Close shave

In an effort to try and accomplish something during my week all alone I thought I'd try something easy. What's easier than NOT shaving. Yeah, I wanted to see what kind of beard I have at this age. Maybe I will look cool or manly. It will hide some of my faults (well, not all of them). I had a beard in 1973/74 while stationed overseas. The Navy let you do things like that so why not give it a shot? I see pictures of that beard and it never looked too good. Too many bare spots.

I would have kept that beard except a few things came up. Our ship was making a port stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and all sailors were cautioned that if you were going to go on liberty in that port you could not have facial hair. The reason, I swear this is true, was that only their fearless leader or grand poobah Haile Selassie could have the beard. He had one of those ZZ Top beards and kinda looked like Gunga Din. In any case I figured I better shave - not because I wanted to go ashore but I had to. I was in the ship's rock band - The Greenfields - and we were scheduled to play for (guess who). So I did shave and we did play at some kind of international war games meeting. I'm pretty sure Haile was tapping his foot to "Smoke on the Water." There were other forms of entertainment and I swear I DID see others with beards. I never got a clear definition on all that, however, it was just as well that I shaved.

Back to real time. I was taking a look at my daily beard growth progress hoping I'd wake up and feel like Chuck Norris. I realized a few things after day 6 or so. My entire beard is gray - big surprise so is my whole head. I was hoping it would fill in and look macho. Then I was watching a re-run of the Sopranos (something I do now and then as a key time killer)..There was this scene with Uncle Junior in a nursing home, unshaven and he had this crappy gray beard. I think I looked more like him than Chuck Norris (did Chuck Norris have a beard?)..So off with the growth. It was annoying the hell out of me anyway and I think it requires extra maintenance. It's easier just to shave every day and have that clean cut look. I wonder what Haile would have looked like unshaven?..He was overthrown 3 months after that show.