Beards of the Burg: The 4-1-1 on facial fuzz
By Liz Barry on Feb. 27, 2008
By Liz Barry
385-5524
John Eccles’s charcoal-gray beard pours over his chin like a waterfall. A busy mustache conceals his upper lip.
Eccles, 51, is the vice president and dean for student development at Lynchburg College. He started growing a beard in 1974 to buy beer underage.
Thirty-four years later: “It’s a part of me now,” he says. “It’s just not hair anymore.”
The beard. A timeless expression of male identity.
Allan Peterkin, a psychiatrist at the University of Toronto who wrote “One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair,” says the cultural meaning of beards has flipped-flopped throughout history, ranging from godly and saintly to sinister and diabolic.
“You’re either Santa or Satan, based on how somebody’s is reading your facial hair,” he says.
In Ancient Greece, philosophers, poets and historians rivaled each other for the best beard, according to “The History of Hair” by Ann Charles and Roger DeAnfrasio. Elizabethan beards were stiffened, starched, powdered, perfumed, waxed and even dyed a “fashionable red.”
In modern America, beards fell out of fashion after the Victorian age and didn’t make a strong comeback until the beatniks and hippies embraced them in the ’50s and ’60s. Beards went out in the ’80s, with Miami Vice stubble dominating the facial hair landscape.
Now, from street corners to cubicles, beards seem to be making a comeback. This month’s Time magazine hails beards the latest trend in facial hair. They have been spotted on musicians, actors and athletes alike.
Peterkin says the recent re-emergence of beards is a logical extension of the goatee trend in the ’90s.
“In the ’90s, men wanted to prove they weren’t corporate slaves, that they could get away with facial hair,” says Peterkin.
The goatee fell into disfavor when it became too mainstream, or as Peterkin puts it, “Once your dad grows a goatee, it’s time to change your look.”
The post-modern beard is a complex beast, Peterkin says. It can be about political activism, rejection of corporate values, an assertion of masculinity or just plain fashion. Or the outer man can reflect the inner; Many men grow beards during times of transition, such as marriage, grieving, leaving a job.
Lynchburg men are no exception when it comes to beards. Men young and old are sporting the facial fuzz, for reasons as distinct as their beards.
Nate Hall, a cook at The Yellow Submarine and Vines, remembers the exact day he started growing a beard: April 19, 2007.
He grew it when his friend was sent to prison, as a gesture of support, and hasn’t shaved since.
“I felt like that was the easiest statement to make long-term,” says Hall, 29, who sports a scraggly brown beard and mustache. “I’m not going to do a food strike or a silence, you know what I mean? I’m not going to wear orange for a year.”
Robbie Pence, a wine sales representative, has a full beard and mustache, strawberry blonde, cut close to his face, complemented by shaggy hair and side-swept bangs.
“Truly, I hate to shave,” says Pence, a 10-year beard veteran.
Pence, 27, would let his beard grow wild if it weren’t for work. But when you’re selling expensive wine, the Paul Bunyan look doesn’t pass.
Randy Hannah, a mechanic from Evington, wears a neat white beard that hugs his face. The 58-year-old mechanic is longtime beard grower: 30 years and counting.
Hannah doesn’t have a specific reason for his beard. He just likes it that way.
So does his wife, Ellen Hannah.
“I have never seen him without a beard,” Ellen says. “I love it.”
Randy’s response: “If I want to get a divorce, all I have to do is shave.”
Edward Kidd, 78, sports a chalk-white beard with no mustache—Abe Lincoln-style. His beard is in stark contrast to his dark brown eyebrows.
The newspaper carrier from Amherst has been growing his beard since he retired from his fulltime job in 1991. As a newspaper carrier, his beard keeps his face warm while delivering papers on bitter winter nights.
Plus, he likes the look.
“I just like it trimmed up right neat, you know,” he said, later adding, “If I let it go, it’d look worse than the devil.”
Khalil Samad, 21, has been cultivating his beard since early puberty. A manager at Choppers Barber Shop on Memorial Avenue, Samad has a patchy black beard and mustache.
“I’m a Muslin, so I grow it for tradition,“ he says.
Samad is still trying to perfect his beard. It has a few light spots where the hair hasn’t filled in.
“I’m aspiring for a nice, thick, black, healthy beard,” he says. “I want it to be real dark.”
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