Have you ever seen Braveheart? I have. That’s why I know the quintessential man’s man (Han Solo notwithstanding) is a bearded man. Certain campus males discovered the simple social fact of The Beard early this year, and what do you think they did? They grew beards.
The impact was, to quote the title of a 90s asteroid thriller, deep. Every Harris visit became a Where’s Waldo of facial hair. But the second wave of hirsute majesty, tidal though it may have been, was disingenuous. The imitators were only trying to cash in on a trend well established among the ranks of those endowed with the most fortunate of genetics and the most Wild Western levels of testosterone. In short, they were hopeless poseurs.
The no-shave swell crested around February. Our fair campus was a thrift store approach to chin accents and nose highlights. Any style within 200 years, from muttonchops and full beards to the late-70s Ron Jeremy, was present for the peeping at any given moment of the day. The first non-ironic moustache growers, duped by misunderstanding into the belief of social acceptance, grew bolder; they grew whiskers.
The competition intensified. Those endowed with sufficiently abundant facial hair began to see themselves, whether consciously or on the level at which one knows one is losing ground to a rival in competition for the Zooey Deschanel of the local feminine sect, as competitors in a triathlon of beard-and-moustache-cultivation-prowess. Growing begets shaping, and shaping requires upkeep. Like horticulturists circa 13000 BCE, the beard-growers of Connecticut College began to specialize.
Some decided to go for volume. Beards approached Santa Claus proportions. Entire complements of whiskers formed themselves overnight into simulacra of Wikipedia photos of 1800s-era politicians. The competition intensified.
Suddenly, without even Paul Revere’s codified lantern system of warning, warm weather came. As though the Civil War managed to reprise its first three quarters within a vacuum of time’s passage, deserters began to appear everywhere. Beards vanished left and right like the illusions of dreamland as the afternoon sun begins to penetrate the psychic shield of a deep hangover.
So where do we find ourselves? This land is now one of scant beards and even rarer moustaches. Only the manliest, or the least likely to give a rat’s butthole, remain in the running for beardliest.
Are we better off? Was the short-lived winter rush of beard-growing merely a fad? An enticement to the members of our campus most eager to demonstrate their similarities to the Alpha Wolf? I think not.
As the number of tour attendees grows daily, blooming in the warmth of the New England sun like a hothouse flower, we students should feel an obligation to demonstrate our commitment to upholding the centuries-long legacy of academic face-decorators. Without beards, our campus is nothing but a retirement home for the incapable.
I ask you, dear readers: disregarding the discomfort, inherent patriarchal sympathies, and general affect of complete and impotent posturing of a beard, would you ever want to learn from an Academy of the Beardless?
The beard is life. The beard is purpose. Above all, the beard is a statement of commitment to traditions of development. The beard is yours for the shaping.
Be like a flower, thriving in the lengthening daylight hours of spring.
Grow.
