Have you ever noticed the obligatory five
or six young men standing behind every Grand Champion steer or heifer
at a major livestock show who were responsible for grooming the animal?
While every hair is in place on the bovine the talented fellas
responsible look like they just spent six months as roustabouts in
northern Alaska without access to running water or shaving utensils.
They have so much facial hair one wonders if they go out in public does
PETA throw paint on them thinking they're wearing wool?
Beards
and mustaches are a generational thing. If you look at pictures of our
Presidents you'll see that only one or two of our Presidents up until
Abe Lincoln had facial hair. Then Abe started a trend of nine Presidents
who wore some kind of facial hair. (In Abe's case he had a good reason,
he was uglier than a mud fence.) Then for no discernible reason,
Presidents became clean shaven again and the last President who had any
kind of facial hair was William Taft who was our 27th President.
While
my generation was famous for growing our hair long in almost every
instance we budding baby boomers were clean shaven. I had eight uncles
and as I recall there wasn't a beard in the bunch, although I did have
an aunt with a mustache. Fast forward to today and any self-respecting
man has some sort of beard, mustache, fu man chu, soul patch, flavor
saver or soup strainer. Even muttonchops have made a comeback. And
therein lies my problem. Except for those days spent in a coma, from
the time I started shaving at 16 until I turned 65 I shaved nearly every
day of my life. And I hated every day of it!
I
encountered many problems being a serial shaver. First, I'm nearly
blind and not being able to see my face in the foggy mirror meant one
sideburn was always an inch or two higher then the other and a chunk
would be missing from my nose, ear and/or both. I was also a chronic
bleeder which meant I always had several tiny pieces of toilet paper
with red dots in the middle all over my face when I went out in public.
Fast forward to today when everyone has facial hair and being clean
shaven means I stick out worse than the wart on Abe Lincoln's face.
Then
there's the costs associated with shaving. Men and women don't just
shave these days with a razor and a blade, oh no, they have to use a
"shaving system" so Proctor and Gamble and Gillette can charge you $25
for a package of blades. Thank goodness dollar stores came along where I
can buy a whole bag of throwaway razors for a buck.
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