When people are feeling stressed and need a change, they often go out and do something crazy or stupid or expensive or some combination. Like buy a car they cannot afford, get a massive and inappropriate tattoo, spend a month with black-clad idiots trying to break into a federal courthouse, or drink themselves stupid and legally change their name to Céline Dion in a blackout. So many choices!
Me? I'm considering a beard.
I've been cleanshaven now for more than a decade. The last time I started to grow the ol' fungus was when I got laid off from a job (a job that I hated, but still) and went on a facial strike -- no shaving until I got an interview. The church pastor saw me at one point and startled, like I'd shown up wearing cartoon hobo clothes. Ultimately I did shave before I got an interview, because it was summertime and the beard was too itchy.
That's one of the anti-beard arguments, that while it's growing in it's unpleasant on the face.
A pro-beard argument, though, is when it gets thicker it gives us some protection from the cold. And we got plenty of cold here at this time of year.
The one time I really had a nice, well-groomed beard was about the time my wife and I were engaged. The engagement photo in the paper featured the lovely bride-to-be and me with a real nice Sherwood Forest face and proper hair. Well, the hair ain't coming back, but the beard could.
Of course, that's another thing about beards that are pro- and anti- ; when your hair gets thin on top, they at least give you the appearance of hair. But everybody knows that's why you grew it. Then you look like one of those upside-down hair/beard drawings.
A beard isn't really a labor-saver. Gotta keep it neat. I still have to shave the neck. I don't want to look like one of those hell-bound creeps who drives a rental truck into a crowded Christmas market.
My wife says I don't need a beard because I have a sharp jawline. But a beard is more than camouflage. It's a way of looking at the world and saying... I have hair on my face, world! So there!
I'm about four days in and still undecided. Sadly, four days in I still look like I just forgot to shave one morning. My family is not known for five-o'clock shadow. But it will get there in time.
So what do you think? Beard yes? Beard no? Your vote counts! At least here it does.
11 comments:
Beards = soup strainer or leftover bits of your last meal (especially if mustard or ketchup was involved). And I'm sure it would be pretty unpleasant with our current face mask stupidity. In my case, it always came in patchy, so that even in my 60s I look like an adolescent trying hard to appear as an adult. Of course, I'm still doing that emotionally, so maybe patchy and scruffy would be a perfect complement to the inner me!
Dear Mr. Key,
I love your ramblings, thank you for the daily distraction.
I would suggest that you wash the beard area with dandruff shampoo as that helps to keep the itching to a minimum.
Your Pal,
Mark
Thank you, gentlemen! So far that's 1 Yes, 1 No. And I appreciate the tip, Mark.
I stopped shaving (except for edges, of course) about 30-some years ago while I was recovering from surgery gone baddish. I didn't start again because I don't like shaving. Not-shaving is the (my) only legitimate reason for a beard. Trimming/neatness can be a pain, but not if you pay the extra bucks for a beard trim when you get a haircut, if that is still somewhat necessary.
On a related note, my last haircut was back in June, I think, because I had to get a new drivers license. My hair is now obnoxiously long but the worst part is that I have had to trim my own beard since.
Still, count me in on the pro-beard side.
I had not had a beard since freshman year in college. September 2019 I was on vacation and just didn't shave and have had the beard since.
For me the biggest benefit seems to be that it makes me look friendlier. I know I am a teddy bear in personality and spirit, but strangers and even people I worked with always looked at me like I was an ogre. Grow a beard like an ogre and suddenly I get more smiles and friendly encounters. Softens my face somehow. Little gray to look fatherly.
If it lifts your spirit, I say go for it.
As long as Mrs. Key likes it, go for it.
I've had grown-out whiskers off-and-on since I retired over ten years ago. Mostly because I don't bother to shave for a bit and then I need to trim it and then the trimmer nick my lip and then...
Well, right now I have a couple of months' worth of whiskers. May last until I go to my barber lady (she's really a stylist, but I can't bring myself to say I go to a hair stylist).
Just remember -- Rasputin had a beard. Castro had a beard. Gabby Hays had whiskers.
OK, beard it is! Unless Mrs. K vetoes it. Perhaps I too can be as friendly as Fuzzywuzzy like BG Bear. And Dan, was that Carlin?
Used to do the Yosemite Sam mustache, then graduated to a trim goat. Don't recognize myself when I was a little shaver, with hair on top and none of the face. I say, try a beard. OK to change your mind after 30 days.
Grow one! As a man who went a year without shaving and only looked like a mangled rug, I say do it if you can!
I have gone with mutton chops. Facial hair, eccentric, but the wife doesn't complain when I kiss her.
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