OUTBEARDED!!!

For those of you who haven't seen me in the last few months, I've taken up a new hobby: Beardedizationalism, or growing a beard, for short. I have enjoyed it thus far and many people have been supportive of my efforts. Overall I feel it's been a good growing experience (get it?). But it's come about time to chop it off. Check it out:

Me

(me snarling)

As you can see, it is a beard. And sometimes I get to feeling like I like it. I feel good about myself, like I could go live in the mountains or the fields or something. But then I am humbled, as we so often are when we think this way.

My humbling came at the hands of two good friend who I met up with this last week. The first was fresh from a French Monastery and like the French, had plenty of nerve to out beard me. This beard, on a scale of one to ten, was a Grizzly Ansel Adams.

Adams

See the Similarities?

Luke

As if this were not enough, blindsiding me out of the blue (and out of the running for best beard) came an old friend also recently returned from Europe. Edging out Grizzly Adams' look a like came a beard only the Russians have matched.

Dostoyevsky

Marx
AJ

Impressive, no? My hat is off to these manly men who have invested such time and loving effort into nurturing truly respectable beards.

Note to my other reader, not mentioned in this post: you have always had a great beard. But since this was no surprise to me, I did not mention your beard as one of the humbling factors. Please forgive this oversight and accept my sincere admiration of your beard as well.

Note to any other potential readers, bearded or not: feel free to contribute your reaction to the mug shots above.