For lawyering work, I wear a hat only when going to my own office in rainy weather (at any other destination, it tends to be in the way), or at outdoor site inspections (when I wear what I would for outdoor casual activities). For other outdoor activities, weather & circumstances dictate choice of headwear. In hot weather a straw cowboy hat is shady & cool. In cooler weather, a full brim felt or canvas hat helps protect from the sun & rain. I prefer the felt scouter's hat with the full brim when outdoors. We also like chin straps when possible. I suppose I should also note that I have become somewhat folicly challenged. :-)<br><br>A ball cap ( & eye protection) is helpful when picking fruit from trees since it tends to keep branches out of the face without being knocked off by other branches. It is particularly compatible with a parka to keep sunlight/rain/ whatever off the face while wearing the hood over the head. It is also compatible with ear muff hearing protectors when shooting where it keeps both the elements & ejecta out of the face. :-)<br><br>My family just went to a large theme park. We memorized the dress of each member including the color of our ball caps to make sure we would not become lost from each other. I needn't have worried. Only about 5% of the patrons wore any headgear at all. Even then, wearing headgear ran in families. So our 4 blue caps all stayed in the same herd. :-)<br><br>Past experience indicated that 1 of the shows at the theme park would be noisy. So we all took our earplugs. A wise precaution. The whole park had become so noisy, that both my youngest son & I donned our earplugs 1/2 houjr into the park, & continued wearing them all day. Even my wife & older son wore them through the many extra-loud activities. Nearly all of the excessive noise was amplified; not natural. I suppose it was done out of a misguided intent to enhance excitement. And of course, we saw no one else using any form of hearing protection or complaining about the noise level (artificially amplified). Anyone been to a live music performance in the last 20-30 years? We are becoming a nation of the deaf. :-(( I am beginning to think that shooting with suitable hearing protection is often one of our quieter activities.<br><br>We are also a family of watch cap & parka wearers. By the way Tom, an orange watch cap stays permanently in my inside left pocket of my parka. :-)) I suspect the hunting-camping gene is linked to the watch cap wearing gene.<br><br>Dress among lawyers may be dichotomous. A minority are quite dapper. The vast majority tend to be some variation of a dressy comfortably casual. I tend to be at the far end of the very comfortably casual. :-) And other than in court, this sole practicioner can be very casual.