It's Tuesday, I've Had A Small Amount of Sleep (But Even Smaller Ambitions)

In fact, a man without a mustache is no longer a man. I do not care much for a beard; it almost always makes a man look untidy. But a mustache, oh, a mustache is indispensable to a manly face. No, you would never believe how these little hair bristles on the upper lip are a relief to the eye and good in other ways. I have thought over the matter a great deal but hardly dare to write my thoughts. Words look so different on paper and the subject is so difficult, so delicate, so dangerous that it requires infinite skill to tackle it. --Guy de Maupassant, "The Mustache"

What honest-to-goodness American boy who grew up in the late 70s and early 80s didn't want to grow up to be just like Magnum P.I.? Thomas Magnum had it all. A slacker life before slackers were cool. By being a world class private investigator (and a highly decorated Vietnam vet) he was able to secure a leisurely job solving crimes in Hawaii. He had a Ferrari; he had women; he had a buddy with a helicopter. Best of all, he had the perfect mustache.

For a time, I could think of only two things I wanted to be: a professional baseball player and Thomas Magnum. The first was a matter of practice and talent, but the latter was all about the image. I bought a Detroit Tigers hat even though I didn't like the Tigers. I began paying attention to dobermans just in case. But I knew that the downfall would be the mustache. It seemed that I wasn't born with the mustache gene. My dad once told me that he could grow a full beard, but when it came to the mustache, it just wouldn't grow. Imagine the heartbreak, the sleepless nights in those pre-Rogaine days when all seemed hopeless. Boys my age were shaving; I was still looking in the mirror for the first signs of any hair anywhere but my head.

Eventually, I would forget all about Magnum P.I. I played baseball through high school, even earning a college scholarship, but even that part of the dream would collapse with my knee on a high school gym floor one January night. I ended up spending two weeks of my senior year in bed watching reruns of the show, remembering the day when I wanted to be him. In those two weeks when I didn't have to get out of bed much less worry about shaving, I grew a nice mustache. Not Selleck-like, but respectable for an 18-year-old kid who had been told it could never happen.

Related:
+ Ten Best Baseball Mustaches of All-Time

Comments

[lucina]

you really had a mustache? is there photographic evidence of this that you can provide?

My dad has always had a mustache and once he shaved it off when we were young and it was totally wierd. Once you got em, you can never really get rid of them.

Of course, with my dad, "it's an ethnic thing, not some cool magnum pi thing" -- this is direct quote

[Jeff]

Neither photographic nor pornographic (that I know of).