Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993                   TAG: 9306180009
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HATS OFF, I SAY, TO THE BASEBALL CAP

Well, I'd like to go a step further and suggest that the baseball cap has become its choice of hat. And rightly so!

Go to any rural county in this country and you'll see this is true, even in the West where cowboy hats have become more emblematic than practical.

A man working cattle on horseback is a rare sight anywhere these days. And I'll grant that a weathered old cowboy hat, worn with unassuming grace, is a pretty thing to see.

Forgive me, die-hard cowboys everywhere, but such hats have become increasingly impractical. The cheaper straw and felt versions don't hold up. And the good ones have gotten awfully expensive.

A wide-brimmed Stetson's just too pretty a hat to smear with sweat and dirt.

All due respect to George Strait and Hank Jr., but Merle Haggard had it right years ago when he traded in his cowboy hat for a baseball cap.

It offers an inexpensive and practical replacement for the working man, who doesn't need a fancy hat to keep the sun off the top of his head.

Besides, the cowboy hat is worn nowadays more for the statement it makes than the sun it blocks. It says, "Podner, I may live and work as a tax consultant during the week, but on weekends I'm all cowboy."

Between you and me, don't you know that no self-respecting working cowboy would be caught dead in a hat with quail feathers poking out above the hatband?

Not so the baseball cap. It's all working man.

But just try showing up at that country line dance wearing a baseball cap instead of a cowboy hat. See if that don't give you a real achy breaky heart.

No way, man. All those cute little country fillies will two-step around you, headed for the guy with the feathers and the snakeskin boots.

I think it's time we give the baseball cap the respect it deserves.

One size fits all. You can get 'em in any color of the rainbow. Some are all cotton and some are air-conditioned, with plastic mesh at the back.

And there's fancy caps for the connoisseur, too. I've got one that's all leather. I bought it at one of those fancy ski shops in Colorado. Who cares if I can't ski with a hat like that?

My old red cap has been with me to the Yucatan and the Sonoran desert. It tucks nicely in a day pack. The bill has just the right amount of curve to it, and there's this fine white salt ring around the brim.

When it gets too dirty, you just throw it in the washing machine. It comes out good as new, with a little more character to boot.

Try that with a cowboy hat.

Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for the Roanoke Times & World-News. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.