Since another one started it, namely Retired in Delaware, let's continue discussing beards.
That's my current beard over on the left. I'm a "gray-beard". My mother thinks it makes me look old. Well, truth-be-told, ma, I am old. Frankly I fear I might look a whole lot older beneath the beard. Who knows what those whisker hide.
I guess it raises the question why I grew one. It wasn't a vanity-thing and it wasn't some childhood want. I don't remember thinking about facial hair one way or the other as a boy. Closest I got back then was long sideburns. I didn't much like mustaches as a youth, though I did have a lip carpet occasionally over my life.
I thought about getting a tattoo when I was a teen, but never did and given I have a strong dislike of needles it isn't likely I ever will. I thought about getting a motorcycle when I was a teen as well, but never did. Given my age and what that can do to the fragility of bones, I don't think I'll be buying a hog in the future either.
I never thought about a beard as a teen, but that I got.
I had a beard a couple times before. It was kind of a whim back then, but I discovered something very interesting when I grew one. I got noticed and not in a bad way. I'd go to a department store counter with a crowd, for instance, and I'd get immediately waited upon; strange but true.
I got rid of the beard when I went to work for the bank and I didn't grow it again until a few years after the bank requested I retire for being too old. Being clean-shaven didn't help me there.
Problem is I have this thinned out skin from the blasted psoriasis. I couldn't shave anymore without out drawing several lines of blood. My face always looked like I wrapped it in barbed-wire every morning. I just got tired of ritual self-mutilation every day and quick shaving. No one seems to mind. My wife says she likes my beard.
Here are some images of past facial foliage.
Now, I have managed to write something again. Send me some comments to cheer me up.
