May 23rd: Another Ending

      Always a man for a challenge, that does not necessarily mean I am not excited about the challenge coming to a close.  The journey is always nice, but there has to be an end to all things and this adventure in Goat-hood was no different.  I did as my students challenged me to do, growing it from the first day of school to the last.  I fought through counter-challenges from students and adults alike, one of which included me shaving all the hair on my head and face, eyebrows included.  I was rather glad that one did not work out, as I have enough trouble with my eyebrows as it is--those wayward ne'er-do-wells atop my brow-ridges do not want to obey and, as my boss at my second zoo job once told me, "...your eyebrows only get worse as you get older, and you'll probably have to have someone take care of them."  He had his wife take care of his with regular trimming and, though I would never subject my poor wife to that, I do allow the razor to stray occasionally from the chin and face to take the errant brow-piece.  Hell, my trimmer came with an "Eyebrow Tamer," (their words, not mine) so why not use it?

      In the end, it was 277 days of Goat-growth, 178 of which I spent in the company of children whom were not my own, as I battled through another year in an elementary classroom.  By the end, I had heard all the possible comments on my beard, its variety of colors, lengths, growth patterns, and everything else you could imagine.  Parents were the same in their approach, growing ever more fearless as the year progresses, and they knew me better.  You see, I have something of a scary-guy reputation at my school for whatever reason, with or without the beard, and most parents find that, after we meet for our Fall Conference, that is about as far from the truth as could be.  All the same, they have no fear of commenting about the beard as we near the end of the year.  My favorite comment came at this year's Field Day as one parent stood next to me and said, "Look, I think you're a good teacher so I can put up with all this..." (gesturing to the beard.)  Never mind that none of us would have found ourselves subjected to this year of beard-dom without the day one challenge from the kids.  But it takes a bearded fool to take up such an errand, and I suppose I am just that kind of fool.

Early May: Mud in Your Beard

       There are so many amazing opportunities to flaunt one's beard out in the world and if you may allow me to highly recommend one, it is to take part in a Tough Mudder immediately, if not sooner.  In early May I had the opportunity to run my second one in southern Vermont, once again talking my brother into running it with me.  As a former college sprinter and sturdy mountain and rock climber, my brother (Keith) was up for the challenge of last year's event, though he was a bit concerned about the running, as the event claimed some unspecified distance "around ten miles."  It was a difficult slog up and down Mount Snow in southern Vermont, but he agreed (after some time off to forget the pain of that day) to partake once again. 
       With this year's goatee challenge to follow up on last year's assault on the Mudder by the Bearded Brothers--and on Mudder's Day, no less--Keith was up for growing the facial hair that I did not.  Thus the serious Wolverine-esque man-chops in the above photo.

     This year's Mudder featured over ten miles of mountain running over a slightly different course, including some new obstacles during the run.  The Berlin Walls (above) remain my least favorite obstacle, mostly due to my stubby arms and legs.  Last year my arms were so cold after repeated mountain-water dunkings, that I could barely lift them to pull myself up on the walls.  This year I was significantly stronger in the shoulders, though I was not helped by the fact that there were no toe-hold foot-boards to use as a step up the 8-12 foot walls.  The manly technique I demonstrate above shows how short people have learned to compensate for vertical inadequacy for years.
 

   
   A gripping new obstacle this year was the Electric Eel, in which we competitors were asked to belly-slither along a man-made rubber pool, all while attempting to avoid the dangling wires prepared to jolt us with a shot of stay-down electricity.  The combination of water and electricity proved numbing to my right shoulder blade, which regained feeling some time after the race a few hours later.

      This, of course, does not negate the charge one receives out of the Electroshock Therapy obstacle that serves as the traditional end-point of all Tough Mudder races.  The wooden apparatus above is hung with thousands of dangling wires, most of which offer varying degrees of shock.  Apparently the hay bales over which Keith is performing a picture-perfect face-plant were not there at the beginning of the day but the race organizers found the wires were suspended high enough to allow many competitors to skirt under them, in a strictly metaphoric sense, though there were a significant number of runners wearing skirts and other costumes.
      While Keith made it most of the way through before getting dropped by an electrical charge over the last bale, I was smiling so much (the story of my race--all photos of me feature toothy smiles) that I took a jot to one of my massive upper incisors.  Served me right, I suppose.

       And here we are, the inverted bearded faces of two happy competitors who survived another Tough Mudder...and signed up for another in October.  Whether we are pushing our luck to be taking on another on, in a different state, in the same year, remains to be seen.  But, hey, it's an Olympic year so why not go for it?

Beginning of April

All right! Now we are looking large. This is the point at which people just look at my chin and shudder, often inquiring, "...so, how long are you going to keep that up?" Many of my students are suggesting I should grow a mustache next, which is their way of saying "OK, just shave that thing already!" No such luck. This was their challenge and what kind of teacher would I be if I gave up on it so easily.

I must confess, however, that I do look forward to the end of the time with this overgrown chin-rat. Last year's full-beard challenge ran from November to July and that is just about the same amount of time I have been cultivating this chin-pube garden. The waviness of the Goat at its southern terminus is actually a point of amusement to me, especially since its unpredictable, ivy-like reach for all points of space, regardless of gravitational pull, causes many people to ask me if I ever comb it. The answer to that is ALL THE TIME!

In fact, I was recently accused of clogging the sink drain in our bathroom because large wads of hair emerge when we coat-hanger dredged the drain. Lest we be confused, I live with three females, so none can pin this entire clogging on me. Plus, the only hairs I send down the drain are the ones from shaving the rest of my face and, since I never allow those to get too long (in the spirit of Goat-dom) I doubt those blocked much of anything. To be honest, I used to comb my chin above the sink, just to see how many hairs I lost each day, but I always tried to sweep them out of the sink bowl and into the trash before they latched their tenterhooks to the inner-workings of our drainpipe.

With about two months to go, here is a look at seven months of Goat-growth. Enjoy!

Mid-March

My daughter's pre-school had a Special Friends Day and, for some odd reason, they allowed a Goat to visit her for her third and final tour through the school (she's off the Kindergarten next year!)

How strange that a school would allow such a creature to enter their confines. What would have happened if this beast were to eat the books, or the numerous paper crafts and projects on display around the room? If you are unable to see the poor girl hiding beneath the flank of said Goat, you are not alone--she is easy to miss.

Not only did they allow this Goat into their midst, but they allowed it to play with other children, stage a read-aloud for all the Special Friends also in attendance that day, and even invited it back for a storytelling next month, on a Friday when he is not doing the daily tour of his own school.

As for my students, they are still in full denial that this could possibly be the same Goat they asked me to grow at the beginning of the year. So confused are they, in fact, that many of them have forgotten why the Goat is still a daily presence in their classroom, as they ask me a few times a week when I am going to shave. When I tell them, "After school is out," they just seem confused, the poor souls. Such is the efffect of the massive Goat, at times.

Here is another view of the Goat's visit to Special Friends Day. Look at the anguished look on the other girl's face, as she wonders how soon the Goat will depart. (Actually, she was laughing, and probably a bit uncomfortably because, what else can you do when something this ridiculous is attached to the chin of one of your friends/classmates?)

Beginning of March

The multi-colored Goat is in full effect now. The tangles and snarls result in numerous off-shoots from the main Goat-body, and it is these strays that catch the attention of many others, particularly those much shorter than me. And, since I spend much of my day around the ones in my class (at school) or in my family (at home) it is difficult to avoid the questions about the colors in my beard.

I managed to gross out the kids in my class this week as I referred to how my Goat was keeping me awake at night and, when they inquired as to how, I pulled the Goat up to my mouth and inserted a large mouthful of hair. This was true: the Goat at this length, just as its predecessor--the Beard--did, drifts upward toward (and into) my mouth each night as I attempt to sleep. One of the hazards of Goat-dom, to be sure, but nothing that cannot be overcome. For an extra-special view of the aforementioned facial-travesty, see below:

The entire things is pretty ridiculous, to be honest with you.

Mid-February

Loyal follower, we are now at the six month mark of the giant Goat and the taming of the beard has begun. What was a snaggly mess has begun to change its shape and feature from day to day, graduating from the in-between Mon-Chi-Chi of three weeks ago to the flowing tidal surge you see before you now.

We have moved on (somewhat) from straight-out Civil War reenactment to something that still needs daily tending. Though my hair is long, and destined to grow longer as we scrape funds close to our tax return, it still requires far less daily manicuring than my chin.

The tides may shift approximately every twelve hours but the Goat presents a Christmas morning surprise nearly every day. No matter the amount of combing, it still decides which way it will flow each morning and resists all attempts at shaping and guidance.

One morning it may be pulling to the right--a car badly in need of alignment--while the next it might curl up in a pseudo-nefarious motif. The Goat, apparently, is fully capable of making its own decisions. It's like I have an independent life form on my chin. The only time I feel slight harmony is during a run in the wind, when the Goat braces itself against the wind just as the rest of my body does. It screams out, "OK, you're leaving me hanging out here with no protection, so I'll curl up under your neck and help you for now, but only for now! When we get back home, we are back to our previous arrangement." Perhaps I should go running more often.

Here is close-up view:

Beginning of February

There are always times, in the beard's evolution, that things go a little haywire and the beard takes on its own personality and appears ready to make its own decisions. Whenever I shave my head (usually each summer) I often shave it several more times before allowing it to grow back in. This does not occur because I am afraid it will not grow back in, as one of my college roommates often claimed was his number one reason for not shaving his head, but because I have to commit to the Mon-Chi-Chi look at some point, and I am always reluctant to do that.

The Mon-Chi-Chi head occurs about two months after I finally commit to the full re-grow, and there is rarely anything I can do about it. It is the stage of hair growth during which my hair is too short to boss around, and I am unable to shove it into any position which I would like it to assume. But it is also too long to leave untouched: the true beauty of a shorn head. So, for those two or three weeks of in-between growth, I am stuck with the hair that resembles nothing other than those horrible pseudo-monkeys of mid-eighties toy fame; or fleeting fame, as it were: the Mon-Chi-Chi.

This is what the Goat has come to as well. A far cry from the resemblance to an early primate ancestor hairdo, the Goat at this stage shares one thing in common with that Mon-Chi-Chi look: it does whatever it wants, wearer be damned. Have a look for yourself below.














Note the left side of the Goat (on the right in your view of the photo.) That "wing" of hair has actually subsided over the past few days, transforming from its worst moments, as the mischievous curl of dastardly cartoon villains' moustaches to the flowing wing of facial hair it now resembles. This is usually the point during beard growth at which a student will ask me, "Why don't you just trim that thing?" When I confess that such a deed would defy the spirit of the pact we entered into all those months ago, I am usually met with an incredulous stare, followed by, "Well, then you could at least comb it!"

Little do they know how much time I have to spend each morning combing this beast, bringing tears to my eyes with every fifth stroke as it catches hair and plucks some wayward tangle from my chin. I have more respect for the ladies in my house each time I do this, as my hair does not tangle or snag very easily and I rarely suffer through the horrible rip-sessions that serve as their daily hair-combings. The small knot of chin hairs in the sink after each combing would probably worry me if they were from my head but, as this is a temporary commitment, it does not bother me in the slightest. Enjoy a second view below: