Protecting your eyes from the sun in old-time Phoenix

In the past hundred years Phoenix has changed a lot, but what hasn't changed is the glaring sun. The skies are not cloudy all day, and the sun glares. If you've ever driven into the sun in the morning, or late afternoon, you know what I mean. And in the winter months, when the weather is at its best, the sun is very low in the south, so you get glare in that direction all day long. Mostly nowadays people wear sunglasses, which have been popular for so long that it's difficult to imagine a time when they weren't around.

I suppose I could Google when sunglasses were first invented, and probably before that picture of Sheriff Carl Hayden was taken in 1916. And even if they were available to him, I'm sure that he wouldn't consider looking ridiculous out in public, and wearing "smoked glasses". He wore a wide-brimmed hat. As you can tell, it shaded his eyes, and that would have been important for a man who needed to shoot people, as necessary.

As the years went by, and traveling in cars became more common, the hat brims got smaller, and it was just considered a fashion statement for men by the 1950s. By the 1960s, when I was a little kid, the only men who wore hats were the old guys. I understand that after President Kennedy appeared in public hatless, hats were no longer considered a requirement of what a well-dressed man wore.

I just took my morning walk for coffee to McDonalds, and I wore a baseball cap (I dislike sunglasses). And it wasn't a fashion statement, the sun was low early in the morning, and even when it got higher as I walked south I appreciated the shade over my eyes. I wasn't strutting like Carl Hayden was, with a cigar in my mouth, and packin' heat under my coat, but in my imagination I was. At least my eyes were shaded.