The Beard is Back

The Beard this morning at 8 am (big schnooz and all) 

A few weeks ago a friend of mine suggested that I shave off my beard.  He said it would make me look younger.

I shaved off my beard.  I did not look younger.  I looked every day (and then some) of my 68 years.

The suggestion was made because I have a white beard.  I no longer had the luxurious dark brown beard that I had when I first started to grow a beard in 1972.

1980 - Phillies World Series celebration in center city Philadelphia

Twice before I have shaved off my beard only to be confronted with a face that I did not like.  I could not imagine spending the rest of my days looking at that face in the mirror during my daily shave.  Oh no.  Not that face.  Gravity had taken its toll.  I had a saggy face. I had jowls.

White first began appearing in my beard twenty years ago.  A white whisker here, a white whisker there.  I wasn't alarmed because the "little bit o'gray" gave me a distinguished look.  However, all too soon my whole chin was covered in white whiskers hairs.  My chin had disappeared.

The White Chin appears - 1986

I am fortunate that I have an angular face with high cheekbones.  A well trimmed, dark beard completes my look.  To those of you who think I am too narcissistic, get over it.  I don't apologize for caring about my appearance.  I don't apologize for having a healthy self-esteem.  After having spend the formative years of my youth constantly berated by my father for being "stupid looking", I am thankful that I got away from home at an early age (joined the Army) and came to the realization that I wasn't any "stupider looking" than many of my fellow soldiers.

My Pop 1991 - Tough Love

Self image and self esteem is so important to mental health.  There is that fine line between self esteem and conceit.  I am not conceited.  I know the difference.  I know conceited people.  I know good-looking conceited people and I know not so good-looking conceited people.  I also know people who have a healthy self-esteem.  I notice that those people who have a healthy self-esteem aren't necessarily good-looking in the Hollywood measure but they are very attractive none-the less because of their healthy self-esteem.  I've also noticed that the so called good-looking conceited people aren't so attractive once you get to know them and their conceit.  They are very unattractive.


Having said all that, I look better with a beard.  I look even better when I color my beard.  Now where did I put my Just For Men?

By the way Pop, I'm still "stupid looking" but a cute stupid looking.

November 9, 1976 (my birthday) Stupid looking me with my stupid looking hat

The Bearded One

July 9, 2010 - with the beard

The beard is back!

A week ago I took the advice of a friend of mine and shaved off my beard.  My beard is almost all white.  Everyone was telling me I looked like an old man with the white beard.  Well, uh.....I am an old man.  I will be 69 years old this November.  There is no getting around that fact.  But, if I can shave a few years off of my visage why not.  What's good enough for Joan Rivers is certainly good enough for me.

So I shaved it off.  I didn't like what was hidden beneath my beard for the past thirty or so years.  There was an OLD MAN with jowls (JOWLS!) beneath that beard.  Oh no, this would do at all.

June 28, 2010 - without the beard

No I was a pale faced white OLD MAN.  I noticed that people didn't seem to pay as much attention to me. I don't know if this was my imagination for what was really happening.  I suspect it was a little bit of both.

So I decided to grow it back.  It doesn't take me long to grow a beard.  I can get a good growth in seven to ten days.  The only thing is that my beard comes in almost all white.  I can count the dark brown whiskers. There just aren't that many folks.  My mustache is still dark brown with a few white hairs but the beard on my chin?  All white baby.  ALL WHITE.

No, this wouldn't do at all.  Plus, I am getting hounded daily by my partner to grow my beard back and color it.  He says my beard takes years off of my face.  Plus, my dark beard brings out the blue in my eyes in addition to framing my narrow face.   Without a beard or a white beard, my face seems to fade in the background.

Yesterday I noticed that I had enough stubble to color it.  I got out my Just For Men and applied the medium dark brown (Just For Men is very good with the subtle shades) and applied it to my newly grown beard.  Viola!  The Old Ron (or Young Ron) is back!

Sure, I have more wrinkles (living baby, living) and less hair that I did 20 or 30 years ago but I still have the same panache with my dark beard now that I had back in my heyday.

So I go into work last night at the hotel with my new beard.  My new look was immediately noticed by my boss and co-workers.  He asked me if I colored my beard.  I told him that I "grew a new one."  He said "Uh huh.  It looks like you used Just For Men."  He had me.  My boss is only 30 years old and he has a reddish brown beard with nary a gray hair.  Just wait until his beard turns and it will.

I checked in my first guests.  I noticed that they took more notice of me unlike the guests I checked in the night before.  Those guests hardly paid attention to me.  that was because with my white stubble of a beard I was fading in the background.  Not now, I was out there with my restored Dark and Mysterious Look.  It felt good.

My surprised "Miss Richmond 1980" look (it's an inside joke) 

The beard stays.  That reminds me, I have to pick up some more Just For Men the next time I go to Walmart.

Beards

Tsar Nicholas Romanov 1898

On this hot a muggy June day what am I going to write about?  Beards.  Yes, beards.  I'll let the subject of my infestation of Japanese Beetles go for another day.

From the first time I saw Jon Nagy with his Van Dyke type beard, I wanted one. For those of you old enough to remember, Jon Nagy was a television personality of the early Fifties who taught "Anyone can draw."  At that time in my young life (10 years old) I fancied that I wanted to be an artist.  And the man who was going to teach me to be an artist was Jon Nagy.  I looked up to that man.  I thought he was a cool as could be.  Not for me Howdy Doody and Buster Bob and the stupid, silly Soupy Sales; I wanted to be cool like Jon Nagy.  Unfortunately it wasn't I was in high school taking numerous art classes that I discovered I had absolutely no artistic talent.  But that fact didn't dissuade me from wanting a full beard.

There were two other men whose beards I admired greatly.  Coincidentally they were both first cousins.  Their mothers were both Danish princesses.  Tsar Nicholas Romanov of Russia was the one man who had a fantastic beard.  His cousin, King George V of England had an equally outstanding beard.  I wanted to look like them.  However, at ten years old, I was some years away from having enough testosterone to grow such a manly, impressive beard.

King George V 1895

After I graduated from high school I joined the Army.  Of course in the Army of that day (the early Sixties) a beard was strictly verboten.  Only hippies and "artistic types" (read homosexuals and perverts) had beards in those days.

After I left the Army I scrambled around for a job.  Of course one didn't interview for a job in those days with a beard.  Again, the same rules applied.  If you had a beard you were either a revolutionary or "artistic" (which was dangerous because "artistic" could cover so many threatening fields.)  Clean shaven, I got a job at Girard Bank in Philadelphia in March of 1965.

Me 1969

Some years pass and the urge to have a beard still was in my subconscious.  I have an angular face with a prominent nose and a beard would set me off from the rest of the rabble.  Plus, I wanted to look as attractive as I could be for my weekend bar hopping excursions looking for strangers in the night.

Me 1972

Thus is came to pass one day I started to grow a beard.  About the third day in my beard growth, some of my older, more conservative co-workers started to express alarm.  They asked "Why are you growing a beard?"  They felt threatened.  Was this a revolutionary in their midst?  Another co-worker said "You are already very handsome, why would you want to grow a beard?"  My answer was always the same, "Because I've always wanted a beard."

In about two weeks time I had a full, dark brown beard and it was as fabulous as I thought it would be.  I was a happy guy.  Almost immediately I noticed that I would attract attention when I walked into my local watering hole on the weekend.  Viola!  I now felt complete.  This was in the year 1972.

Me November 9, 1976

For most of the past almost 40 years I have had a full beard.  Back about 17 years ago my beard started to turn white.  My hair stayed dark brown (less of it) but the beard on my chin was full white.  At various times I left it white and other times I colored it with Just For Men.  I only colored my beard to stop Bill (my life partner) from nagging me about my white beard.  He said "You look much younger with a dark beard."  Of course he was right.  But what a pain it was to color it every five days, not to mention the expense.  Another problem was the splatters of the coloring got on my bathroom sink top and was hard to remove.  Was this worth it?

Me November 1980 (celebrating Phillies winning World Series)

Back in 1995 I shaved my beard.  I didn't like what I saw under the beard.  My face had changed.  Gravity had worked it's magic.  I had this "thing" around my mouth that I didn't have before.  I didn't like my look nor did anyone else.  I grew my beard back.

From that day until this weekend I had not shaved my beard.  This weekend I shaved it on the "advice" of a friend who said I looked "old" with a white beard.  Of course he was right but then again, I am old.  I am 68 years old.  I will be 68 years old this November.  I am an old fart.  What do you want?

Me and my First Financial Bank employee photo 2001 - I'm coloring my beard now

Well, talk about not liking what I saw when I shaved my beard.  This time I discovered I had jowls.  Yes , jowls.  Definitely not a pretty sight.  In fact, my jowls have taken away my boyish look that I had retained for lo these many years.  I now have that Old Prospector Look.  Maybe I don't look like Gabby Hayes but I definitely cold pass for Slim Pickens brother.

Me this morning sans beard - I don't like it

So here is what I'm going to do.  I'm growing the beard back.  I will color it sometimes and sometimes I won't.  Tsar Nicholas didn't make it to a grand old age (we all know THAT story) but George V did.  Looking at Old George in his later years, he doesn't look all that bad.  I would rather look like George V in his twilight years than Wilford Brimely.

Wilford Brimley and his look alike cat