beautiful hat, Mrs. Bailey declares that I look like a moron.

Now this is important, for Mrs. Bailey must be kept reasonably happy, for if she is not, who on earth would make sure that the Grand Master actually remembers to show up where he needs to show up? Does what he needs to do? For surely he is so disorganized, that without her, the entirety of Masonic governance would collapse.

As a side ramble, I should mention that beaver hats are way too warm to wear in the hot sun, so for such occasions I picked up a superb straw cowboy hat in Guadalajara, the center of Mexico’s cattle industry. Alas though, given her reaction to the formal beaver hat, I’m afraid to ever even give the straw a try.

So, again, what is a Grand Master to do?

Well, have you ever heard of Tilley hats?

Tilley is a Canadian company that makes sailing hats. Sailing hats of superb quality. I’ve worn my favorite for over twenty years, and it still looks as if it is new.

(Sorry for this goofy aside, but before anyone takes this as a recommendation, I must say that my words above about Tilley quality refer to the time when Alex Tilley was at the helm of the company. Not long ago it was taken over by some other company or some such. I purchased, just a couple of months ago, a post new ownership Tilley, it is not the same. In fact, it is nowhere near the same. So please don’t take this as a recommendation to go out and buy an expensive Tilley brand hat, expecting exceptional quality.)

It seems to me that a sailing hat is perfectly appropriate for Washington’s Grand Master. Puget Sound, Hood Canal, the San Juan Islands, the Pacific Ocean. We’ve got water. We’ve got sailing waters. Washingtonians are boaters.

The other thing is, and this is important, Mrs. Bailey doesn’t object to me wearing a sailing hat. She thinks I look good in them. This is very good, because when trying to seduce one’s wife, it is helpful if she is not busy laughing at one’s choice of hat.

The only trouble with sailing hats is that they are generally white, or some variation thereof. While I think off white is very good for a GM’s cowboy hat, a white brass and canvas hat doesn’t quite seem right for a Grand Master’s symbol of authority.

Well, a couple of years ago, while in Port Townsend, the wooden boat capital of the world, I happened across a true black Tilley traditional sailing hat. Not super dark blue or grey, true black. A very rare thing indeed. Knowing that I was moving to the Grand East, Melinda and I decided that it was perfect, and I snagged it up.

I also snagged a Tilley rain hat in black, not a rare thing. It is much like a sailing hat, but without the brass, and utilizing waxed canvas to keep it waterproof.

So, I’ve worn the silver belly cowboy hat (for about 10 seconds as the ceremony dicates) during my Installation. The Tilley rain hat, in the rain, and the Tilley sailing hat in the hot sun. I’ve not yet worn any hat, in any Lodge though, and I notice that people find that quite odd, and it has generated some questions and comment.

There you go. My hat dilemma. A difficulty I face as Grand Master, and that I’ve spent far too many hours contemplating. A difficulty I imagine plenty of Worshipful Masters face as well.

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I know that this little essay is not what you were expecting this morning. But I found it fun to write, and I hope that you find it fun to read.

It’s written to be a bit in jest, but I also think it points out a fundamental question that I often contemplate when thinking about some of our Masonic traditions. Where did they come from? Why did they receive widespread, universal even, adoption? Should they be retained in today’s modern world? I think it helpful if we ask these questions about all of our traditions. Not necessarily as a way of bringing about change, but as a way of better understanding our Ancient Craft.

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If you enjoyed this essay, will you consider recommending Emeth to your Masonic Brothers?