'FACIAL FOLIAGE'

    All week I had been mentally composing a post about 'facial hair'.  Then yesterday, a bearded client wearing these socks came to my office for his psychotherapy session: (for HIPPA sensitive folks, he gave me permission to photograph these but not to tell you that his name is Sigmund Fraud.)

I took that as , well, not a 'sign', but at least a confirmation for proceeding with the 'musing' . . .  in general and of memories of some of my own 'crops of  foliage'.

    Wondering what had brought the topic to mind, I remembered an ministerial installation service last Sunday when there was quite an array of clerical  beards in attendance.  No big deal for the most part in 2014 but it has not always been so ... for ministers or other 'reputable gentlemen'.  When I searched various websites for 'facial hair', the array of 'meanings' surprised me.  (for additional  hair-raising aspects, simply enter 'facial hair' in your search engine.)

    Among 'signals' facial hair might send... mature, sexy, scruffy, 'red neck', aggressive, 'hippie', 'Radical'  . . . are suggestions.  Sounds rather subjective and, like other 'meanings', might be in the 'eye' of the beholder.  Then there was a reported study indicating that men with beards are perceived as 38% less generous, 36% less caring and 51% less cheerful than clean shaven men.  Another site claimed that wearing facial hair can also change one's own behavior and  'self image'.  

    There  was also speculation as to why so few contemporary politicians have either beards or mustaches. The first President to wear 'foliage' was  Lincoln . . . unless John Quincy Adams's luxuriant mutton-chops are included.  After Lincoln in 1861 through William Howard Taft who left office in  1912,  there was a succession of  'Smith Brothers' Presidents. (You know, 'Trade' and 'Mark' on Smith Brothers Cough Drops.)  Only Andrew Johnson who was impeached and William McKinley who was assassinated were clean-shaven. The last bearded Presidential  candidate was Charles Evans Hughes in 1916 . . . he lost.  So, why will no current politician take the 'risk' ?  Ah, perhaps there's a clue.  What would be  'at risk'?  Your answer counts.  Somewhere I also noted an opinion that negative reactions to beards can affect employability.  Perhaps there's the answer to the politicians' clean-cut appearances.

      Somewhere in all that musing, I thought of some of my own 'outcroppings', as well as those of various men in my family.    Both of my great-grand-fathers wore facial hair.  Mom said that her grand-father began letting his grow with the onset of cold weather and shaved in the Spring.   Here is a photograph of dad's grand-father (whom he never knew) with a cultivated  mustache:  (By the way, if you can translate the Hebrew on the frame, we would like to have that):

Both of my grand-fathers as well as dad were always clean-shaven.  Well, dad did grow a mustache for his church's anniversary 'old time' celebration.  I do not recall any uncles or uncles-in-law with beards or mustaches.  Both my brothers, one nephew, as well as the two boys/men whom I raised have or had beards.

    My own first remembered beard was 1964 when I was 26.  At the time, a fraternity brother was Director of a near-by Historical museum.  One day when we were clowning around, Bill photographed this would-be Lincoln look-alike:

For long-forgotten reasons, I shaved this one and did not have another until 1968 when I became a college professor.  Wearing a beard in that tumultuous year could feel hazardous.  I remember but perhaps three or four hirsute colleagues . . . Larry Whitlock in the Psych Department and a couple of the Art Professors.  Once when walking downtown, as two young guys passed me, one muttered, 'Hello, Castro !'.  Then, a student quizzed me: "Prof, what does your beard mean to you?"  I told him that it meant that I did not have to see my face in the bathroom mirror the first thing each morning.  Sometime during the Spring semester, I shaved, clean as the proverbial whistle.  I removed my glasses and jacket, took a seat in the classroom before students began arriving for the 8 a.m. Western Civ class.  No one noticed me  until about 5 after the hour, when I stood and said , "Well, guess we should have class."  There were several groans of relief signifying, I thought, 'glad I didn't say where is the old so and so ?

                               (The Professor and Daughter, around 1971)

     Since that time, I have occasionally grown beards then removed them as I became tired of them.   Once when visiting my then 2 year old grand-daughter and her family, I had decided that the time had come to remove the beard.  Not wanting her to see Papa go into the bathroom and someone else exit, I had her watch the process.  She thought it a hoot.  As the years passed, I  began noting more grey whiskers.  The jet black from earlier 'outcroppings' was becoming 'salt and pepper.'  One day as my daughter and I were running, she looked over and said, "Dad, if you would shave you would look ten years younger."  Ouch.  That, however, was one of the kinder comments that my whiskers sometime evoked, not only from strangers but friends and family alike.  (Sometime later when I did shave, a couple of days passed before she asked, "Dad, have you had a haircut?") The last time I had foliage was in the 1990's when again a parish minister.  Now, when there is the occasional multi-day stubble, I see that the salt has overtaken the pepper.  Surely some kind of vanity about age does not preclude another 'crop'.

                                (Same two people, 17 years later.  Already the salt is overtaking
                                 the face;  top hair came later.  No longer a professor but one of the 'bearded
                                  clergy'

             So, if I ever grow another beard, my preferred 'Meanings' can now be 'Mature' and 'Cheerful'.

     Satchel