COMMENTARY: Change Sometimes Gets Hairy

Thursday, December 13, 2012

This should come as no real surprise to anyone who is acquainted with me, but I have been known on occasion to do things that, in retrospect, prove to not be very smart.

Line dancing. Auto repair.

Virtually anything I did in college (“OK, Mr. Smith, let me get this straight. You fell off the fire escape trying to climb in your window because you lost your room key, but have discovered it was in your pants all the time, except they’re on inside out … ?”).

But every now and then I do something so monumentally stupid and ridiculous that even I, in a rare moment of lucidity and self-awareness, realize that what I am in the process of doing is a bad, bad, baaaaaad idea, and I need to quit right away and hope no one noticed I ever started it in the fi rst place.

Ya, well, not happening.

I think I’m going to grow a beard.

OK, so on a scale of 1 to Completely Goofy, that might not seem so bad. It’s not a Harley or a tattoo or any other far more permanent and potentially scar-inducing byproducts of early 50s restlessness. When I come to my senses, instead of finding another midlife crisis casualty to whom I can sell the bike or heading in forlaser removal, I can whip out the razor and we can just pretend none of this ever happened, unless there are a few unfortunate family pictures,

Besides, beards are hot right now. Everyone is growing one, so I fi gured, what the heck, why not jump on that hirsute train?

It’s hip, it’s trending and it gives me the option to be lazy and pretend I’m being fashionable.

Which is certainly yet another of life’s little cosmic jokes. Women want to make a change and the next thing you know they’re on the business end of expensive hair treatments, “procedures” and Hot Yoga. Men? Just quit shaving.

It’s not like I don’t have some experience with this whole facial hair thing, anyway. At one point much earlier on, before the lovely Mrs. Smith entered the picture and began off ering subtle bits of fashion advice (like “you know that makes you look like a walrus and you should shave it off .”),I had a pretty impressive mustache. Not sure exactly it was impressing besides me, but that’s not really important here.

Now, one would think having a mustache is just the sort of no-brainer the then-single me could have handled. But its actual care and feeding rivals that of a hyperactive Chihuahua with bladder issues. And it can get just as messy.

So a mustache in and of itself is definitely out. And I’m certainly not going full “Duck Dynasty” here.

What I’m looking for is that fashionably scruff y, “just spent the morning hunting big game and chasing down wild stallions before I cleaned up enough to make it to grocery store” look that appears to be popular with musicians, actors and a lot of other people who also haven’t actually been hunting big game, chasing wild stallions, or, apparently, cleaning up.

However, this tends to represent a small problem.

It seems I’ve done this before and scruff y is, well, uncomfortable. Which probably explains why Brad Pitt never seems to be smiling, even though he’s sort of married to Angelina Jolie.

There is also the whole matter of perception vs.

reality. When I look in mirror after a few days sans razor, I see “stylish.” Others tend tosee “watch list.” Go a whole week without shaving and I have to make sure I keep the lid on my coffee or folks will start dropping spare change in the cup.

It seems with facial hair, as with most things, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And when it comes to a beard, there are plenty of folks in my immediate family lining up on the side of “can’t” and “shouldn’t.”

Which is fi ne. Changes tend to invite commentary, and it’s probably unrealistic to think it’s always going to be positive. Or should be.

And it’s important to keep in mind that reinvention isn’t always spurred by dissatisfaction. Sometimes it’s just curiosity.

So the beard, even in its current, pitiful state, is probably a short-lived addition. Before very long it’s going to start itching , or I’m going to catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and realize I look a lot less like a gracefully aging rock legend and a lot more like one of the villains in the last Bond movie. And just like that, the beard will be gone and I’ll be back to my slightly older, slightly wiser, certainly more clean-shaven self again.

I wonder how I’d look with a Mohawk?

GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 12/13/2012