When Joan went to Cali for a week I decided to grow a beard. It's one of those things you can do while not doing anything and when people see you they say, "You grew a beard."
I trimmed my goatee down to stubble and let the rest of my face catch up.
The problem is that a beard on an old man isn't the same as a beard on a handsome young man. My reddish blonde beard from the sixties and seventies is now white, with an occasional red hair here and there. The other thing is that my face rounder than it was back then, and growing a beard makes it rounder. I liked that I didn't have as much face to shave but I was beginning to resemble a bowling ball with gray stubble.
Joan, back from her vacation, suggested that if I cut down the surface that the beard covered that perhaps I could emphasize my chin line. I tried by shaving my cheeks, but it didn't work. It made me look like an old sea captain. All I needed was a cap, a double-breasted pea coat and a corncob pipe and I could wander the streets of Portland shouting, "Ahoy, matey" to the passersby.
So this morning, while Joan was still in dreamland, I came downstairs and cut off the beard to my stubbly goatee. It looks better, but as Joan said I still look like I'm sixty years old.
Ahoy, matey.
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