Whiskers

Americans have had an on-again-off-again affair with beards throughout our history.  One year, corporations and the military dictate clean shaven faces for all, but time-travel a dozen years either way and the attitude is is closer to that of Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing - "He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man."

Of course, as George Carlin said –“Lenin had a beard.  Gabby Hayes had Whiskers.”

My grandson Bryce is now of an age at which he will soon begin shaving every day, if he hasn’t already.  The truth is that with his blond hair and fair skin, he doesn't really need to shave yet, and I would strongly advise him to wait – to hold off as long as possible.

He won’t. 

Like getting their first training bra for girls, shaving is a rite of passage for boys, something they can’t wait to do.  I can remember soaping up my face at the age of four or five and using my dad’s Gillette (without the double-edged blade) to wipe it off.  I think every boy does that at one time or another.

Still, I should warn him that once you start, it’s almost impossible to quit. 

Some us can’t grow a good looking beard to save our lives, and almost nobody can pull off the scraggly/sexy look Don Johnson made popular on Miami Vice, so shaving becomes a dreary, annoying, but necessary part of our daily ritual.

In my forties, I was finally able to grow a fairly respectable moustache, but even that got mixed reviews.  I liked it, our daughters liked it, but my wife did not.  She didn’t like the way it felt, and she thought it made me look older. To be honest, it made shaving more difficult – trimming around it without messing it up added extra minutes each morning to a chore I already disliked.

One of the blessings of retirement seemed to be that I would only have to shave when I decided that I wanted to shave, but now I have learned that even that blessing came with a curse.  I have developed a small but thick  patch of very white hair under my septum just below my right nostril.  If I don’t shave at least every other day, I start to look like I have a runny nose.