I am 30 years old, (soon to be 31 in August) and I have never seen my father's face. Oh, don't get me wrong...I know who the baby daddy is...no denying it...I have his eyes, and hands, and skin, and teeth, and big forehead, ears, feet, and massive shoulders. My shoulders and arms are another story for another time. However, in all my years walking this earth, I have never seen in person the skin on my father's face.
Why you might ask? Well, for as long as I can recall, my father has kept a beard...an everchanging beard. A beard that has masked his face and has made what lies underneath a complete mystery. I look at old pictures of my father when he was a little boy, a teenager, a soldier in Vietnam, and a newly wed man...but who is this person that looks back. It can't be my Dad in these pictures...is that what's under all that hair?
The hair on his face has been an everchanging rollercoaster, but one thing has been constant....it has always been there. It has been long, so long that it would hang up in the front pearlized snaps of his western cut shirts. It was red in color when it was this long...and he looked the part of the mountain man. We lived in a rural community outside of Greenwood, Arkansas high on a hill overlooking a green and partially wooded valley below. Our driveway was 1/2 a mile of dirt and gravel that ended at a quaint little brown house with a porch that stretched completely across the front. We had a pole barn with a stable for our horse, a metal out building and a rock pump house for our well. We did not have access to city water, and well water was our only available source. It was a good well with a sand filter, tasted good...but had a high iron content. How high of an iron content you might ask? So high that it turned Dad's foot long beard red...not auburn....RED.
Now, picture a six foot tall man in a plaid western cut snap front shirt, blue jeans, Irish Setter lace up work boots, a goose down vest, and a foot long red beard walking into a kindergarten classroom. Poor Dad, he was picking my sister Lori up from school when he knocked on the door to enter. He stepped inside and the kids started screaming and hid under the tables...he never said a word. Lori was shouting "it's okay, it's okay...it's just my Daddy"! The children were scared to death of my Dad and his big red, iron saturated beard.
I have never been scared of my Dad's beard. It has just been an extended part of him, like an arm that reaches out to hug you...his tickley beard was the source of much joy and laughter for me as a child. He would hold me down and blow strawberries on my head, stomach, feet and that fuzzy face made it ten times ticklier (say that five times fast). But at some point, Dad noticed that he had a spot of his face that was not growing hair. It was getting larger and was about the size of a quarter when Mom noticed that I had a spot on my head that was not growing hair. OH CRAP!!! WE GOT THE MANGE!!! Not really, but we did have a skin fungus (probably from the well water) that originated in Dad's beard and was transferred to my head via tickle time. Lovely. The doctor recommended that my hair be cut short to better apply the antibiotic cream and reduce the threat of spreading said fungus. For those of you that went to school with me since back in the day, pick up a Greenwood Elementary yearbook and check out out the little peach in Mrs. Brixey's kindergarten class. Bet you almost missed me, huh? Don't feel bad....it truly looked like a boy...a boy with a ruffled shirt. This is the one time in my life that I didn't really like Dad's beard.
Time went on as time continues to do, and city water came to the country. The redness eventually grew off and I noticed that Dad was wearing his brown beard shorn close to his jawline. Sunrises and sunsets passed and what was once a completely brown beard was now mixed with something that looked like white threads. He was getting older and his beard was slowly becoming gray. Ten years passed and the beard had become a mixture of salt and pepper. Five more years passed and he was looking pretty salty. Twenty years has now flown by and Dad's beard is completely silver. So silver, that one day after coming home from school I noticed that there was alot of white fuzz floating in clumps throughout the yard. There was so much white fuzz that I went into the house and asked Mother who had been skinning rabbits in the back yard. She said "oh no honey, Dad just trimmed his beard". Who knew.
How many times have a looked up at that furry face? How many times have I seen a brown cigar surrounded by brown then silver hair, bobbing up and down as he spoke. How many times have I looked into my Dad's bluest of blue eyes and thought that his beard made them stand out even more? Of two things I can be certain...number one, even though the style has changed and the color too...my Dad would not be the same man in my eyes if his beard was to be removed. I have never seen the skin that lies underneath. Number two...my Dad will always be the same man in my eyes if his beard was to be removed. I have always seen what lies beneath the skin that I have never laid eyes upon. I love you Dad...and your beard! With tears in my eyes...I close for now.
