It had to come. My new job as the Illinois River Energy’s Corporate Environmental, Health and Safety Director requires me to lead the way in safety compliance. As a safety officer, in the event of an emergency, I will have to don a respirator and perform a roll in emergency response. As respirators must seal smoothly against the face, no facial hair other than mustaches are permitted.
So after 20 years in the bearded world, all good things must come to an end. I have to say, I like myself much better in beard but it’s just that it’ll take some gettin’ used to. Mary says I look much younger, probably because the grey in the beard went away.
Here again is the ol’ Teletubbie photo in all it’s full facial hair glory…
I grew a beard about 2 years ago and had it for about 4 months. In that time, I met a couple people, who of course had never seen me without. When I shaved it, one of them came and introduced himself to me. He had no idea.
and then what? he’ll have to go grow his beard back so they’ll recognize him, and then he’ll have to shave it again, at which point they won’t let him in again. There’s no winning.
I hadn’t planned on shaving until after church today. But I couldn’t wait to give it a try so I performed the surgery Saturday night. When I walked into the living room, Ben was the first to notice and did the ol’ “Whoa!” thing. Then they all stared at me for awhile. Forrest, when I think about it, the boys have never seen me without a beard either. We’ve got to leave for church in a few minutes so it’ll be interesting to see the reaction when we get there.
Mary and I bought Ben a new electric shaver for Christmas last year. He’s not used it yet (prefers a razor) and has donated the shaver to the Poor Beardless Dad charity.
One more new unicyclist. You’ve gone through so many changes, Bruce. I remember when you were a 16 year old female unicycling Asian ballerina in that remarkable video a few years ago. Maybe that was someone else. Be sure to introduce yourself to me next time we meet. You may be someone else by then. But then again, what is in the heart has remained unshaven and all will still recognize you. I don’t think you could even fool Penelope.
I think we need a DNA test to prove those are both Yoopers photos.
After 9-11 we had a couple adjusters who had to shave their beards for masks too. The air near ground zero wasn’t too safe. At one point they wanted 100% clean shaven, fortunately by the time I got there in October they weren’t so picky on mustaches. I’ve shaved my upper lip only once in my entire life, and that was when I was still in high school and it wasn’t much more than a caterpillar on my lip back them.
Bruce, grow it out and go for the big cheesy walrus mustach. I think it would look good on you and you get to strain your soup straight from the spoon.
