The forecast calls for beard

(556 words)

I’m reluctant to grow my seasonal beard because it always makes my face look like an armpit with a yapping mouth in the middle.

It’s scraggly. Disheveled. Patchy. My beard is destined to look like the rest of me looks when I wake up hungover.

Yet grow it I must, appearances be damned.

Monday was the beard forecast.

Regular readers know what that means. The five-day on WPXI-TV’s noon news showed there were three consecutive days with chilly highs below 30.

For about 15 years now, that’s been the signal for me to begin growing my annual chin divot. 

My reasoning is primal. A beard — any beard — really takes the sting out of the winter’s bitter bite.

It serves the same purpose as a shaggy scarf with one key difference: I’ve never left my beard behind in a bar or lost it amidst all the mittens and boots in back of the hall closet.

In winter, it’s always there for me. I’ll have its back for as long as it has my front.

The beard will stay until about mid-March when — hallelujah — the WPXI five- day forecast shows three consecutive days with highs either 40-degrees or above.

So in some ways, my face becomes to my friends like Punxsutawney Phil only with marginally better grooming. They look to see when I’m clean-shaven to know when it’s time to start thinking about  hosing off the window screens.

I began this custom back when bearded men were less common and when beards were less flamboyant. Back then beards were the result of men being casual about shaving.

Today many fancy men grow beards that make them look like they’re auditioning to play stunt doubles in a new ZZ Top action movie.

And the minute they release a ZZ Top action movie, man, I’m there.

I envision these hipsters spending hours in front of the mirror pruning stray hairs, tweezing unruly curlers and generally shaping the bush.

They’re less beards, more bonsai trees, something preciously tended so it resembles an unnatural replica.

If their beards are like sports cars, mine is like an old manure-hauling pick-up.

And let’s drop the manure-hauling analogy right there.

I guess today the advent of the beard coming, coincidentally during the Advent season heralding the arrival of another famously bearded man, resigns me to to the fact winter’s here.

I spent about an hour shoveling snow off the driveway today.

I spent about 10 minutes of that hour checking to see if I could disprove centuries of science by finding two snowflakes that looked exactly alike. I did not.

I keep hoping one of these days God will confound us by giving His people an entire winter of snows where every single flake is an identical tiny smiley face.

That would be, well, cool.

Really, there’s so much to love about winter. There are snow angels, sled riding, skiing, hot cocoa and soups simmering while you warm up in front of the fire.

You can do all that in one afternoon.

Maybe this year I’ll change my routine and shave off my beard when I start getting sick of winter, like about January 4.

Who knows? Maybe shaving my beard will cause the temperatures to spike, instead of the reverse.

Now, that would be really cool.

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(743 words)

Unless we’re in for a sudden cold snap, it looks like for the first time in 10 years I won’t have a beard by at least New Year’s Day.

Shaving is a nuisance for me so it’s rare I do it more than once every three days.

Except in a typical winter. Then I don’t shave at all.

I remember a lordly economics professor of mine back in Athens who used to boast of his habit of every winter growing his beard on a secular holiday (Halloween) and shaving it on a sacred one (Easter).

His grooming schedule is all I remember about him or his stupid class.

I liked the idea behind it, but as I grew older I found the logic flawed.

Beard-growing should have nothing to do with holidays. For it to make any sense, the reason ought to be meteorological.

That’s why about a decade ago I decided I’d begin growing my beard as soon as I saw a five-day forecast predicting three-consecutive highs below 30 degrees.

A scruffy beard really does fend off winter’s bitter bite.

Then I’d shave it whenever I’d see three consecutive days where the five day predicted three consecutive days above 50.

It makes perfect sense and the custom is celebrated by friends who say my face now portends spring with greater accuracy than Groundhog Phil.

I like it because growing facial hair is cheaper than buying one of those constrictive face masks or scarves.

In fact, if I could I’d each winter grow a thick thatch of full body hair that would eliminate the need for putting on clothes, something else I consider a nuisance.

Will adhering to my custom mean I’ve grown my last beard?

Christmas Eve temperatures nearing the 70s means the only place in America sure to enjoy a truly white Christmas will be the Trump for President rallies.

I wonder if the climate change deniers think the Beach Boys are dupes for having released a ’74 compilation called, “Endless Summer.”

Global warming projections mean the world is likely to endure drought, famine, coastal flooding and other man-made tragedies once written off as “acts of God.”

I’m bumming because it means for our children the end of white Christmas.

Our 9-year-old is asking Santa — she still believes, I think, because she wisely sees no tangible benefits in skepticism — for American Girl doll paraphernalia, a Kindle, games and all the usual crap.

But she’s truly dreaming of a white Christmas. She wants blizzards, closed schools,   treacherous roads, giant snowmen and accumulations clear past her old man’s ass.

In short, she wants everything I dread.

But, oh, if I could only give it to her while she’s still so devastatingly precious.

I revel living a region that traditionally has four distinct seasons. There is something about each to celebrate — and it’s all right there in my back yard.

We live in the woods and there’s a rushing stream that tumbles through our back yard boulders through 50 raucous feet of elevation changes.

It’s magnificent.

There’s one Volkswagen-sized boulder you can only access in spring by hopping over the rapids.

It’s my sanctuary.

I lay there flat on my back and gaze through the swaying tree branches straight up at the sky and think about how I’m maybe the luckiest man in the world.

You may not know it from all the colossal bitching I do here on this blog, but that’s exactly how I feel.

None of the girls has ever busted me being so luxuriously indolent about squandering my time. I’m sure seeing their Dad laying there sprawled out like bear bait would seem weird to them.

It’s not.

It’s soulful.

Now, me laying there wearing a Speedo, that would be weird.

And I have a ready explanation for what I’m doing.

I’m saving the planet.

I intend to tell any interrogators I spend about 15 minutes each day scanning the skies for catastrophic meteors or hostile invaders from distant galaxies.

Just last week I was actually looking for something I fear may soon be even more remote.

I was looking for snowflakes.

It was December 19 and the thermometer read 71 degrees.

I hope someone somewhere with more brains and drive than I is doing something to save the planet and reverse what is looking to me like an endless summer.

Either that or I fear we’re all bound to be beach boys.

Related . . .

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 Bad men wear beards

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Roll Tide: The last winter day

Bad men wear beards

I’ve discovered a second male puberty and I’m smack dab in the middle of it.

The first male puberty happens when boys are teenagers. They become awkward about their appearance and begin to grow funny hairs in places that surprise them.

The second male puberty happens when men like me, aged 46, become awkward about our appearance and begin to grow funny hairs in places that surprise us.

I’m not complaining. I had a good run. I gave ‘em all hell between my two puberties. Now I’m eager to just get on with it.

Parts of my still lingering hairs are gray and parts are the brown of my youth. Mix ‘em up and I guess my hair is a color you could call bark.

I’d like to see the question settled.

See, I’ve always striven to be defiantly uncaring about my appearance, but my raging vanity keeps getting in the way.

This happened when, as is my custom, I changed my blog/Facebook picture the same day I changed the oil in my car.

As I’ve explained, this makes perfect sense. By tying the picture change to regular car maintenance -- every 5,000 miles -- it keeps my mug current and reduces the glamor shot stress we all endure selecting a picture once every two years or so.

This oil change occurred when I was ramping up for a winter beard. I had a beard last winter in preparation for my driver’s license picture, a bit of quadrennial performance art I indulge in to try and make myself appear more challenging to weary police officers who’ll be engaged in arresting me over the next four years.

I enjoyed last year’s beard because we’d had a harsh winter. Having a thick, unkempt beard was like walking around with a hoagie strapped to my face. It kept me warm in the wind.

So I thought I’d grow one again this year. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past three weeks.

But the reaction to it in my new picture unsettled me. Facebook reviews were universally harsh. One guy pointed out that the the right is whiter than the left -- and he wasn’t making a political observation.

Alas, I’m concluding I’m just not a beard guy. Beard guys are mostly evil -- you know, like Santa Claus.

I was at a bowling alley yesterday -- and that right there is near the top of the list of sentences I thought I’d never write. But my wife had volunteered as the responsible adult needed to chaperone the kiddies at the local lanes.

But because she is a responsible adult, she has other responsible adult things to do. She needed a suitable replacement. When she couldn’t find one, she reluctantly turned to me.

Me going meant I’d miss Happy Hour talk about the great Steeler victory over the Brett Favre-led Minnesota Vikings. But I had my beginner’s beard going and that knocks about 75 IQ points off any man.

I tried but couldn’t think of an intelligent way to argue it was more important that I go to the bar and talk football than it was to keep a sprawl of 8-year-olds from dropping 15-pound spheres of multi-colored polyurethane on each other’s toes.

See, beard guys are stupid -- you know, like Abraham Lincoln.

I decided I wasn’t a beard guy when I looked around at the sampling of other fathers who showed up a full 90 minutes after I did to retrieve their offspring.

One by one, I stared at the mostly bearded faces. What I saw convinced me I’d never be a beard guy.

Because beard guys, at least the ones in my mostly redneck corner of the world -- and this may sound a bit critical -- are all slack-jawed morons.

They dress in camo, kill what they eat and believe President Obama’s a Muslim tourist.

And I'm just not that kind of guy.

I’m above all that. I’m an enlightened and thoughtful gent.

I’m not one of those ignorant hick beard guys that goes around wearing hate on their faces.

You know, like Jesus Christ.

Mugging it up for new headshots

In the interests of facial integrity, I’m proposing everyone on the internet update their profile headshots every time they change the oil in their jalopies.

I say this because I just changed mine and feel liberated. I’d been hiding behind a 6-year-old headshot. That was one car, one kid, one administration, two Steeler Super Bowl victories and, oh, about 10,000 hairs lost to male pattern baldness ago.

Now that I’m blogging three or four times a week, I’m seeing my grinning mug more frequently and I’d begun to despise the youthful poser. I resented him because he looked so handsome, so innocent, and so smug that had he at least twice as much loot in his 2003 401-K plan that I have in mine.

I decided I had to kill him off.

A new beard, my first, would be the weapon. And the results have been gratifying. I’ve already had a round of compliments on the new headshot. First off, people like the beard. I do, too.

I loved how it gave me a wild, untamed feeling. I felt like a real man, an often alien sensation for a dainty dude who’s confessed to looking forward to his next pedicure.

This feeling carried me through the times whenever one of my little cuddlers would reach up and yank on the whiskers hard enough to cause tears to gush from my eyes and me to shriek to my wife, “Mommy! Mommy! She’s doing it again!”

The new headshot was taken in the lovely little canyon that is right in our backyard. There’s a roaring creek and a series of waterfalls that drop about 50 feet over 100 yards. And it’s all just steps from our back porch. It is magnificent. I feel utter peace and wholesomeness when I’m there amidst the solitude.

And I’d spend more time there if I didn’t cut into the time I spend in the dark little bar beneath my office where I spend countless hours yapping with fellow inebriates about sports, politics and how our lives would be different if we ever went to bars where single women went.

The new headshot has me wearing an Ohio University sweat shirt that practically dominates the picture. This was unintentional but wholly appropriate. For better or worse, that’s the place that made me exactly who I am; the school and Athens, Ohio, in general, and a lovely little wreck of a house at 115 Court Street in particular.

It was there on a sun-spangled autumn day after a buddy reunion that I stood and stared up at the little memory factory and thought with wonder, “This is where I became who I am.”

I recognized it as a gem of a line and shared it with my buddy from those days knowing he’d turn it into a song. He did and it’s a dandy that can be found at www.myspace.com/quinnfallon

Having Quinn tell me I inspired two of his songs is maybe the second most cool thing that’s ever happened to me. The first is knowing he considers me a friend.

So the beard had done it’s bit and it was time for it to go. But because I feel it’s our shared duty to break the dreary routine of our daily lives and give each other something different to talk about around the dinner table I decided to do something different: I kept the mustache on the left side and lost the beard, then reversed it for the right.

The look enlivened the Happy Hour.

“You sort of look like Two Face from the Batman movie but you’re stuck with a double ugly.”

Half-assed was a popular comment.

One girl asked if I’d recently gotten drunk and passed out, and somebody’d pranked me.

I thought about the past week and told her she was half right.

There was much talk about finishing the job. Some of the guys thought I should make half my hair short and leave the other half lively. One guy said true commitment would have required the shaving of an eyebrow.

As expected, no one in the family noticed for 25 minutes after I brought home the pizza. Twenty-five minutes!

And it was the 2 year old who detected a difference when she suspected theft and told mommy, “Somebody took Daddy’s mustache.”

I asked Val how she could go 25 interminable minutes without looking her husband in the face and noticing an appearance change more startling than even poorly executed plastic surgery.

“I, uh, um, was too busy checking out your fine ass.”

It was a splendid recovery.

I may grow the beard again next winter. It’s a great facial accessory, a balm to winter’s bitter bite, and I liked having it around to stroke whenever I wanted to appear scholarly.

But I’d be less than honest if I said missed it.

How could I?

It’s in a little plastic baggie I’m keeping taped to the wall across from my desk. I think I’ll stop now so I can go stroke and try and appear scholarly.