I think it was way back in the 1970s when a best-seller came out on “dressing for success”. Ostensibly, clothes made the man. The 1970s remained the wild west of male domination – at least in the business world at the time. Ask any historian.
Now, it wouldn’t be so much clothes as it would be body ink and unfettered facial hair.
Wildly popular initially amongst baristas and folk singers, the epic beards of today have expanded into favour among other employment pursuits. While occasionally defying all logic for anyone over 25 years of age, that never seems to detract the average young male from embracing said action as the most brilliant endeavour since the invention of wrinkle-free slacks.
I guess I should confess to bearding up myself when I was much younger. As males, we have become overly creative about the process as time has passed. Here are a few examples of how men embrace simple things like sprawling beards, even when logic is nowhere in evidence to the casual observer.
The weekend beard: There are certain men who will maintain the clean-shaven appearance that they embrace during the work week over the weekend. Others (me! me!) use the 48 hours of a weekend to try and sneak the beginnings of a beard past loving spouses, who repeatedly indicate that they (me) will be able to keep said beard “only upon unicorns holding elected office”.
Rarely does a weekend pass by where I will fruitlessly try and map out either a rudimentary goatee or full-blown facial scruff, only to be ordered into the bathroom, where my razor awaits. A full beard is unacceptable in this household. Even a
Playoff beard. Technically, a playoff beard is grown by athletes, as their team endeavours to extend the post season and ultimately win the Stanley Cup, even if it is only late August or early October.
However, if you are a dedicated fan, is it so unreasonable to grow your own playoff beard, in solidarity and support of your team’s efforts? Even if your team is changing by the week, as all the Canadian teams get eliminated, and you find yourself rooting for a team you couldn’t name in a trivia game?
Even if the team you started growing your playoff beard for is already long since roaming golf links somewhere in the South Okanagan?
Even if (not being an actual athlete and all) you aren’t allowed to grow a playoff beard, certainly you should be allowed to grow a
Scooter beard. If you’ve ever seen those outlaw biker types on the highway, they always seem to have fine-looking beards. So, if you’ve rented (or own) a scooter, why shouldn’t you be able to adopt that same devil-may-care, king-of-the-road facial apparel?
An unruly beard and a bad squint would certainly eliminate any disparaging remarks whenever you dismount your scooter in front of the local watering hole, I would suspect. Add a tattoo and you’d likely strike fear into the heart of even hardened criminals, scooter or not!
While I have come to accept that my wife is never going to change her mind about letting me grow a wild beard, I will still use every weekend that we aren’t appearing anywhere out in public to try sneaking one past her ever-vigilant watch. One day she may not notice the thing until it’s too late and by then I’ll have been nominated in some provincial beard-growing competition, or been asked to play a friendly lumberjack in a TV commercial for an absorbent brand of paper towels. Then I’ll be able to keep it.
Logic doesn’t factor into my aspirations.
Humour columnist and author Dan St. Yves was licensed with Royal LePage Kelowna for 11 years. Check out his website at danstyves.com.
