By : Sooner or later every male high school student has to come to grips with his facial hair or lack of same. For every overachiever who has a five o’clock shadow in 9th grade, there is a smooth-cheeked guy in 12th grade who wonders if he got shortchanged in the hormone department.
I see local high school boys waiting for the school bus every morning. I never see one with facial hair, so I’m sure high school dress codes still prohibit it. Of course, it is always fun to push the envelope. In my day, I did this by gradually extending my sideburns further and further down my ears. Eventually, the powers that be would take notice and say something, so I cut them back…then let them creep down again.
In my mid-20s I grew a full beard and had only shaved it off once, in the late 1970s, when I was between jobs and temporarily working as a movie extra. As soon as the production is wrapped, I let the beard grow back and since then have occasionally trimmed it but not shaved it.
Beards were so rare 40 years ago that little kids used to stare at me in public. Not anymore; today there’s a good chance their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers have beards. Even so, I am amazed by the contemporary fashion of men with beards that cascade down their chests. Today it’s not hard to find men looking like cavemen, like Old Testament prophets, like barbarians, like the Smith Brothers, like Gilded Age Presidents, like two-thirds of ZZ Top…like patriarchs! There, I said it!
I see local high school boys waiting for the school bus every morning. I never see one with facial hair, so I’m sure high school dress codes still prohibit it. Of course, it is always fun to push the envelope. In my day, I did this by gradually extending my sideburns further and further down my ears. Eventually, the powers that be would take notice and say something, so I cut them back…then let them creep down again.In my mid-20s I grew a full beard and had only shaved it off once, in the late 1970s, when I was between jobs and temporarily working as a movie extra. As soon as the production is wrapped, I let the beard grow back and since then have occasionally trimmed it but not shaved it.
Beards were so rare 40 years ago that little kids used to stare at me in public. Not anymore; today there’s a good chance their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers have beards. Even so, I am amazed by the contemporary fashion of men with beards that cascade down their chests. Today it’s not hard to find men looking like cavemen, like Old Testament prophets, like barbarians, like the Smith Brothers, like Gilded Age Presidents, like two-thirds of ZZ Top…like patriarchs! There, I said it!
