January 26, 2005
Inauguration Hat

Hello 1950.  Did you watch last Thursday’s inauguration?  No not the speech or parade but the swearing in.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the headgear worn by the senators, representatives and assorted cabinet geeks witnessing the proceedings from the bleachers behind the podium.  The world hasn’t witnessed that many fedoras and homburgs, in one location, since my wife drug me to see “Dick Tracy”, starring Warren Beatty, almost 15 years ago.  Who is to blame for the fact those in the background commanded my un-divided attention?  Obviously the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of inside the Beltway wives.  How could they, in good conscience, let their husbands appear in public in those God-awful hats? 

Talk about the geezerfication of America.  With all the “retro” style chapeaus on display in Washington D.C. last week, it caused a flash back to 1955 and seeing my grandfather head out the door to a winter’s evening Oddfellows lodge meeting.   

Not that every elected official topped his head with a hat that just screamed “1953” when it came to style.  Some Senators, i.e. Colorado and Montana, were wearing Stetson’s.  This was done for one of two reasons, either they thought it identified them as being a Westerner, or they felt more respect would come their way should people think them a country singer rather than a politician.  

Wearing headgear synonymous with the section of our land you represent would indeed be a far superior fashion statement than appearing on all four TV networks dressed as a mafia don heading through the courthouse doors to testify before the Kefauver commission. 

For instance, my Iowa State fraternity brother, Tom Harkin, would have looked much more representative of his Hawkeye constituency wearing a ball cap with a Kent Feeds or DeKalb Seed Corn logo above the brim rather than the silly ass Homburg resting between his ears during the ceremony.  Tom, you looked like my grandpa!  What’s next, Old Spice after shave and Vitalis on your hair? 

Other elected officials should have followed the example of Western Senators Salazar and Baucus with the representatives from Oregon and Washington sporting umbrellas, the Californians being oh so cool in Oakley designer shades, New York and New Jersey elected officials could have been attired in ball caps worn backwards or sideways while the Senators from the Dakotas and Minnesota would better represent their section of the country in winter type caps featuring ear flaps ala Walter Mathieu in Grumpy Old Men. 

Men’s formal hats, homburgs, fedoras’ and their ilk, supposedly fell out of favor when President Kennedy took the oath of office hatless on a cold January day in 1961.  The truth is JFK wore the traditional silk hat while being sworn in as President but the topper remained on his chair while he gave the inaugural address.  A better reason for the decline in the headgear most common before 1960 is the style was basically useless in keeping a head warm and as a fashion statement ranked somewhere between Nehru jackets and parachute pants. 

During the ceremony in front of the Capitol last Thursday, my mind kept searching for who in history the elected officials in the background most resembled.  Then it flashed through the memory bank.  It was a photograph of Clyde Barrow, he of Bonnie and Clyde fame, stylin’ in a Homburg hat.  The picture was taken just a couple of days before Clyde and his moll exited planet earth in a hail of bullets outside Sailes, Louisiana.  Clyde, along with Bonnie, roamed our land in the thirties taking money that wasn’t theirs and using the ill-gotten gains for the most nefarious of reasons.