I’ve not had a beard since I was in my 20s and elected to produce one since I’ve gotten much older, observed that the lines of my face have begun to migrate south and those ‘cute’ smile wrinkles of years ago are now etched groves. I also remembered how good I looked with a neatly trimmed beard and even in my ‘Grizzly Adams’ era when I let it sprout willdly.
So, I proceeded to let the old beard grow. Within a few days, I sort of realized that I might have made a mistake because, surely all that gray could not be mine! I thought of the beard dye in the stores and figured I might try some later on. Within a week, I realized what a pain it had been to grow a beard when young.
It itches, feels funny and things like cracker crumbs are drawn to it by some mysterious force of nature.
I looked like a bum. I’ve seen street people looking like me. The gray was spreading. I had to trim irritating little hairs from around my lips. When wearing old jeans, stained work shirts and well worn old work sneakers and puttering around the yard, cops slowed down to give me the ‘hard look.’
At two weeks I examined myself in the mirror, gazed with horror upon the sea of bristly gray and brown on my face and decided that instead of making me look more dignified, it made me look like I needed a bottle of cheap booze and might be prone to handling sharp things while discussing the merits of slice verses hack with people not there.
It made me look real old!
That did it.
I hacked the thing off. My face is smooth again. Not even a mustache and my neighbors look relieved. Twenty years ago I looked good with a beard.
Twenty years ago I had more and darker hair. Twenty years ago the beard was glossy dark brown.
(Sigh) Another part of my second childhood down the drain.
Yeah, so, I don’t have much to say about the beard (being of the female persuasion and not knowing what having a beard is like), but I did want to welcome you. By the way, that’s a kick-ass user name! 
