Author Topic: BACKWARD CAPS (Read 2404 times)

rex6666 · « **on:** April 21, 2008, 01:46:51 AM »

I have wondered about this of and on for a long time.
Why wear your cap backwards, and how did this get started?
I remember when i was working in the field we would do this to keep the sun off our neck.
do we need to start a poll to see how many here do this?
I don't care if you do, just wonder why, and when did you start.

rockbilly · « **Reply #1 on:** April 21, 2008, 04:47:33 AM »

I think we all know how it got started, but I won't go there. It is like the baggy pants, heavy metal jewelry and stylish sneakers, it all comes from the ghetto.

Several years ago, after seeing kids all over wearing their caps backwards, my wife and I were in line at one of the local stores. There were several young men ahead of us in the check out line wearing their caps backward. I asked one, "Where did you get that cap?" He said, "back on the rack, there are a bunch of them." I replied, "I saw many different caps back there but all of them had the bill in the front." They all got a goofy look on their faces as everyone in the line started laughing.

ncsurveyor · « **Reply #2 on:** April 21, 2008, 05:14:13 AM »

I wear mine backwards when I'm surveying, otherwise the brim hits the instrument.

Sometimes, depending on the hat, I can "Gomer Pyle" the bill. That's even cooler.

GRIMJIM · « **Reply #3 on:** May 11, 2008, 06:26:31 AM »

Sometimes I'll wear a hat, usually not but if I'm on my bike I turn it around so it doesn't blow off.

rex6666 · « **Reply #4 on:** May 11, 2008, 07:07:49 AM »

Played golf with my usual group this mourning, one of the guys brought a young golfer that wore his cap backwards and complained several times
about the sun in his eyes, on one said a word, since he was a better golfer we thought it better for him to have his cap and sun the way he wanted it.

quickdtoo · « **Reply #5 on:** May 11, 2008, 07:13:09 AM »

The only time I wear a cap backwards is when boating to keep it on my head when the boat's moving fast, the funny part is when one of us in the boat forgets to turn it around, then they get a real ribbing. No one tells them, just let em wear it that way for a while, then jump him!!

Tim

Brithunter · « **Reply #6 on:** May 11, 2008, 07:14:01 AM »

Hmmm so what your saying is that you don't need intelligence to play golf? did I get that right?

rex6666 · « **Reply #7 on:** May 11, 2008, 07:27:06 AM »

OH NO Birthunter
No intelligence at all, just a undying desire for perfection, and self punishment, after all anyone can hit a ball if it is sitting still, and the direction you want it to go, I really don't understand
why everyone is not as good as Tiger, i am desperately try ing to get their,

GRIMJIM · « **Reply #8 on:** May 11, 2008, 09:20:55 AM »

What, everyone here isn't a scratch golfer? Man you guys suck!

Brithunter · « **Reply #9 on:** May 11, 2008, 09:44:47 AM »

As you might guess I don't play golf. Have hit a few balls on a parks short course with a couple of friends but was not taken with it. I like the old saying:-

Golf a good walk ruined!

Mikey · « **Reply #10 on:** May 11, 2008, 10:38:15 AM »

Hmmmm, caps on backwards....ghetto style or hollywood?

I think the ghetto style is more the 'hood' style which is either: pulled low over your face so the security cameras can't get a picture, of possibly the '35 degree side cant about to fall off your fool head' style.

I think the cap on backward is a hollywood phenomenon. I remember seeing some of the earlier Vietnam war movies with suppossed snipers turning their caps around backward so it wouldn't interfere with their eye relief (while the sun was shining directly into their faces). I can recall shooting a scoped military rifle, while I was serving with the military, while wearing a fatigue cap or other type of brimmed cap. I remember borrowing a brimmed cap once because the brim on my boonie hat was too short to shade the sun from my eyes, but I'll be danged if I can ever recall turning the hat around brim backward. I think we have been bollywood-ized with this one. JMTCW. Mikey.

RaySendero · « **Reply #11 on:** May 11, 2008, 12:21:09 PM »

I wear mine backwards when:

Shooting a scoped rifle from the bench
Dove hunting when the suns at my back
Riding in a boat

powderman · « **Reply #12 on:** May 11, 2008, 12:58:18 PM »

I saw a Dad a few years ago ask a cashier in the dollar store if he could borrow her scissors. He took his backwards cap wearing sons hat from him and cut the bill off, then handed it to him and asked, where are the belts??? POWDERMAN.

NONYA · « **Reply #13 on:** May 11, 2008, 01:15:19 PM »

Didnt the NAZIs tell people how to dress right before they opened the concentration camp?Who gives a dam how other people dress?Does it effect you?NO

no guns here · « **Reply #14 on:** May 11, 2008, 08:35:24 PM »

Well, my the bills on my ball caps are longer than the ones that were on my fatigue cap, BDU cap or ABU cap. I turn my ball cap backward to shoot from a bench. I turn it backward when bow shooting as well. Sometime's I just turn it backward for the heck of it... The best reason I have for wearing it backward is because my wife thinks I look "cute". Then I get to have fun...

Works for me...
ngh

Savage .250 · « **Reply #15 on:** May 12, 2008, 03:12:37 AM »

Wear it backwards only when in my bass boat, moving from spot to spot. Didn`t take long to figure that one out.

oldandslow · « **Reply #16 on:** May 12, 2008, 05:50:46 AM »

No big deal around here. Young people do it to look cool, middle aged people do because they don't want to admit they are getting old, and old poops like me even do it when the bill gets in our way or the cap blows off.

Years ago the county decided you couldn't wear your cap backwards at county sponsored activities because it was a sign of gang activity. A sheriff's deputy arrested my son-in-laws nephew at the county fair because he has his cap on backwards. Handcuffed him and threw him in jail. Tightened the handcuffs so tight they cut his wrists and they had to take him to the hospital for treatment. After the fuss was over he received an apology and the county paid the hospital bill. You can wear you cap however you want since that happened and no problem. Law enforcement decided to quit trying to dictate how a person should wear their cap.

rex6666 · « **Reply #17 on:** May 12, 2008, 05:58:54 AM »

Well if you read my original post, it makes no dif. how or why just conversation.
BUT i do think NO GUNS HERE has a very good reason.
I think Nonya as usual missed the point, and just wants to fight.

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #18 on:** May 12, 2008, 06:04:31 AM »

Every generation likes to think they invented everything but look back thru. some books or magazines or old movies and dang they wore them backwards also ! The African Queen , an old movie has Bogart with his on backwards some ! Baggy pants were in in the 70's
History repeats !
there was probably some cave man with baggy skins and coon skin cap AZZ backwards !

rex6666 · « **Reply #19 on:** May 12, 2008, 09:34:44 AM »

Come to think of it when i was in the 3-4 grade 1956-57-58 i remember their being a big
deal at school about high school guys wearing their jeans too low.
Now days i notice that SOME of the folks have abandon the backwards look for a side turn, and
you have to leave the tags on the cap, Minnie Pearl would be proud.

Tencubed · « **Reply #20 on:** May 12, 2008, 01:22:36 PM »

If I turn my Stetson around it looks like I'm goin where I bin.

NONYA · « **Reply #21 on:** May 12, 2008, 04:00:33 PM »

What was the point if I missed it?Sounded to me like you wanted peoples opinion about it before you shared your own,as usual.

billy_56081 · « **Reply #22 on:** May 12, 2008, 04:45:14 PM »

Now there are time as listed above when a backwards hat is necessary, another spot I have found wearing my ever present baseball hat backwards is when working in an area where there are places to bump your head at forehead height. But now as to any of my daughters young suitors who come around, I give them one warning to turn their hat correctly or they will leave very quickly.

beemanbeme · « **Reply #23 on:** May 12, 2008, 05:19:34 PM »

I've logged a lot of serious miles in a bass boat and never wore my hat backwards. Folks that have to do that might as well write "Pilgrim" on the side of the boat.

You have three stages. The young guys wear their hats backwards 'cause it pizzes their old man off. Middle age guys wear their hats backwards 'cause they want the chicks to think they look kewl instead of like middle aged men with backward hats. Old men would just like to remember where they put their hats.

In the next generation, kids will wear their hats with the visor forward. Why? To pizz off the old man.

Brithunter · « **Reply #24 on:** May 12, 2008, 09:58:22 PM »

Mother has a friend who is retired Police Inspector who served with the Metropolitan Police (London) they had a name for wearing the cap backwards. It was IQ indicator ( lack of).

As for baggy trousers, well just after WW2 when cloth became slightly more available here there came about a trouser (pant) called the Oxford bags. These had very wide baggy legs and they became the fashion for a while. ladies dresses got longer as they had to get shorter with cloth shortages. Rationing of certain things here in the UK did not finally disappear until the very late 1950's and early 1960's in some cases

ironglow · « **Reply #25 on:** May 13, 2008, 01:05:19 AM »

Brithunter;
Here they called those kind of trousers..pegs, or drapes..back then, they had gangs called "Zoot suiters"..held in general regard, in about as high esteem as today's
gangs..and about as high an IQ...
Nonya;
Folks have a right to dress however they want (within reason)..and other folks have a right to give priviliges, respect and jobs to who they consider mature
enough to handle same..

My brother has a grandson who insisted on wearing his hat backwards, until my brother told him about "grandpa"..who had a jackass that was a fairly good worker;
but one day the sun got hot and he found that the jackass did not like the heat on his neck. So "grandpa" took his own hat and put bit on the donkey..wouldn't stay on...so he got a baseball type cap with the little adjuster in back and found that he could slip the adjuster over the Jackass' ears and let the bill shade it's neck.
That's the only way he could get that jackass to work !
My brother told his grandson, " If wearing your hat that way makes you a more ambitious jackass, keep it up !" The lad soon found the wisdom of wearing the hat
the way it was intended..

Reminds me of when I am instructing a novice blacksmith and they choke up on the hammer handle..I simply ask, " why do you suppose they built those extra inches
onto the hammer handle ?" ...Guess that goes for the sunshade/bill of a cap..

Yup Mikey;
Part must be "Hollyweird"..When my cap interferes with the scope, I just tip it up a bit to accommodate the scope. My grandson, during his sniper duties normally left his Helmet
and shade glasses on. Especially with a one-on-one with an Al Queda sniper..he wanted to keep his Ballistic helmet and ballistic glasses on.

Far too many youngsters take Hollyweird
far too seriously. Coming back on ship from his first deployment, the Marines viewed a movie called "Jarhead"..made supposedly, about Marines involved in the first Gulf War.
Grandson said it was so unrealistic and silly, they laughed much more than expected.
If someone wants to see more of what it is like, go to... youtube.com and see videos like "US Marines battle insurgents in Fallujah" or any of those many Fallujah/ Ramadi videos posted by the Marines themselves.
A much more accurate picture...

woodchukhntr · « **Reply #26 on:** May 13, 2008, 03:43:41 AM »

Quote from: Brithunter on May 12, 2008, 09:58:22 PM

Mother has a friend who is retired Police Inspector who served with the Metropolitan Police (London) they had a name for wearing the cap backwards. It was IQ indicator ( lack of)

Thanks Brithunter, you made my day!

Lately I've noticed the hats with the brims to the sides. Then there is the beltless pants that are 2 sizes too big. I saw one guy that couldn't take 2 steps without pulling his pants up so he wouldn't trip. That too is a really good IQ indicator. The really cool look is wearing one of the visors worn backward and upside down. I guess they're worn that way to catch rainwater or to make a statement. Unfortunately, the statement is "I'm too stupid to wear this thing the right way"! Well, to each his own!

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #27 on:** May 13, 2008, 04:01:28 AM »

other than appeal to the eye whats the difference in a woman in a to short dress and some guy with his hat off center , pants around his knees and shirt inside out ?
Both are making a statement - LOOK AT ME !

rex6666 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 13, 2008, 04:09:50 AM »

Yea
the pants hanging so low they have to hold them up is an IQ give away. About a month ago the
service manager with the co. i work for had a young man apply for a job, he ask the young man
if he always wore his pants that way, he said yes. The service manager ask how he planned on doing
the job while holding his pants up with one hand, the young man said maybe they could change the
job. He was not hired.

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #29 on:** May 13, 2008, 04:17:15 AM »

Ya'll miss the point - generation after generation has been on welfare or other hand outs , they didn't have any other use for the hand so they save belt money by holding up their pants and saved more by getting larger pants to grow into !
look at the money they have save the tax payer , and ya'll say its all wasteful !