First beard

This 1965 calendar, showing views of Vancouver, British Columbia, fell out of a box of memorabilia. As I was putting it back I noticed a couple notes. On May 3 the note reads, "Started Beard 8:30 AM". The May 23 or 30 calendar box has a note reading, "Beard Trimmed".

I'm not sure why I was so precise with the time I started growing the beard. Maybe I expected fast results.

My home town at the time was Carnduff, Saskatchewan. The town was going to have a big jubilee celebration in the summer. Part of the celebration was a beard growing contest. I was in high school at the time. One of my teachers grew a big beard but I do not recall other students growing one.

I find it historically interesting that there would even be a beard growing contest. The existence of the contest is an indicator that very few, if any, people living in the town or surrounding area had beards. Only a short time after 1965 most young men were sporting beards and long hair. In that era you would find few older adults who would want to look like a hippie and a beard growing contest would have been out of the question.

1965 was a time when we were just recovering from two big events. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 could have ended in nuclear war. Then President Kennedy was killed in 1963. We were, and still are, living under the threat of nuclear war. However, I do not remember being overly concerned about it. Many of us had the attitude that we didn't want to survive a nuclear war and a reaonably close strike by a missile would be a quick way to go. Our close proximity (about 60 miles) from the air force base in Minot, North Dakota and missile silos near there tended to colour our thoughts on the matter. There would be a lot of turmoil in the coming years but in the meantime life went on and the jubillee celebration in Carnduff was, to me and many others, a memorable event.