Tom,

I daresay that your East coast family is living a bit of a sheltered life. For those of us living in the western states, we take for granted that we have, on the whole, more liberties and individual freedoms than our mid-west and eastern friends. Our western communities are so different. I don't believe my longer beard would have gone over well in Kentucky's professional circles had I stayed there. My Belgian mother still gives me grief over having a beard - how she condescends. Many people are perfectly happy living their vanilla lives and they feel a need to criticize anything that threatens that world view. It just speaks to their insecurity. In other words, they are threatened by a beard - an image too savage to accept, too rough, too manly. What happened to their little boy? Aargh! What makes them think their opinion is at all relevant. I know that I am at an age where I don't really care about the opinions of others; I think I have earned that prerogative, and so have you.

Cheers,

Sean

Dare to grow the beard you were destined to have!