Joe, the halacha is that you have to wear a head covering for davening, eating, making a bracha, etc. It’s not technically required all the the time. Now it’s a binding minhag, but it hasn’t always been. Back in the day a lot of the frum professors at Brooklyn College carried their yarmulkehs in their pockets during lectures and in the halls, because many people discriminated against the Orthodox, and Jews could be forbidden to wear yarmulkehs during working hours, too. And there was a time in this country when some of even the most Orthodox women didn’t cover their hair. It only really became accepted by all after frum refugees started coming here after WWII.
Aren’t you glad that you live today, when the Civil Rights Movement and Johnson’s Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate on grounds of religion as well as grounds of race? We’ve come a long way since 1960. In fact, we’re downright spoiled. Case in point: look at all the fake chumetzdik foods that are kosher for Pesach – like we couldn’t go eight whole days without eating pizza or something. In fact, when I was really young there was no kosher pizza because no one had figured out how to make the right kind of cheese kosher – without using rennet from animals. Yes, we have the tuition crisis, but at least we have schools, something which was built up slowly and with mesirus nefesh over the years.