BEARDS

In July 1949, I was attending my Grandfather, Frank Gillett's funeral. I had to hold my upper lip in my mouth, as best I could, because it was bleeding. I was fourteen and I had just started shaving. I was at the dirty face stage of facial hair growth. It looked like my face was dirty rather than I was growing a beard.

On my first attempts I used a razor that screwed off at the top and held a double edge blade. Nobody showed me how to use it and it was probably the razor my Mother used to shave her legs. This must have been one of my first attempts; I didn't want to go out in public looking like I had a dirty face.

When I was growing up, nobody had a beard. Oh, you might see some scruffy character who looked like he might smelled bad. There were pictures; lots of old photographs in the family albums. There were old presidents, the Smith Brothers and assorted Victorian gentlemen. It was rare to see a beard on a living man.

Were the fifties that sterile? It wasn't until the sixties that beards began to appear. I always enjoyed the ritual of shaving. It was a nice narcissistic activity; but I never enjoyed being a slave to it. I was intrigued with having a beard. My favorite philosophers had beards. I thought it would be neat to have a beard. My first job after college was in Social Services {1962}. Nobody in my profession, that I knew of, had a beard, but they did start popping up here and there. 

While I was in graduate school I made a few attempts at growing a beard but it wasn't until 1966 that I decided a beard would be the thing to have. I was supervisor then at Anoka County Social Services. I was about six months into my beard growth. One day I came back from lunch and there was a razor and a can of shaving cream on my desk. I took it as somebody having a lark and wasn't insulted or intimidated. I never found out who did it, but I suspected a couple secretaries.

In 1968 I started at Wilder Child Guidance Clinic as a Child and Family Therapist. I had a beard. I wanted to know what it was like to be barefaced again. That was the Summer of 1970. I shaved. I regretted it. I didn't like my face without the beard. Within a couple weeks I grew it back. I haven't shaved since 1970.

It is hard to imagine a society so controlling that virtually everybody was afraid to defy it. Or is it? People are just as afraid to speak their minds about some things they disagree with now, as men were to raise beards, then. Maybe some ideas pop into your mind right now. I know several. I don't want to list them in this message.

I do want to stress how controlling culture is. It can actually shape what you perceive. It can and does tell you what you should believe. It tells you what is good or bad. It is difficult to see the influence. People in the fifties didn't know why they didn't like beards. They just didn't. Culture even robs people of their sense of history. In the fifties they seemed to forget that their grandfathers had beards.

Are all your opinions, tastes, etc. true to yourself or are they dictated by our culture.

Consider that.

Love and Peace,  Gregg