We're full to the brim with clothing regulations

It didn't use to be this hard.

Long day of work. All you wanted to do was go get a brew or watch the game or chat with friends, so you decided on a bar.

T-shirt. Jeans. Shoes. Something that looked a little nicer than what you just wore mowing the lawn.

But in a quest to make sure we all resemble each other, many bars have added increasingly specific dress codes.

No white T-shirts. No untucked shirts. No shirts without collars. No jerseys. No baggy pants. No jeans. No tennis shoes. No giant labels. No boots. No sunglasses. No hats - whether it's a fedora or a Carmen Miranda headpiece.

Some of the rules have been made in the name of atmosphere or public safety. The clothes have hidden meanings, club owners rationalize. We have an upscale clientele, restaurateurs claim. Private businesses can mostly do what they want.

So I was curious about a bar on the Eastern Shore that I heard specifically banned flat-brimmed caps.

There was a time not long ago when you wanted to curve the brim of a baseball cap as round as possible, so tightly that it would pinch your temples and induce migraines. Then you'd pull it down as far as you could over your eyes.

But now the popular look has changed.

It's fashionable for things to look new. Brand new. Like straight from the factory new. And for hats, that means the brim needs to look like your grandfather would wear it. Flat enough to flip crabcakes on.

But not at Shuckers Roadhouse in Onancock. Wanna come in and try some oysters? Great. Then give that hat a little bend or take it off.

"It's a rural place," said Tom McCulloch, the owner. The bar doesn't cater to tourists but instead to Eastern Shore locals. Residents, he said, "are not appreciative of the urban dress."

Hmmm.

In some cases it's easy to read "too urban" as a code word for "too black." But flat-brimmed caps reach across many races and styles. At Shuckers, the few people in violation of the dress code have been white, McCulloch said. The hat policy hasn't created any problems.

Nasty yellow sweat-stained hats with shapely worn brims are still in.

Even the Navy doesn't have regulations this strict on the caps - just that they must be worn "squarely on the head, with bottom edge parallel to and 1-1/2 inch above the eyebrows." Nothing about brims.

The flat-brim look gained popularity because the hats appeared brand new, which is especially important in a culture of consumerism. The people of the Eastern Shore, McCulloch told me, aren't into "that fluff."

The flat-brim cap often comes with a hologram, not an agenda.

I had a brilliant teacher in high school who once told my class to wear a single band of masking tape around the hem of our left shirt sleeve for a week. It looked ridiculous, but sure enough, by the third or fourth day, the dean got on the PA system during the morning announcements and banned masking tape on clothing. The lesson was clear: People will come up with rules for anything. They want things a certain way.

With flat-brim caps, it shows that the people at Shuckers - and maybe even on the Eastern Shore - want things a certain way as well. They like their hats rounded, thankyouverymuch.

But it's hard to tell what's sillier. Wearing a flat-brim cap or worrying about it in the first place.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277 mike.gruss@pilotonline.com