For years I had a full beard. All while I lived in Maine my beard was thick and full and brown. I kept it cropped at about a half-inch all over my face. Periodically, it would get hot and itch, but, for the most part, it was no bother at all.

Back in those days, I was a homesteader who raised about 75% of the food for my family on my own land. To supplement my income doing this, I was also a school teacher.

At that time in my life, I was young and idealistic, and I often opted to teach the kids that nobody else wanted to. In today’s politically correct world, (which is absolutely THRIVING in the land of education), these kids would be called “learning challenged.”  Back then, I just called them lazy and stupid.

To get them to learn, you had to do more than simply throw facts at them.  If you did that, they would just duck. You had to entertain them and make the subject  matter interesting. (I understood that because when I was a student, I was one that the teachers always said “wasn’t living up to his potential.” In other words, I was lazy and stupid.)

Some, to motivate the dumbest of the dumb, I made a deal with one class. I told them that everybody passed the class with a C or better for the year, I would let them shave my beard off on the last day of school. I never really thought the little bastards would do it, but, my to surprise, they did! (They learned to work together and help each other. They learned to ask questions. They actually began taking an interest in Edgar Allan Poe.)

And so, on the last day of school, the entire school gathered outside on a wonderfully warm and sunny June afternoon. My class paraded me to the front of the crowd, sat me down in a chair, smeared shaving cream all over my face, and shaved me with a Trac Two razor and a pair of scissors.

When they had finished, my face felt unbelieveably smooth to me…and COOL! I couldn’t get over the sensation of actually feeling things on my cheeks after they had been covered with a coat of fur for so many years!

In 1986, I quit teaching, moved back to Connecticut and grew my beard back. I was fine with it for a couple of years. Then the thing started turning gray. And it made me look…well…old. For some reason or another, it turned gray before the hair on top of my head did. So I began dying it.

Let me tell you something. THAT was a royal pain in the butt!

The hair on top of my head is fine and soft. MY barber tells me that I’ve got hair like a young boy, as far as that is concerned.

However, my facial hair is coarse and bristly, and it doesn’t take to coloring very well. In order to keep up any semblance of consistency with the color, I had to dye it about once a week.

Dying took time, it was tedious, and it was messy. I had more hair dye on my chest, fingers and bathroom walls than I had in my beard.

So, one day, I decided that I had had enough, and I decided to cut it off. So, I bought a razor and shaving cream, and did the deed.

Now, I shave with a Norelco electric razor. It does a wonderful job, giving me a nice, smooth, fast shave. What I like about the Norelco it is that I can use it anywhere. I usually shave on my way to work in my car.

I remember watching my father shave when I was a young boy. He shaved with one of those mechanical metal razors. You had to twist the bottom of the handle, and the top of the razor would then magically open up so that you could put the Wilkinson Sword double-edged blade in its cradle. Then, you would twist the bottom of the handle in reverse, and the doors on the top of the razor would close again, exposing only the edges of the razor blade.

After about a dozen or so shaves, my dad would remove theused blade from the razor, replace it with a new one,  and slip the old one into a little slot in the back of the bathroom cabinet where it would disappear forever somewhere into the inner chambers of the house.

When I started shaving, I began with a Trac Two razor from Gillette. It had two blades. The first one, the commercials said, grabbed the hair and lifted it up from the skin so the second blade could then slice it off below the skin line for an incredibly close, comfortable shave.

Then they came out with a razor that had three blades on it.  Next came one with FOUR blades. The other day, I saw a commercial for a razor that had FIVE blades! That thing was be about the size of an axe head!

FIVE freaking blades on a razor head with a Teflon strip attached so that you won’t experience painful “drag” on your sensitive cheeks! The strip even turns color when the razor thinks it’s time for you to change the blade.

One of the modern razors today even has an “onboard computer”.

Seriously!

What the hell do these things cost?

The funny part of all this is, when I go to my barber, the professional, he shaves me with an old fashioned straight razor that he sharpens with a strip of leather that hangs downs from the chair! And he gives me the best shaves I ever get!!!!!  One blade. No computers. No Teflon strip. Just one incredibly sharp piece of cold steel, warm shaving cream, and a very steady hand.