Parades, Facial Hair, and Women

Tonight was my first parade of the year. True, I played in a parade on St. Patrick's Day and Memorial Day, but the former was with a small Italian festival band and the latter was with my former music teacher's band, also an Italian band. Each of those groups is very informal and never has more than 7-10 players. The drum beat is very casual and we stroll rather than march in a rigid “left-right, left-right” progression. There were no judges at either parade, no trophies to be won. I've also played in about 3 or 4 feasts this year, also casual gigs.

Tonight was my first parade with the fire department band I belong to. It was their second parade of the year, but I had missed Memorial Day since I always help out my old teacher on that job. It was 90 degrees here on Long Island, but thankfully there was a breeze and the temperature had come down somewhat by the time we arrived at the parade site around 5 PM. We were an hour early because my dad as usual told me an earlier departure time than was needed, to allow for traffic. No one was there. No firetrucks and no other bands could be seen. We walked to the gathering site where we found our band's lead trumpet player, and the father of someone I'd gone to high school and college with. As I shook his hand he pulled me in close, stroked the bottom of my chin, and quipped “I like your bush.” That sounds a LOT creepier now that I type it, but he has kind of a sarcastic sense of humor and was commenting on my goatee since he hadn't seen me since last year and I've recently returned to a look I haven't sported in nearly a decade.

I've always looked a lot younger than I actually was, which didn't help with my college popularity. The Catholic high school I attended had a strict dress code. Besides wearing suits, we all had to be clean-shaven and our hair couldn't pass below OR above our collar line. I'll never forget the time one kid shaved the sides and back of his head, and used shoe polish to conceal it. We were sitting in French class on a very hot day in a building with no air conditioning when his “hair” started to run down the side of his face and the teacher had to dismiss him. College meant freedom from a lot of the rules which had shaped me. I could wear sneakers, jeans and flannel shirts and I could grow a mustache. Girls started actually noticing me and saying how much older it made me look, but when I wore a red ball cap and some of the guys called me Mario, I knew it wasn't working. I added a goatee and enjoyed the reduced shaving time each morning. My parents weren't too happy with my look. My mom would try to use psychology and point out that “no nice girls” would be attracted to me. My dad went with the more direct: “I would shave, but if you want to look like a bum, that's up to you....” By the time I was a Senior, these and other comments were getting very annoying, and I knew I'd have to look presentable on my upcoming internship if there was any hope of a company actually hiring me.

The next opportunity would come when I was barely at my second job for a year and found myself in the hospital for 11 days undergoing my intestinal surgery. Every day as I lay weak in the bed my dad would visit and ask if I wanted my razor. I'd say no, he'd start to get upset, and my mom would shoot him the bulging eyeball “don't-make-a-scene” face as onlookers in the ICU turned in our direction. I kept a full beard for the entire month of my recovery, telling them I planned to shave when I went back to work. Since I was homebound, they could accept it since I wouldn't be embarrassing them anywhere. The method to my madness was that while I returned to work with a full beard on my first day back, I shaved all but very large sideburns for my second day back appearing as Wolverine for Halloween. By day three I was back to my presentable mild-mannered office working self. A few years later I again grew the mustache, this time to intentionally resemble Mario as I donned overalls with my red hat, also for Halloween.

It's been interesting to note different people's reactions the past few weeks. My dad surprisingly has said nothing about it. My mom only made a few remarks along the lines of “are you going to keep that?” Some people at work have treated me as though nothing was different, while others have commented. Some have said it looks good. The editor-in-chief of my science fiction catalog quipped that I “had some dirt on my face” and then posed the more serious question of “doesn't one usually grow facial hair for the colder months?” One co-worker filmed a short three minute “documentary”, to send to another who'd left the company and moved out of state a few months ago.

At some point, it probably will get too hot, or I'll decide that it interferes too much with contact against my horn's mouthpiece. I've been getting some looks from women, but I've never been able to gauge what those looks mean. I've always been certain that when they averted their eyes and smiled that I was being mocked, and while they contained their laughter it left me hurt and seething on the inside. Last week a cashier in a Chinese take-out place did that to me, and I nearly decided on the spot, “OK, that's it; this thing is coming off.” Walking to the car however my mom commented that the girl was “giving me the eye” and asked if I noticed how she was looking at me. On the one hand, my mom was a girl once so maybe she can read people better than I can. On the other, she's a 66-year-old woman desperate to marry off her 30-year-old son and obtain grandchildren, and she's always looking, possibly seeing things that just aren't there.

Before the parade I spent my afternoon enjoying What Women Want. It was very funny and moving with a variety of VERY sexy ladies, from Helen Hunt to Marisa Tomei to Judy Greer. Though the circumstances which grant Mel Gibson the power to read women's thoughts were somewhat thin, once you suspend your disbelief and go along for the ride it's a fun one. Such a power could be both a blessing and a curse, but I think I wouldn't mind having it for at least a week or so. Gibson's character finds that so much of what he thought THEY thought was way off, and I think such knowledge is invaluable.

I may not know for sure what women think of me or my goatee, but old men are nothing but vocal and honest. As we lined up in formation to move out, a trombone player turned, gave me look, then called over to my dad, “Hey [MCF senior], you let your son look like that?!” He then turned to me in mock disgust and said, “Ya look like BLUTO!” I had sunglasses on under my fireman's cap, so I just looked ahead as though I hadn't seen or heard him.

The parade went well. As we passed judges at various points and I saw them scratching notes furiously in their books, I wondered if facial hair would count against us. There are various things they look for. Uniforms should be neat and ironed and shoes should be polished, and of course we all need to be in line and in step, everyone “lefting” and “righting” in unison. Other players in the band have mustaches, well trimmed, and I did notice one drummer later also sporting a goatee. This band wins at least 2 or 3 trophies a year out of the 5 parades we play. I'll find out next week whether we won anything tonight. As for my facial hair, I'm sure before long I'll go back to being clean-shaven at a time of my own choosing. It really IS too hot for it now and it does interfere slightly with my mouthpiece.

Of course, if some Judy Greer-lookalike walks by and I hear her think I look sexy, all bets are off.