The Many Faces of Wil...
There was an old man with a beard...
I've
had some form of facial hair all of my adult life. Hey, a bear has to have
his fur, right? I remember being fascinated with beards and mustaches ever
since I was a little boy. My parents had this great picture of me in the
family album, must have been taken when I was only 2 or 3 years old, that
showed me sitting on Santa's lap. You can see it already - I'm absolutely
fascinated with Santa's beard. Years later when I was in junior high school
I remember going to a baseball game with my parents. The guy in the next
seat had the most incredible beard I'd ever seen. It was blond and curly
and hung all the way to his waist! I was in awe. To this day when I try
to imagine the "perfect" beard I see an image of that man in my mind's
eye.
My first experience growing anything
of my own came when I was a senior in high school in 1977. That was when
I first grew a mustache. With the exception of one week in 1992 when I
had oral/jaw surgery, it has been with me ever since. I grew a beard in
1979 when I was a sophomore in college. The full beard has been my most
consistent style over the years, but there have been periods of experimentation
over the years, too. All in all, I've spent more years of my life with
facial hair - mostly a full beard - than without.
Here are some pictures of what I
have looked like over the years:
This is what I look like most
of the time. It's pretty conservative - a style that you wouldn't think
twice about if you saw me on the street. I guess it's ok, but I get bored
with it every once in a while and try something a bit different...
I've had some, shall we say
less
conservative, styles over the years...
Throughout much of the 1980's,
and again from 1994-96, I wore my beard VERY LONG. I think the longest
I ever let it grow was about 12 inches.
Can you believe this guy is
a preschool teacher?
A long beard like this is probably my preferred beard style, but unfortunately it is not one that is very well accepted by the rest of society. Employers tend to be quite skeptical about this look. Even so, I have little doubt that sooner or later I'll grow my beard long again.
I have tried the ubiquitous goatee
style a couple of times. I really like the way this can look on other guys,
but I'm not sure how much I like it on myself. Most recently I had this
style from February 2005 until October 2005, when I started growing a full
beard back again.
The few times in my adult life
that I've gone beardless, I've at least had a mustache. These photos were
taken in the Fall of 2001 and Spring of 2002. I really liked the big stache
in the lower pictures, but it made eating and drinking kind of tricky...
not to mention the fact that I'm really a beard person at heart. Keeping
the stache trimmed to just the right length and shaving the rest of my
face (almost) every day proved to be just too much hassle for me. After
about 8 months I finally gave up and the beard began making it's comeback.
These are just my more recent
styles... those I've captured with digital photos. I've tried lots of other
things over the years, and I sometimes like to experiment with different
looks. Let me know what you think of these various styles. I get a little
restless sometimes, and maybe you can be the one who can convince me it's
time to think about making a change again... I did start growing from the
goatee to the full beard again. Last shave was on October 13, 2005. I'll
post the results.
Here's my current beard hero, by the way... He goes by the name of "Jack Passion." He's only 21 years old and recently took third place in the World Beard and Mustache Championships in Germany. Wow...
That's pretty close to that "perfect
beard" i mentioned at the top of the page!
Check out one of my favorite places to hang out...
E-Mail
Me
or
This page last updated on October 23, 2005