Since a hair appeared on my upper lip, roughly 1960, that part of me has seldom seen the light of day. I have let the rest of my face be covered by the offending fluff in different ways from something along the lines of a tiny goatee to rivalling Santa Claus. Until this morning I had not shaved for at least six months, but then I talked to a friend on Skype. He is one of those fair skinned, blonde Germans whose beard looks like a tatty spider's web.
In our younger day he had some kind of straggly Chinese mandarin type of effort, roughly 20cm down from his chin but wispy, the tatty spider's web already mentioned in fact. I had a mixture of very dark with a lot of copper in mine which is moderately full. One day he and I had been verbally assaulted by our respective lady friends over lunch in our favourite café. When we got away I challenged him to do something.
He took up the challenge and we joined in an 'experiment'. I shaved off the entire left hand side of my beard, which was full and longish at the time, and he shaved off the right hand side of his. We did it in the washroom at work. Then we went to the institute's canteen for a snack. Nobody said a word, nobody stared. Nothing. No colleagues said anything after or gave strange looks. At home my girlfriend appeared not to notice until bedtime when she said that there was something different about me. Then she looked and rather than burst out laughing she looked stunned. However, she said nothing. Next morning I went to work - no reaction different to the day before. So that evening I shaved the lot off and started again. My upper lip has never seen the light of day since. My friend lasted four days before his partner noticed and that was apparently because she tapped his shoulder from behind and when he turned round she saw the shaven side. A little later she apparently asked him a question but he replied showing the other side of the face. She questioned her own sanity then took a proper dekko. He shaved his off before going to bed.
He called this morning because I shall be visiting him in October. I took one look and herrumphed. He has not gone grey/white like yours truly but remains blonde. He has grown his spider's web thing again though. First time in around 40 years. It has not improved.
I did that beard feeling thing we do, finished chatting and went to the bathroom. My moustache and a small under lip goatee remain. I suddenly did not want a full beard.
Now on with the matter in question. James has recently added some fuzz and I, prejudiced as I clearly am as Catharine will no doubt tell me, think it looks really good on him. Vic Evans obviously found one of my old cast-offs, (along with a missing pair of my shades) however it looks far better on him that it did on me. Search through the members pictures and many kilometres of facial hair will be spotted. No doubt many more hide behind black squares old and new. There is a notable absence of female members sporting fuzz but then we chaps often need to tolerate such absences, don't we?
There have been recent remarks about our hirsute physiognomies. I believe we must stand up for the rights of our beards. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, Être barbu!