Me Hat

[xena]

Well, I think I understand where some of the divergent opinions come from. Glengarries, Tams and Balmorals are the historic headress for kilted fellows. Fair enough.

Other hats are therefore "foreign" to the native Scottish dress. But, being foreign, and therefore strange-looking, to a traditionally minded kiltie, does not necessarily mean it's wrong. Just different, and maybe odd-looking to some. But, I think this has to do with perspective.

Jock has just mentioned that he'd rather see the "John Deere" type of hats on kilties rather than flat-caps. Fair enough. The flat-cap is paticulary English in it's origin, and the more recent baseball, or trucker, hats (lovingly referred to by Jock as "John Deere" hats) have all the practicality of the flat cap, but none of the "Englishness" of the flat-cap.

From my perspective, being a chap who grew up in the Canadian prairie farmland, surrounded by people who listened to nothing but twangy Country and Western music, drove pick-up trucks with gun racks in the back window, who perceived dressing-up as wearing a shirt with all the buttons still attached and a clean "John Deere" hat, and who actually are living examples of most of Jeff Foxworthy's jokes (I kid you not!), that particular hat is something I would not want to be caught dead in.

But that's just because of my background.

If I'd have grown up somewhere else, I'd likely have a different opinion.

So, from my point of view, I'd rather see kilties wearing flat caps than the "John Deere" type hats because they seem (to me) a dressier option than the often slovenly baseball caps.

Does that make sense? I guess I could also say that the further you are from the UK (perhaps physically as well as culturally) the more the boundaries between consituent nationalities that make it up, blur. So, for an American or Canadian, the distinction between Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish are less clear, as these are often thought of generically as "the old country". I suspect there's a similar blurring between Canadians and Americans for folks from the UK. I've often heard of Canadian tourists in the UK being derided for being "<insert impolite term here> Yanks", when they were actually just lost Canucks looking for directions. Do Britons have a clear grasp on the distinctions between Canadians and Americans? How about New Zealanders and Australians? Probably not. And that's okay, because from their perspective, the distinctions understandably blur.

Now, I want to be perfectly clear and say that I'm not trying to bash any nationality or bring any sort of politics up! Absolutely not! I'm just making a sociological observation that cultural perspective is involved here.

As well, whenever a hat is used for practical purposes, it matters not a whit what it looks like, IMO. I'd wear a Ushanka with a kilt if it was cold enough, and I'd care not about how badly I was clashing cultures. Similarly, I've got a wide-brimmed fedora I wear when it's raining (since I live in Vancouver now), and it works great for keeping the rain off my glasses so I can see.

That's just my two kopecks worth of thought. I hope it makes sense to the reader.