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:

Mid-January

"Your beard is ridiculous!" That was what one of the women with whom I work said to me a few days ago; and so we open the season in which everyone feels free to comment on the growth of my facial hair. Bring it on!


What I have always found curious, in that suppressed-Sociologist kind of way, is how so many of these people are ones I rarely see and even more infrequently have the opportunity to talk to. People I barely know will from henceforth feel it is well-within their rights as beard-nation citizens to comment and question the look and flow of my beard.


At least that will happen if this goatee adventure follows the path of last year's ridiculous beard. In the second half of that beard's journey, random strangers approached me more often than known-ones (as opposed to loved-ones, who always felt free to offer more than two cents on the situation.) Don't get me wrong, I do not mind the comments at all. At least it gives people something else to discuss besides their jobs and the weather. As a champion of anti-small-talk, that is all I could ask for.


Here is another view:

Note the smooth flow off to the right-hand side, a la early-80s Christy McNichols' feathered hairdo. It's OK to be jealous. Maybe I'll get this thing permed....

Beginning of January

The beauty of living away from relatives is that they are never prepared for any changes in your physical appearance, particularly when those changes involve facial hair. So, while my brother shaved the mammoth beard he had grown for nearly 15 months, I emerged onto the family bearding scene with this hair-rag attached to my chin. Of course, it never fails that the beard is at its most ragged when you head home for some event.

My brother and I already have a tradition of arriving for Christmas with some kind of sculpted or manicured facial hair, the last two years of unkempt hair contagion notwithstanding. I made even sure I was otherwise well-shorn, practically burning my face with razor marks in the significantly-cooler and drier New Hampshire climes. Such are the sacrifices one makes in the name of superior beard-dom.

Now that we are nearly to the halfway point of this drooping chin travesty, I think it will be better to do bi-weekly updates. Not that it changes all that much within each month, but the longer it gets the more people feel compelled to comment, and I feel that has only just begun. So, let us all ring in the new year with a beard still in its adolescence!

Mid-December

Lots of Goat-Haters out there....

I will be the first to admit that I appear to be incapable of growing facial hair at an even rate, whether throughout the beard or on certain sides of my face. Once again it seems as though the right side of my beard is growing at a more rapid rate than the left or center. Not only that, but the right side is growing in thicker...thus the natural sweep to the right you see in the photo above. Like the necessity for alignment of car tires that are suddenly pulling to one side or another it would seem that I need some creative trimming to even out this situation. That is counterproductive, not to mention against the spirit of this whole affair, so it is not happening!

Of course, many people like to point this out, more so the adults around my school than the kids, who have already begun to regret the challenge they posed to me a few short months ago. Now that the beard has entered its middle-ground shaggy phase, the kids have to deal with the untamed hairs reaching in every direction on any given day, and in no particularly predictable fashion. The adults in our school feel it necessary to comment on this, while the kids are giving me cringing looks that tell me I should shave...and do it SOON!

Meanwhile, on the home front, my older daughter enjoys keeping track of the growth and revels in running commentary about how this iteration of the beard/goat is coming in with a lot more white. She has taken to calling me Whitebeard from time to time. That is hardly necessary, though it is apparent that this girl has inherited her father's occasionally biting and always quick tongue. Our younger daughter just vacillates between her desire to see the "Big Beard" return and the need to see me clean shaven.

These are the grueling middle months of beard growth that no one glamorizes. They are the necessary meat in the sandwich of facial hair odysseys--some days you get bologna and others salami--you just have to power through and hope to shake the stink.

Mid-November

It's one thing for growth to happen at irregular rates. I, for one, was a slow-grower. Though I experienced frequent physical growing pains in my legs as a lad, I rarely saw an physical pay-off in the experiences. I actually entered high school just over five feet tall and would eventually skyrocket, in incremental doses, over the next five years, to the towering height of 5'8". Even within my elementary school building, peopled as it is with ladies and children, I am still not a tower of physical stature by any means. In fact, most of the ladies with whom I work are of equal or greater height and the kids who have passed through the school, and especially through my classroom, love to return and marvel at how much taller than me they have grown. Trust me, this is not difficult. Our poor daughters have been shackled by the physical limitations placed on them by my vertically-challenged genes, just as I was held back by my own mother's limited height: she was all of five feet, one-and-a-half inches, and you had better believe that extra half inch was always important!

Even growing up, I had moments when the growth rates of my body did not follow any kind pf symmetrical plan. Aside from my cranium, which by all accounts has always been massive (the genetic gift of my father, the only size 8 fitted hat I have met in person), my limbs did not often cooperate: through high school, college, and into early "professional" life, one of my legs was at least half an inch shorter than the other, causing numerous back issues and the perpetual orthotic insertion of a foam pad my doctor and mother incessantly called a "shoe-cookie," for years, perhaps hastening its entrance into its subterranean landfill domain.

I would love to imagine that this asymmetrical growth does not extend to my hair but that would simply not be true. Last year, during the eight-month beard adventure, I struggled with the truth that the right side of my face grew hair quicker than the left side. I hoped it was simply a matter of accidental trimming while paring the facial garden but as you can see from the photo above (straight-on shot) that habit persists into the Year of the Goat. I am half-determined to leave it alone, combing it under to hide this strange growth-pattern, but why not be proud of it and leave it for all the world to see? After all, it was our Parent-Teacher Conferences this past week and they got to enjoy this phase of the growth, when no amount of manicure and mane-tending can tame the wild growth of the fourth month. Goat ON!

Mid-October

I am getting to this one a little late, but these pictures were actually taken close to mid-October. One must preserve the integrity of the goat journey after all. I am nearing the point at which I will have to shave, or at least thin the moustache portion of this evolving chin-creature. The razor hairs that spike down into my upper lip and grab at the food passing my lips into my mouth have never struck my fancy. Plus, if I were someone who is married to someone whose face was covered in upper-lip hair, this would be the part I would abhor most of all. You simply cannot avoid those gripper-hairs on the upper lip when your face is close to, or actually in contact with, someone else's face and that someone happens to have a moustache. Unless you are Tom Selleck and have the manliest 'stache going, or you lived n the time of Wyatt Earp, or you are Rollie Fingers or Goose Gossage and you just don't give a damn, you must think of your spouse. In case you are wondering, I have not been smooching any gentlemen callers and have never had the misfortune of rubbing noses with any mustachioed men, but I can imagine it would not feel nice, and I have to consider how my wife feels about the entire thing.

That is, after all, the question I have received most often over the past three years, from the themed-beards of Year One, through the massive facial mane of Year Two and now, in Year Three, the the ever-lengthening goat: "What does your wife think of that?" Anyone who has ever read this--so, all six of you--probably already knows the answer: she likes it. I am asked the question in equal proportion from men and ladies; the men always asking with forlorn admiration in the way that so many men think the wifely grass is greener on my side of the fence (hell, I think it is too, but, as my wife is spoken for BY ME, you gentlemen are out of luck!) The men are always amazed when I tell them she likes it, and they usually follow-up by informing me about the beard stranglehold their wives have on them...clean faces only!

The ladies who ask me reveal their feelings about the beard at the same time. Their question is slightly different: "How does you wife feel about your beard?" but their faces when they ask it tell the story well enough. Few have ever asked me without concurrently crinkling their noses or sneering slightly through pursed lips as though to affirm two things I could have already told them: (1) They think it is disgusting and they never would have allowed me to grow one in their house; (2) The reason I would never have been married any of them. Suffice it to say I am a very fortunate man, and not just because my wife does not mind my beard experimentation.

Mid-September

Maybe it has something to do with gravity and the aging process...or maybe it is because these frequently-abused chin follicles have given up any forms of resistance they may have previously proffered. Or maybe it is something else...some unexplained mystery of the goat-growing universe that has allowed this goat to begin its journey on such a strong foot, or chin.

Whatever the cause, even I was a bit surprised by the change in the chin from the first check-in to the second. When our girls were babies we took weekly photos of them with a sign letting viewers know which week of their life it was. But we also took a monthly photo as they reached that milestone. We were always amazed to look at the changes in the month-to-month photos that we had not noticed in the week-to-week photos. How could we not have seen these major changes in their bodies until we reviewed the monthly photos? These two goats are like that.

Many things change over a month. Our school year is now a month old and the kids who stormed the scene on opening day are already quite a bit different from the ones who now sit and work in our classroom. So, for the record, YES, I am comparing my goatee growth to the physical changes in our two daughters in their first years of life and the character changes among the students in my classroom since the beginning of school. Let's keep these things in perspective, here! Step back and view the changes from afar. We never notice we are older until we are, many years later...so why would it be any different with chin hair?

Goat Check: A New Beginning

Well intrepid facial hair explorers and loyal follower(s) I must admit that I thought my mid-July trim of the monstrosity that was attached to my face would be the end of our remotely-accessed time together. How could I know the level of inquisition the beard's departure would cause? Who could have predicted the outcry over such a little--OK, LARGE--thing? Or, the absence of a large thing, rather.

People who had grown so accustomed to the beard suddenly whisked past me without a second glance. But almost all of them followed with a standard double-take-and-turn to ask if it was really me. Many people thought I lost massive amounts of weight or had undergone some sort of medical procedure.

Well, they were correct on one count: I have lost weight (over 20 pounds since January, 2011) and quite a bit more from my face. These people did not know what to make of this sudden change. At least the change was sudden for them. They did not own my face...but when you undertake a process such as this, your face become public property and bystanders make suggestions they deem worthy of overruling your desires by eminent domain.

There are very few people I will listen to when it comes to the growth of my facial hair; the brief run at Beard Democracy last year notwithstanding. One such group to whom I will acquiesce are my students, particularly when they take an active interest. I once thought of opening the Beard Democracy up to them, in a teach-them-voting-and-public-governance kind of way. I decided against it, perhaps wisely.

But this year, on opening day of school, August 16, 2011, my students sat with me for our first read-aloud (9:04 AM) and inquired as to the whereabouts of my facial hair. I had but a short-trimmed goatee at the time, and no plans to do much more than tinker with designs and sink back into general disregard for my facial hair except maybe around Conference and Open House time.

There they were asking me about the beard in one breath and challenging me to grow a new one in the next. As tempted as I was, I doubted I would do the same thing two years in a row. After all, I am not even teaching the same grade as last year, having moved up from Second to Third this year. (I have only four of the same students so you could say there are 17 new victims, er, students.)

It was precisely one of these students--a vociferous eight year old, if ever there was one--who dropped the challenge to me on opening day. How could I not like this girl instantly? Coming in with little knowledge of me and my ways and wasting all of seven minutes before issuing what may yet become this year's quest:

...to grow a goatee the entire school year.

So, here I am, on my way to doing just that. I don't know if I will succeed or just get sick of the whole affair by mid-year and hack away with scissors and nail-clippers one desperate day in the future at my desk, but we'll see how far this thing goes. Check back for the progress of this wayward goat, and maybe you'll see what happens.

Week Forty-Two: July 4th to 10th

Thursday morning began normally enough, but the hazards of Camp reared their ugly heads that afternoon during a ferocious round of Camp Bingo. It concluded with me slicing portions of hair off my face and appearing during that evening's sing-along and parent performance as Jafar, or some updated and infinitely more twisted version of him.

The binder clip was my late-night addition, and mostly so the extended chin hairs would not spend the night traveling toward (and into) my mouth. I forgot about the clip and slept with it on. It proved to be so comfortable that I wore it all the next morning during breakfast and our morning hike as we bade the kids farewell. Then I wore it during that morning's run and as I biked home. By that time it was all-but fused to the hairs on my chin, as I had applied liberal amounts of sculpting gel in a vain attempt to mold my chin hair into that classic Jafar wave.

Once home it was time for a little more trimming which, of course, I took the time to document, as you will see below:

I enjoy this one, and debated keeping it for the next week. The twisty 'stache and gigantic chops were a nice Gangs of New York look. Bill the Butcher I was not.... This photo does give you a good sense of the uneven growth on the opposite sides of my face. I did nothing to trim the burns or the beard until this day, and that really is how much longer the right side was than the left.

Of course, I wanted to see what it looked like with only one massive 'burn and the look did not disappoint.

I thought I would keep this sweet 'stache for the week, waxing the tips and turning the next few days into a handlebar showcase. Maybe that just exceeded the limits of my creepiness because, in the end, as you will see below, that did not happen.

He's got his whole beard, in his hand....

So there it is, the first time I have seen my full face in over nine months. An odd sight, to say the least. Someone who saw me later that day told me I "shaved twenty years off my face." Another wondered "where the rest of (me) went." People at my usual haunts--the Library and Produce Stand, hardly recognized me. I hardly recognize myself.

It was a good run while it lasted, but it was time for a change and time to give my facial follicles a break. Until next time...keep growing!

Week Forty-One: June 27th to July 3rd

In the waning weeks of The Beard it is probably fortuitous that I work at ZooCamp, where the odd is acceptable, if not expected.

What you see here, the second consecutive week in which I tested the flexibility of my chin hair and facial skin by stringing things onto my beard, is my Camp version of Jack Sparrow.

People were actually surprised that this was the first time I had put on guy-liner. It shouldn't be all that surprising...after all, everything else I have done up to this point has been completely normal, right? And if you are wondering, yes, that is a mop atop my dome. The sanity of wearing this for what followed (an hour-long singing and dancing marathon to get the kids fired up for our Camp overnight, and give parents a glimpse of the Camp craziness) is debatable. I do know I had to take the entire thing home to wash it. That yellow shirt was transparent enough with my sweat that you could see chest hair. How exciting! (Though maybe not for everyone involved in the areas outside my shirt.)

These are the waning weeks of The Beard, which is why you will see a photo of it in its nine-month form at the bottom of this post. It has been quite a journey, much like giving birth to a growth on my face, though that was not my intention. As the Summer turns toward July, I would never be able to endure the sweat-mopping aspects of the massive beard any longer. Next week, there will be some cuts.

As it winds down, and grows larger, people have less fear about asking me strange questions. At Sports Authority this week to buy new running shoes, one of the cashiers asked me "how long it took to grow my face." Good one, as it was one I had not yet heard. The folks in the Education Department at the Zoo apparently know me as "The Fierce Beard," which is exciting in its own way. Maybe I will send them the beard in a bag, atop the hair I shaved off my head earlier this Summer.

One of the men working at the Library in town yesterday told me I looked like Tolstoy. That was a new one. The good folks at blogspot will not allow me to copy pictures I do not own into their pages, so the intriguing images I discovered of Tolstoy himself will not appear here. However, if you seek a diversion one day, check out any Tolstoy images and see for yourself...

...separated at birth?

Week Forty: June 20th to 26th

Yes, this was as frightening as it looked and, no, I did not keep this look the entire week. On the one hand, it would have been nice if I ever needed an extra snack throughout the day; on the other, it would have been pretty nasty after several of my longer runs, not to mention the condition of rolled oats after a shower...? Why are all those birds and squirrels flocking to your beard?

Suffice it to say, it was hard enough to get the smell out of my beard. Much like walking into a smoky room or standing anywhere near a campfire, the smell of rolled oats clung to my chin hair like stank to a rediscovered moldy sock.

Of course, all of this was worth it, just to see the looks I got from the parents at the camp sing-along on Thursday night. I imagine their farewlls to the campers as they departed for the overnight: "Have a good night, honey. Have fun...and, by the way, stay away from that man with the breakfast cereal on his face. Something's not right with him."

Perhaps there is something all too right....

It took me about thirty-five minutes to string all of these o's on my face. For each one I had to twist a clump of hair until it put me on the verge of eye-watering pain, then fold over the tips to make what looked like a shepherd's hook. That made it easier to thread through the o in the center of the rolled oat and doubled as a means to hold the o in place once I released my grip.

Classic stuff. Things they never teach you in school.

Week Thirty-Nine: June 13th to 19th

Excellent! I just had to see what this looked like before I started the gradual beard-thinning trim in a few weeks. The warmer it gets here--and living in a river valley, we get the nice beard-clumping humidity--the more I want to pare the look. It's grabbing at my shirt collars and reaching out for my earlobes like the accursed Wrigley ivy. We are close.

Still, what beard-venture would be complete without the always classic hairless look? What really makes me laugh is the number of people who are now so confused that they believe I have trimmed the beard. I can only imagine the internal monologue..."Hmmm, let's see, something is different about his look this week...did he finally listen to all my hints and trim that beard...no, that couldn't be it...but what else could it be...OK, that's it, maybe I should say something...."

This look is now so Viking it scares me, but in a good way.

Week Thirty-Eight: June 6th to 12th

I wondered how long it would take to reach this pre-Dumbledore point in facial farce-itude and then I forgot about it until recently. I was amazed at how much this particular facial arrangement hurt. The rubbery hair-band, not traded with the post-lice-infested girls, yanked at my chin in the way that Joan Rivers must have often experienced facial-tugging. No worries for those of you who care about such things as my personal appearance: I only wore this for the photo. For a photo of this week's beard stick around until the bottom of the page.

I was back at the Zoo this week after many months away and all the people who only see me there during the Summer got a full-facial of the beard in all its chinny glory. Everything that happened gradually over the months of school happened in one glorious week at the Zoo. The reactions ran the usual gamut of shock and awe, but I have to relate one here in its entirety because it captured the greatest beard moment thus far.

It began when I ran into one of the custodians/grounds crew men at the Zoo. He and I have been friendly over the years, telling each other of zoo adventures and family things--he's always curious about why we do the weird things (blonde hair dye, head-shavings, lightning bolt facial hair) we do at Camp so we chat about that often.

He saw me coming out of the Camp tent and he stopped cold...

"Whoa! You grew a beard...!"

"Oh yeah, I just let it go."

"Wow, and that's...that's a different kind of beard too!"

"Yeah, I have heard that one a few times."

"Yeah, man, you look like a Quaker or something."

"Heard that one too."

"You know, if you trim it up, it will look...well, it will look..., it will actually look nice."

Much of the rest of the conversation followed that tone, as he tried to convince me I looked terrible and I eased him into the fact that I could care less. Such is life....

Week Thirty-Seven: May 30th to June 5th

I have spoken previously about the curious phenomenon of beard-drag. I may have first noticed it while running the track behind my school. The wind cuts across it in a curious fashion, slicing through the trees and houses and catching runners at odd angles. For those runners bearing beards the cross-cut is even more pronounced...and interesting.

With school out, my job at the zoo has already begun and whatever I thought I had experienced in terms of beard-drag while running (that light forcing of my head off to the side in a semi-magnetic repulsion) was nothing compared to the resistance while biking. I ride my bike back and forth to the zoo each day and while I had done this earlier in the Spring--when the beard was far less developed--this was an entirely different experience.

I would stop short of equating it to whiplash but if I am to continue the growth through the Summer and into the Fall, with its whipping winds, I might have to begin my travels with neck-brace fortification. One would not want to have to concoct a story to explain why I am wearing a head-halo at the start of the new year..."well, you see, kids, let me give you a piece of advice about beard, biking and the wind...."