The past four and a half years the area of my face below my nose and above my neck has stayed reasonably warm. I first grew the goatee because, during my first year of teaching, I was regularly mistaken for a student. I could be in front of a class in a 3-piece suit and tie teaching, and a student runner would walk in, look around the room in a bewildered daze and ask, “Where's your teacher?” For me to truly come into my own as a respected professional, I needed facial hair. Part of me thought about the Tick's immortal words during the episode That Mustache Feeling, “Rugged, self-assured, adult...these are the words who describe a man who wears a mustache.” Growing the goatee was a right of passage that marked me, in a very real way, as an adult, a professional, worthy of the respect due a man of my years.
That was then. Now, it's summertime, and with Jackson a pretty good fixture whenever I'm seen in public, people take me for an adult anyway. I guess you could say I don't need a goatee when I have a baby.
Except I do. I look funny and naked without it. Regrowing starts today.
