Londonderry News

The moustache.  I doubt that anyone really knows when it first became fashionable to grow the beloved nostril-warmer.  From all accounts, Adam didn’t have one in the Garden of Eden – although God only knows, eh?  And history depicts cavemen as having unkempt, bushy beards – probably cave women too, given the times – but no mention of a tidy mustache.  In Jesus’ day, we seem to find a lot of Sanhedrin, Pharisees, and Samaritans with full lengths beards, the early precursors of the ZZ Top look.  And Leonardo DaVinci later portrayed most of the Twelve Apostles as bearded wonders.  But not even one sported a neatly trimmed moustache.

From the Dark Ages through the Middle Ages and into the time of the Pilgrims, facial hair seems to have alternately gone in and out of style in Europe, with no mention of the moustache per say, while in Asia, the Fu Manchu gained popularity among the warrior class.  I think an English translation of the phrase Fu Manchu must be “just-a-few-long-scraggly-hairs-on-the-lip”, because many moustachionados were apparently not convinced that the original Fu qualified as a moustache.  I guess those hairy Europeans didn’t seem to feel that the Oriental guys had enough lip hair to qualify.  Confucius may have objected to that one.  He, after all, supposedly wore a Fu too.

The Civil War introduced sideburns to the American fashion stage, made famous by the Union Army’s General Burnside.  By definition, he probably ushered in the American moustache too.  After all, if you take a full beard and shave off everything below the earlobe and under the chin, you have a moustache anyhow… But the ‘stache didn’t really catch on at that time.  Except among the Cavalry, cowboys, and bearded ladies in circus sideshows.

So it seems pretty obvious to me that the first real, trimmed, American moustache was sported by the one and only Sonny Bono in the 1960s.  It was about the only thing that differentiated him from Cher during the height of their popularity – I couldn’t tell them apart by their singing voices, that’s for sure.  It’s true that earlier pop icons such as Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin sported the ‘stache long before Sonny.  But no one dared to imitate Clark Gable’s moustache, since he was such a stud.  And no one picked up Chaplin’s moustache style except Adolph Hitler – and we know how popular he was.  Sonny, by contrast, just naturally brought the moustache home for the average guy.

So everyone hopped on the moustache bandwagon in the 60s and 70s.  I was fresh from the halls of puberty myself and thought I could squeeze out a pretty decent moustache – even though my sideburns were a bit thin and a full beard seemed like a pipedream.  And it worked.  I went for the Zapata ‘stache – the style that extends down the sides, below the corners of the mouth.  Hulk Hogan wears his the same way, as did many Mexican banditos.  Later, when I joined the Air Force, they restricted the size of our moustaches, which couldn’t extend past the corners of the mouth.  I always cheated a bit on that.

My wife has actually never seen me without my moustache, which has blossomed into a very closely cropped goatee with some attempt at a short beard.  I’ve worn it like that for 25 years.  Funny how, as kids, most guys want to grow facial hair to look older, but when it starts turning gray, they want to shave it off to look younger.  I’ll keep my salt n’ pepper look, thank you.

Look almost anywhere today and you’ll see the prominence of the ‘stache and it’s first cousin, the goatee.  Almost ever baseball player these days has a goatee – if he bothers to shave at all.  Daimler/Chrysler’s CEO and latest TV pitchman, Dr. Z, sports a manly walrus moustache.  Everyone on our school board has one.   I’ve seen other guys with the huge handlebar moustache, a great place to store leftover food particles for a late-day snack.

It’s encouraging to see that the ‘stache has found it’s mark in society.  There was a time when your ol’ auntie might not have kissed you, because she didn’t like the prickly feel of your moustache on her lips. And you may have been thankful for that.  But apparently women’s lips have toughened up these days, because a well-known moustache survey indicates that the kissing continues.  Actually, I made that up.  But my wife still kisses me – moustache, short beard, and all – so, personally, something’s working.

So here’s a toast to the moustache, a useless patch of hair that serves as the male fashion equivalent of earrings (well…for some guys, it’s a supplement to their earrings).  May its grand style live on forever.

Now where did my little auntie go?

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