Between 1876 and 1971 there were more women than men. That’s a fact. So the marriage pool was lesser and it was harder to find a wife. Like today in sport or getting that job, you had to have something different to stand out from the crowd.
Men grew beards.
Why?
It proved their masculinity in a hunter like fashion. The rugged alpha male complete with club could bop a woman over the head and take her back to his cave. Well maybe the last part is untrue but the rugged piece bears credence.
So in today’s world, why are so many men now growing beards? Well there are two types. The Hipster beard. You know the one. A guy usually has clean cut hair cut neatly coiffured and styled with wax. And then below his nose and supporting his face is an unruly mass of hair equal in its thickness to its length. Disproportionate to anything else on its being. This may be a trend for younger men. Not unlike during the 1994 world cup and everyone in the country grew a goatee! What was that all about? The footballers included. Suddenly Colonel Saunders was more of an icon for his fashion sense than his chicken! So I can live with that. The hipster beards are fine. They don’t trouble me and in a year or two they will be gone.
However….
There is another type of beard. The middle aged man beard. You know who you are! Come on out from behind your balding pate and stop trying to prove a point.
It’s like a defiance of age. A man who is getting older wants to prove some of his ruggedness (real word) He wants to gauge his level of ruggidity (Ok I made that one up) or to prove that yes my hair is gradually leaving my head but look where else I can grow it. From my face!! I can shape it as I wish. I can trim here and here. I can preen this bit. Look at how I stroke it. It makes me look pensive. The intelligent man. The thinking Greek God. I can grow it within weeks if I want and if I shave it all off….because, being the man that I am….I can do it all again! And you can see me do it. It’s on my face!!
Only my bald spot is still there.
It shines in Summer.
Lotions, potions, creams, massages and shampoos are all pointless. My middle age is here and there is nothing that can be done. Transplant? Two words. Wayne Rooney.
Not exactly brushing it back out of his eyes is he? Transplants are exactly that. Except they are like a dead ferret that has been transplanted and not natural hair. It is not re-growth.
But a beard! ( Q the happy music again!) There it is sprouting at will! To cover up the decline of youth. A need like buying pop music in the middle aged man that will buy a few more years. Until he realises when he is sixty how ridiculous the whole thing was. But then he wont shave it off. Because….well it’s distinguished.
The Department of Men who have Beards.
I know some men who work for a firm,
When I tell you of them I know you will squirm
They work high in a building
Where they report
The floor they work on? I think it’s the fourth.
These men I know are so well revered
They work for the department of men who have beards.
Each one bedecked in the finest of suits
Impeccably dressed, wildly hirsute
From Monday to Friday they will gather as one
And reflect on their business and what needs to be done.
Some say they are brigands and men to be feared
Those in the department of men who have beards
Others will say they are men of good stealth
Who meet on a Tuesday to encourage their wealth.
When they sit and ponder and wonder and think
Before recessing for lunch and a drink.
And when they’re refreshed they are wonderfully geared
For an afternoon, in the department of men who have beards
A beard is an enigma for those who don’t know
A cunning disguise, a façade one can grow
A veil of sorts to preen and to stroke
To conceal ones emotions
On ones face, like a cloak
And as these mystical men fratern with each other
They are equally untrue yet loyal as a brother
For often they’ve fought, laughed, loved and leered
Those in the department of men who have beards
My mother instructed don’t trust men with bow ties
Or men with no wife or men with glass eyes.
But her ultimate warning was for men who were weird
Those are the very same men who wear beards.
And in the department there is malice and fear
As they reflect on a motion while stroking their beards
They will raise their head high; turn their lips down and in
And run a fore finger up their neck to their chin
Or to reflect on a point or a deal to be done
They will glance their bridge finger across their lips to their thumb.
And when they are nervous they will twirl on a strand
Of hair from their cheeks, deftly by hand.
There is many a burden these men have to mount
The explaining of expenses to the men in accounts
But their greatest dilemma and hottest of clashes
Come from the bureau of men with moustaches
And so their day goes until dusk slowly calls
And they leave behind them those secretive walls
Of daring and planning and losing and fear
In that mystical department of men who have beards.
Men grew beards.
Why?
It proved their masculinity in a hunter like fashion. The rugged alpha male complete with club could bop a woman over the head and take her back to his cave. Well maybe the last part is untrue but the rugged piece bears credence.
So in today’s world, why are so many men now growing beards? Well there are two types. The Hipster beard. You know the one. A guy usually has clean cut hair cut neatly coiffured and styled with wax. And then below his nose and supporting his face is an unruly mass of hair equal in its thickness to its length. Disproportionate to anything else on its being. This may be a trend for younger men. Not unlike during the 1994 world cup and everyone in the country grew a goatee! What was that all about? The footballers included. Suddenly Colonel Saunders was more of an icon for his fashion sense than his chicken! So I can live with that. The hipster beards are fine. They don’t trouble me and in a year or two they will be gone.
However….
There is another type of beard. The middle aged man beard. You know who you are! Come on out from behind your balding pate and stop trying to prove a point.
It’s like a defiance of age. A man who is getting older wants to prove some of his ruggedness (real word) He wants to gauge his level of ruggidity (Ok I made that one up) or to prove that yes my hair is gradually leaving my head but look where else I can grow it. From my face!! I can shape it as I wish. I can trim here and here. I can preen this bit. Look at how I stroke it. It makes me look pensive. The intelligent man. The thinking Greek God. I can grow it within weeks if I want and if I shave it all off….because, being the man that I am….I can do it all again! And you can see me do it. It’s on my face!!
Only my bald spot is still there.
It shines in Summer.
Lotions, potions, creams, massages and shampoos are all pointless. My middle age is here and there is nothing that can be done. Transplant? Two words. Wayne Rooney.
Not exactly brushing it back out of his eyes is he? Transplants are exactly that. Except they are like a dead ferret that has been transplanted and not natural hair. It is not re-growth.
But a beard! ( Q the happy music again!) There it is sprouting at will! To cover up the decline of youth. A need like buying pop music in the middle aged man that will buy a few more years. Until he realises when he is sixty how ridiculous the whole thing was. But then he wont shave it off. Because….well it’s distinguished.
The Department of Men who have Beards.
I know some men who work for a firm,
When I tell you of them I know you will squirm
They work high in a building
Where they report
The floor they work on? I think it’s the fourth.
These men I know are so well revered
They work for the department of men who have beards.
Each one bedecked in the finest of suits
Impeccably dressed, wildly hirsute
From Monday to Friday they will gather as one
And reflect on their business and what needs to be done.
Some say they are brigands and men to be feared
Those in the department of men who have beards
Others will say they are men of good stealth
Who meet on a Tuesday to encourage their wealth.
When they sit and ponder and wonder and think
Before recessing for lunch and a drink.
And when they’re refreshed they are wonderfully geared
For an afternoon, in the department of men who have beards
A beard is an enigma for those who don’t know
A cunning disguise, a façade one can grow
A veil of sorts to preen and to stroke
To conceal ones emotions
On ones face, like a cloak
And as these mystical men fratern with each other
They are equally untrue yet loyal as a brother
For often they’ve fought, laughed, loved and leered
Those in the department of men who have beards
My mother instructed don’t trust men with bow ties
Or men with no wife or men with glass eyes.
But her ultimate warning was for men who were weird
Those are the very same men who wear beards.
And in the department there is malice and fear
As they reflect on a motion while stroking their beards
They will raise their head high; turn their lips down and in
And run a fore finger up their neck to their chin
Or to reflect on a point or a deal to be done
They will glance their bridge finger across their lips to their thumb.
And when they are nervous they will twirl on a strand
Of hair from their cheeks, deftly by hand.
There is many a burden these men have to mount
The explaining of expenses to the men in accounts
But their greatest dilemma and hottest of clashes
Come from the bureau of men with moustaches
And so their day goes until dusk slowly calls
And they leave behind them those secretive walls
Of daring and planning and losing and fear
In that mystical department of men who have beards.