Let’s face it… today is a pretty big, hairy deal

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/09/2021 (1865 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

By the hair on my chinny chin chin, I can tell today is an extremely special day.

Before I explain, allow me to point out that I normally do not use this column to discuss special days on the calendar.

That’s because for the past three months I have been using our Uplift newsletter to spread joy and mirth via the journalistic technique of explaining what is special about the day it arrives in your email inbox, which is every Wednesday.

If for mysterious reasons Uplift does not land in your email inbox each Wednesday, you can subscribe to it — and all the other entertaining and educational Free Press newsletters — by clicking on https://fpnewsplatform.winnipegfreepress.com/email-alerts.

What I have learned in the past few months, however, is that there are far too many special days — for instance, next Thursday, Sept. 9, is National Teddy Bear Day — to be handled in a single weekly newsletter.

Which is why in today’s column I am urging everyone within the sound of my voice to put down this newspaper — also, drop your razor — and join me in celebrating the fact that today, Saturday, Sept. 4, is (pause for dramatic effect) World Beard Day.

Q: You mean we’re supposed to get excited about guys such as yourself who have scruffy chin whiskers?

A: Yes, that’s pretty much it.

Q: OK, that’s really stupid, but, please, tell me more.

I’d be glad to. According to a website promoting this special day: “World Beard Day is celebrated annually on an international level with people from every nation and continent gathering together with their beards. It is held on the first Saturday of September and is characterized by the happiness of all people being with their beards and with each other.

“On World Beard Day, it is customary for the bearded members of a family to relax and partake in no jobs or chores. The beardless members of the family traditionally show their support by waiting on the bearded hand and foot. World Beard Day is all about promoting and elevating the global status of the the beard.”

The website points out that it is considered extremely offensive to shave on World Beard Day. It also contains this fascinating historical tidbit: “In the Swedish village of Dönskborg, anyone without a beard is banished from the town and forced to spend 24 hours in a nearby forest. Back in the town, the hirsute burn effigies of their clean-chinned loved ones.”

I was fascinated to learn that, because my buddy Bob’s wife is from Sweden, and she has never mentioned being forced to hide in the woods on Sept. 4. I am starting to doubt the accuracy of this tidbit, however, because when I Googled “Dönskborg” the first thing I came across was a website about Bjorn Borg, the former Swedish tennis ace who had a scraggly beard similar to mine when he was younger.

Speaking of my beard — you can check it out in the logo attached to this column — I have been working on it, off and on, since 1978, when I spent a year backpacking through Europe and lacked the necessary motivation to shave or bathe every day.

During the pandemic lockdown, when it was impossible to visit the woman who has cut my hair for the past 30 years, my beard grew like a (bad word) weed until it made me resemble (a) a serial killer; (b) a member of the Duck Dynasty reality TV clan; or (c) the leader of an obscure Hillbilly Doomsday cult.

The only time I have been without my beard was more than 20 years ago at my brother’s wedding, when all the guests thought it would be fun to see what I looked like clean-shaven, so they took turns slathering my face with shaving cream and drunkenly whacked away at it with a disposable razor.

When my wife saw what my naked face looked like, she frowned and grunted: “OK, you can start growing it back now.” Whereas my daughter, who was about six years old, began openly weeping and wailing: “I WANT MY DADDY BACK!”

According to online reports, beards are super-trendy right now because facial hair tends to get bigger and stronger during hard times. “A beard is a social amplifier of masculinity within the context of a crowded environment where you’re trying to get ahead,” Barnaby Dixson, one of the authors of Beards and the Big City, which found beards are more popular in larger communities where there’s more competition for jobs and mates, told Global News.

Beards are so manly that every year on this day bewhiskered guys around the world go chin to chin in the “Official World Beard Day All-Bearded Human Pyramid” competition.

The U.S. holds the current record for bearded guys piling atop one another (22) after grabbing the coveted title from Australia, where a mere 19 bearded bros stacked themselves up.

Human pyramids aside, I have become very attached to my beard, as has my wife. “A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt,” is what she chirped when I asked her view of my scruffy chin curtain.

So, if you currently don’t have facial hair, this is the day to get started. Chances are it will grow on you, and sporting a beard is a lot more fun than spending the night hiding in a Swedish forest.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca