When I was about 17 or so, I grew a mustache. It lasted for about two months, until my mother said, "Get rid of that thing! It makes you look like a pimp!" So I stayed clean-shaven all through the 1950s and 1960s. I finally grew a full beard in the early 1980s, just for the hell of it, but partly to piss off my supervisor at the telephone company, where I was working at the time. After a couple of years, the damned thing started to itch (despite shampooing it every few days—the task moved in to replace shaving). One morning we were having pancakes for breakfast, and the third time I managed to drizzle maple syrup into my beard, I sez, "Okay! That's it!" And I shaved it off. All but the mustache. A year and a half later, my supervisor at the phone company looked at me kinda funny and said, "When did you grow the mustache?" Real quick on the up-take, that lady!

I see a fair amount of facial hair (mostly on the men) at folk festivals and such, but not everybody. During the Northwest Folklife Festivals in the early 1970s, by just looking around, I got the impression that, even though I (clean shaven) was performing, they wouldn't let very many singers in unless they wore a beard and a black Greek fisherman's cap.

Don Firth