Fast forward to the last 3 or 4 years. Now, every wanna be hipster or millennial in Nashville has a beard. There are long, long beards (I can't imaging having one of those). There are all forms of styled beards and goatees. There are guys who shave once a week, so they almost always have a face full of stubble.
The point is, as soon as it became cool to grow beards - all of the time - I went the other way, probably because I'm a contrarian by nature. I stopped growing a beard after Thanksgiving every year and just shaved every day. The clean shaven look. That was what was in for me. J.P. and Joe weren't happy, though, because they always like it when I grow a beard. I'm not sure why, exactly, but they do.
When we were set to go to Santa Rosa Beach, Fl, for vacation in early August, I didn't shave the week before we left or the entire week we were at the beach. When we got back, the boys begged me not to shave and to the let the beard go for a while. I agreed, much to their delight and much to Jude's non-delight. Jude hates it, and I mean really hates it, when I grow a beard. Of course, that's secretly part of the fun of it for me.
At some point in the early fall, I went to The Moose - a male grooming lounge on Music Row - for a beard trimming. It's a cool place, for sure, and I've been there on occasion in the past. They have leather chairs in the waiting room and flat screen televisions showing sports or financial news. Best of all, you can have a beer or a shot of bourbon while you wait. Perfect. I asked the stylist to shave the beard and leave me with a goatee. He obliged and I was set.
Around Thanksgiving, Jude, the boys and I went to visit my mom at NHC Place. When we walked into Aspen Arbor, we saw her and she immediately said, "there's my son." It was pretty cool that she recognized me because so often since we moved her into assisted living in November 2016, she confused me with my father, Howard Newman. I've written about this before, but I grew to dread the part of every visit where I had to tell her I wasn't her husband, but that I was her son. Nearly every time, she would grow confused first, then sad and disappointed when I tried to explain to her that I was married to Jude and had two boys, J.P. and Joe. It was disheartening for me and like the worst version of the movie, "Groundhog Day."
After the visit, Jude told me she thought my mom recognized me as her son because of the goatee. My father never had a goatee or, at least, he sure as hell never had a goatee with as much gray in it as mine has, since he died at 30 years of age. "Wow," I thought. "Maybe Jude is right." So I kept the goatee, and returned to The Moose every few weeks for a trim.
I'm not sure if its a coincidence or not but my mom hasn't confused me with my father in a very, very long time. I don't think it's happened at all since she moved into NHC Place, from Maristone, in October 2017. That's been a huge relief to me, just knowing that I don't have to break my mom's heart every time I see her by telling her I'm not her husband.
Some days - actually, a lot of days - I'm tired of the goatee and I want to shave it off. I've never had a beard or goatee for this long. Other days, it's kind of fun and I'm glad I have it. Every time I threaten to shave it, the boys scream "NO!" The other night, Joe told me that having a goatee made me look exactly the right age, 51. He also said that if I shaved it, I would look too young, like 35. I almost shaved it the next morning because I could sure as hell handle looking (and feeling) like I was 35 years old again.
For now, the goatee stays. For how long, I have no idea.
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