Guest Dad Joe Burris plucks gray hairs this Father's Day Friday:
A while back, I read the following adage in a hilarious book, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Health Fair," by Fred Neil:
"Time might be a great healer, but it's also lousy beautician."
I considered that a few weeks ago, when, while shaving my face, I decided to spare the stubble on my chin and grow my first beard in nearly five years.
I noticed many thin, gray slivers protruding from my face, but I had no idea how many until I allowed them to grow.
They were everywhere, and I considered the gray hairs weeds, choking nourishment and life out of the shiny black strands that I looked forward to growing.
I just turned 47, yet people still tell me that I look young for my age. I'm sure that's due in part to the fact that when my hairline began to recede behind my ears, I went bald -- coincidentally at a time when many young people made baldness a fashion statement.
But this was different. I tried Grecian Formula, but it didn't work as fast as I wanted. The gray kept coming in. I envisioned that I'd soon resemble someone out of a picture bible.
One day, as I looked with chagrin at my chin in the mirror, I reached for some tweezers and began plucking away.
"Daddy, what are you doing?" asked my 4-year-old daughter Onalenna, who came up on me suddenly.
"I'm getting rid of my gray hairs."
"Why?"
"Because they make me look old."
"Old?" she replied, curiously. "Why do they make you look old?"
I didn't have much of an answer for that. But I also lost interest in plucking, too. I winced at the possibility of a full gray beard, but I let it go.
And recently, two of my colleagues complimented my beard, and when I said I wondered whether it made me look old, each replied that it rather made me look, "distinguished." I like that word.
So now I figure perhaps time isn't such a bad beautician after all. I've grown to admire the multi-hued strands on my chin, and I've come to believe that old adage that age is just a number.
No gray area there.