Saturday, July 19, 2008

Reflections on Facial Hair

The other day my friend Kirill asked me why all the Mormons in the law school seem to have facial hair. My theory was that because they went to the oppressive BYU they now felt the need to throw off their Norelco shackles. I could be wrong. It may be a return to our 19th century roots (no pun intended).
Even though I never went to BYU I nevertheless tried my own little facial hair experiment about a year go. The problem is; the Garff genes are almost whisker free. My father came in last place in his high school beard growing contest (but at least we don’t go bald). But in spite of all of this I tried to grow my beard out while April was away for a few weeks on business. Unfortunately I can’t just put on my beard like my friend Josh (See YouTube of the week for my May 1 post). But I gave it my very best effort. My beard, if you can call it that, didn’t last long after April got back.
I can’t say I blame her. It was pretty pathetic. I certainly wouldn’t want to kiss this.
I guess I won’t be joining ZZ Top any time soon.

3 comments:

Jerkolas said...

Don't give up yet!

It seems that everyone with a blog writes about beards at some point:

http://jerkolas.blogspot.com/2007/12/one-beard-to-rule-them-all.html

I believe that the zoobies in law school (and have left provo) try and grow beards for the same reason that so many return missionaries try right off the mission; to see if they are actually men now (and probably something to do with the shackles of oppression being removed like you mention). After spending 4 years in provo you can imagine that several would once again feel the need to check and assure themselves of their gender and maturity.

SGarff said...

Thanks for the encouragement Tom! Maybe you can convince April to get on board for a second attempt. Good observation. I think there’s a lot of truth to the manhood angle. Thanks for the link to your beard post. It’s almost (dare I say it) inspiring.

Unknown said...

I'm gonna have to side with April. That's nasty.