Hat Day Kicks off
Spirit Week at TMSS

FTLComm - Tisdale - August 31

To get the year off with a head start this is spirit week at Tisdale’s Middle and Secondary School and the first day is none other then hat day. Now what people put on their heads and then proceed to walk around with defies any explanation or convention. Though originally intended to provide protection and shelter the hat has long since been worn as a fashion statementand in most cases an anti-fashion statement. During this past year it is the custom for young people to wear baseball hats backwards.

There are some extremely strongly held European customs about hats, where they can and cannot be worn. European men traditionally never wear a hat indoors as it is considered exceedingly bad manners, similarly the European custom of men removing their hats in the presence of someone they respect is a long standing tradition. On the other hand, European women considered themselves badly dressed or acting cheap if they did not appear in public wearing a hat and certainly never could enter a church without a hat. You will notice her Majesty practices this custom to the limit.

Hats have almost always been worn as symbols of status or authority. A white hard hat is the mark of a supervisor on a work site, a black hat on a cowboy in a movie was the designation as a villain Military hats not only declare the wearer's rank but must be worn at specific angles. The ubiquitous ball cap is most often worn as a symbol of defiance or reflection of low self esteem. Just as people wear facial hair for an assortment of reasons including custom and simple laziness so it is the hats are used in a similar manner.