ANSWER: None.

Clark Gable took off his shirt in the 1939 Academy Award winning movie, "It Happened One Night." When this revealed that he was wearing no undershirt, it supposedly spelled doom for the undershirt industry.

Hat manufacturers say that a major decline in their industry started when John F. Kennedy came bareheaded to his presidential inauguration. This is a falsehood, because there are many pictures of Kennedy and his inauguration entourage wearing high silk hats.

If the hat people want to blame John F. Kennedy for declining sales, a more true observation is that he normally did appear in public bareheaded. Kennedy had a magnificent head of hair -- and enough of it to cover a medium size sofa.

Perhaps a more significant factor was the return of soldiers and sailors from World War II. For years they had been under command to have some sort of head gear, and they had had enough of it.

Whatever the reason -- somewhere along the line men stopped wearing hats.

There is an old film, still in existence, of Kennett, during the early 1940's. This film shows many men wearing some sort of hat -- from the standard felt, to a straw, or Panama hat, and this was not restricted to any particular society, or vocation.

Then it all stopped. Just why is difficult to nail down.

A number of women today say they like men wearing hats. This should be causing a boom in hat sales. But then men can sometimes be as dogmatically individualistic as women -- just not as often.

Women own the battlefield when it comes to fashion wars. Actually they dress to please each other, or to make each other envious. Their approach to style is primarily guided by feminine obstinacy, or some nut in Paris. Men often cringe at feminine innovations in clothing. Quite frankly, women just don't care.

Hats for men made a brief comeback in the late 50's and early 60's. Frank Sinatra was at the height of his popularity when he started wearing a short brim felt hat that had a jaunty "go-to-hell" look about it. He changed in the summer to a colorful straw version of the same thing.

All of the guys wanted women falling at their feet, like Sinatra. So men in their 20's and early 30's were often seen wearing the Sinatra style hat. This "devil may care" look was best wearing a sport coat and tie, and ridiculously foolish with a full 3-piece suit.

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made a brief stab at reviving hats in their 1980 movie, "The Blues Brothers." This one fell flat before it got started.

Some large companies demanded that their field representatives wear hats. Their thinking was that hats signified professionalism and discipline. Police detectives always wore hats to give them that no nonsense persona.

Now men either go bareheaded, or wear caps. Caps used to be reserved for fishermen and golfers to keep the sun out of their eyes. It's different today. Now you will see young business men boarding an airplane wearing a cap, jeans, and carrying a laptop.

The cap with a bill is a fine utilitarian item. It protects the head, shades the eyes, and is extremely comfortable. It was not meant, however, to be worn with the bill at the back of the head. This destroys the whole concept of a cap with a bill.

Forget about what kids do. They don't count. They want their pants to flop, their underwear to show, and their caps on backwards. What is woeful is to see some grungy gray beard wearing his cap turned the wrong way. The right word for this look is politically incorrect. Let's just say it suggests a major deficiency in intellectual capacity.

Hats will come back someday because for centuries men have worn hats, and caps will probably run their course. Some little spurt in time is not going to establish a forever.

Hats make sense. They make sense because man is not protected by a furry growth, or pounds of blubber like a polar bear. Anthropologists say that man will gradually lose more body hair. So as man becomes ever more balder he will need something to ward off the elements. It may be something heretofore unimagined. But....

Man is going to need some kind of toboggan to protect the noggin.

QUESTION: Who is Al Franken?

ANSWER: Al Franken is the author of a new book entitled "The Truth." He is the host of The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.

All of us have met people whose opinions are based on those of the last person he talked to.

If you want a variety of clashing opinions, you might read some of the many books by radio and TV talk show hosts.

Each one of them is remindful of one of the old Clint Eastwood action movies, where there are the good guys versus evil incarnate. Clint is there to decisively settle the issues.

If you are to believe every word of Al Franken's "The Truth," then hanging, or being stoned to death is far too honorable for George Bush and his Republican cohorts in crime. Justice could be better served by throwing them into a scum pond loaded with hungry alligators.

On the other hand, you might try reading books, or articles, by Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter, and you will conclude that liberals are so noxious with poison fumes that a trip to the gas chamber for them would be soothing and therapeutic.

If you read one of these books, then quickly read another from the other side. Otherwise you could be hopelessly brainwashed. A better idea would be to read two books at the same time, while switching from one to the other to maintain equilibrium.

These books are quick reads and a lot of fun, because unbridled hatred is always fascinating.

These people really don't like each other. They make a lot of money involved in a verbal chain saw massacre to cut each other to ribbons.

Do they ever really settle anything? Do they offer solutions? Not really. These books are definitely accusatory -- prosecutorial, without a defense attorney in sight.

Where is Clint Eastwood when we need him?

The Answer Man will appear on occasion in the Daily Dunklin Democrat, and will provide answers to various and sundry questions about local people, etc. Readers are invited to submit their queries to The Answer Man by e-mailing them to bhunt@dddnews.com.