I am often asked when I began wearing a Stetson.

I grew up watching John Wayne movies and dreaming of being a cowboy. All of my buddies in high school thought we were cowboys since many of us drove pickup trucks, dipped skoal, wore wranglers and cowboy boots.

For some reason, my attempts to partake of smokeless tobacco always led to nausea and vomiting, so I faked it by placing beef jerky behind my lip. Nobody ever knew. 

Throughout high school, my friends and I attended the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo every year. We showed up wearing starched wrangler jeans, pearl snap shirts, and oversized felt hats with feathered hat bands. We would strut around the livestock barns in our exotic skin cowboy boots as if we were born and raised on a ranch. When asked what type of boots we were wearing, we’d simply reply, “cowboy.”

Even though none of us would admit it, the real reason we went was to see Donnie and Marie Osmond perform.

Of course, none of us could tell the difference between a steer and a bull and had never been on the back of a horse before, but we sure looked like we could rope and ride. We were playing dress up. 

So, I hesitated for years before I initially took the plunge of guiltlessly wearing a Stetson. I am no cowboy, and like my youngest told me one time, “you can’t fake the funk.”

A little over twenty years ago, I was serving as the Athletic Director in Canyon, Texas. An Athletic Director from another district showed up at every athletic event his teams participated in wearing an old, faded yellow, fishing hat. It was floppy, stained, and even had a fish hook stuck on the side.

It did not matter what the event was, indoor or outdoor, that hat was on his head.

Speaking to him one evening at a volleyball game, I asked him why he always wore that hat.

He looked at me and said, “because I want to be seen. I want people to know I was here. They can’t say I didn’t show up because someone is bound to see the hat.”

Brilliant! I copied his style immediately. My first hat of choice was a Fedora. I took a bit of a hipster approach, but it just didn’t feel right. I transitioned to a Panama hat for a while until one of my coaches asked me if I was looking for seashells on the sidelines at a football game one night.

The hat was getting attention, but I had yet to find my style.

I visited the LBJ Ranch that summer and I found what I was looking for. President Lyndon Baines Johnson wore a Silver Belly, Open Road, Stetson. There are pictures of him everywhere with one on his head, usually slanted to one side. I could buy one just like LBJ’s right there at the gift shop, and that is what I did.

I could not wait for football season to begin so I could break out my LBJ. It was an immediate success. No matter where I was at a game, I was easy to find.

When spring rolled around and the weather heated up, I purchased an Open Road straw hat to keep my head cool and my momentum going.

If for some reason I’d fail to wear my Stetson, people would say, “Where’s your hat, I didn’t recognize you without it.”

So, to answer the question, I started wearing a Stetson twenty years ago to be seen. I have about a dozen in various stages of wear and tear and have given away a dozen more. I still honor my mother by not wearing it at the dinner table, she would have knocked it right off my head.

In those twenty years since, I have not climbed on a horse or branded any cattle. So, don’t think I’m trying to be a cowboy, I’m not, I just like wearing a good hat.

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].