Beard of the Week
About a decade ago, I learned how to crochet. I bought some thread, a crochet hook, and with Isaac's help I began decoding a doily pattern and worked my way quite clumsily through it. I've gotten better at it over time of course. I also learned to discriminate a large number of different crochet threads.
Now, to a person who does not crochet doilies, most cotton crochet threads will feel pretty much the same. Not so to the person who has had so many miles of thread pulled through the fingers as I have by now. There are three sizes in common use, and of course it's possible to feel the difference in size after a time. But there's also a different feel to each different thread made by each different manufacturer: some are smooth and polished, some are coarse as burlap, some are more flexible, some more stiff, and let's not even mention metallic threads that have tiny strips of metal in them that feel like they're slicing through one's flesh. Incredibly, some dyes create a different feel to a thread compared to other dyes used on the same thread strock. The point is that after long study, the connoisseur achieves a level of discrimination that the average person does not experience.
The same is true for beards. I wasn't joking when I said before that to many, many people, particularly little old ladies, all men with beards look alike. If I had a dime for every person who asked Isaac and me whether we're brothers, I'd never have to work again, and we don't look a thing alike, really.
However, to the connoisseur, beards come in variety as diverse as the number of men who wear them, and every new shape, growth pattern, and color variation is something to rejoice in. Even with what some would describe as a "white beard" there is variety: watch carefully and you'll discover that there are many shades of "white" corresponding to different colorings before the beard turned white. One of my favorites is the white that comes from previously red hair; it carries a certain mellowness that I find irresistable.*
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*This week's beard is not the post-red white — we'll see an example of that sometime later. This white, as is evident from the color gradients near the crown of his head, is the brilliant white that derives from previously very dark brown, nearly black hair.