Beard Science

I'm normally a clean-shaven fellow. I also don't really like to wear hats,or sunglasses, but that's beside the point. This post is about facial hair. As I previously stated, most days out of the year I don't have any facial hair, but whenever I go up to our family cabin (which is usually once a year), I grow out my beard.

Not shaving while in the woods for about a week allows me to get past the awkward, drunk hobo look and return to the public with decent growth. I usually keep the beard until it gets annoyingly itchy, or until I have to start to trim and maintain it, which is also annoying. Having a beard gives me a chance to try a different look and hide my double chin. Plus, my wife likes me with facial hair, so that's a bonus. Although she called this last beard "distinguished," which means there's gray in it and I'm getting old.

However, every beard's life must come to an end in my house. And when that time comes, I don't quite know how to deal with it. Just shaving it off seems so unceremonious and anti-climatic. In the past I've shaved it off in parts and sported a goatee, an extended mustache and mutton chops for an evening. I should have been thinking bigger. I should have been thinking more grandiose. I should have been more creative, like Ben Garvin and his beard:



Now THAT'S how you shave a beard off! Well done, Mr. Garvin.