Cabin Living: No, You Don't Have to Use It Just Because It Came With the Hat

That little lanyard thingy that hangs from some hats to cinch around your neck and chin? It is called a stampede strap. For good reason. If you are chasing a herd of stampeding cattle and your horse is galloping along at 25 miles per hour, you are permitted to engage it. If you are strolling along a 1 mile nature trail loop in 85 degree weather with nary a leaf rustling, you might want to tuck it up under the crown. If you are on a bi-hull racing sailboat doing 35 miles per hour in an America's Cup qualifying run, you can use the stampede strap. If you are cruising along in your Hyundai with the windows rolled up and the air conditioning on, it is not okay to have the stampede strap in play.

When it is picture taking time at the summit and there is no wind, lose the stampede strap. If there are 40 mph gusts at the summit, take the hat off for the photos. It is never okay to have the stampede strap activated during a photo shoot. Unless it is a publicity shot for the Pony Express and you are galloping along on your mustang on the Wyoming prairie delivering letters to the homesteaders. Rounding Cape Horn on a windjammer? Stampede strap okay. Rounding the 18th hole at the public links? Not okay.

What about the brim? Floppy brim, bad. Those Outdoor Research Goretex rain hats? Who cares how dry your head is if you look like a dork. If your brim is not shaped correctly with a natty curve, don't bother stopping me on the trail to ask for directions to the summit. I will assume you are a tenderfoot and my advice will be to return to your car before you get caught in a lightening storm on the summit. It is a well documented fact that unless it is a yarmulke, God does not appreciate lifeless headgear. Check out your local Hasidic neighborhood on a Saturday morning if you don't believe me:

Why should our standards be any less for the trail than for the synagogue? I don't know. If covering ones head in the presence of a higher authority is so important why drop the pomp in the woods? Or at the beach? Or on the golf course? You spend $1000.00 for a set of titanium golf clubs and then you buy a $12.00 straw hat with a bandana hatband at Target? Not in my foursome amigo.

And the visor without a crown? All I can say to that is, your hair may or may not grow back after they remove the melanoma from the top of your scalp.

A few more thoughts; If you must buy a hat with the strap, make sure the holes are through the headband and sides, not the brim. Poking holes in the brim for the stampede strap is a rookie milliner mistake. Holes in the brim of a hat are like buttons on a Goretex jacket. The rain will get through. Also, don't remove nor handle a good hat by the crown. It softens it and distorts the shape. Always handle a hat by the brim. And if you do find yourself at the trail head with a shapeless hat and useless stampede strap there is hope as I have illustrated below: