With health on everyone’s minds these days, masks are becoming much more ubiquitous. The major benefit of this, besides the whole virology aspect, is the parallel reemergence of bandannas as a socially acceptable article of clothing.

Do I need to say why bandannas are cool? They’re so rad. Almost everyone has one – they’re just simple pieces of cloth – and can be used for a variety of purposes from preventing airborne disease to fire starting to fashion accessory to medical slings to representing gang affiliation to – you get the point.

But the the best case for bandannas is that cowboys wore bandannas and cowboys are cool.

I recently learned that cowboys also used bandannas functionally and not just as a fashion accessory. During cattle drives, bandannas were essential to keeping the dust kicked up by the cows out of one’s nose and eyes and the bandanna could be rotated to cover the back of the neck to keep from sunburn. As an individual living in the lands that made up the frontier, I feel some slight kinship to these rough riders of old when I don my own bit of colored fabric.

I, for one, will be wearing a bandanna until mask culture dies down. Maybe even a little bit longer after that just to see if it’ll stick.