The great debate: to shave or not to shave

DOVER-FOXCROFT — “If you want to play, you’ve got to shave.”
That’s the line running through my head as I looked in the mirror at a fellow firefighter’s apartment, shaving cream smeared over my goatee and razor in my hand. If I wanted to join the LP training session at the former Moosehead Manufacturing campus on Monday night, I had to be clean-shaven so my air mask would create a seal around my face.
I hadn’t shaved off my goatee on purpose since my wedding day in 2005 — there was that time in 2006 it came off, but that’s because the neighbor decided it would be a great idea to light off M-80 firecrackers in a sofa near my apartment just at the moment I was pulling a razor near my chin. I remember that morning all too well.
BOOM!
It was in that instant that half my chin became painfully exposed. Thankfully it was only hair that was removed and not half my face. I tell you, I was sure glad when the city finally disposed of that sofa. I could at least shave knowing that travesty would not happen again.
I’m not the type that has some kind of emotional connection to facial hair. I just started sporting a goatee back in college to make me look older so I could get into the bars easier. It was a necessity then that just stayed with me all these years.
Anyway, back to Monday. If I wanted to train, I had to shave.
I couldn’t believe that my arm started to move on its own, taking off the fuzz above my lip. Five minutes later, I cleaned up the last remnants of my goatee, washed the remaining shaving cream off my face and looked back in the mirror and couldn’t recognize the man in the mirror.
It would all be worth it, I kept telling myself. I stood in the back listening to the pre-drill instructions, rubbing my face as if that would help speed up the hair-growing process. After the instructions were done, we split up in four-person attack teams and I began to get ready for my first major firefighter training exercise.
Maybe shaving would be worth it after all.
That’s when our fire chief remembered I’m not air-pack certified, therefore making me ineligible to participate.
So while 38 other firefighters from Dover-Foxcroft, Milo, Charleston and Brownville took turns attacking a LP training exercise, I stood off to the side, wearing my turn-out gear, with my camera and notebook taking notes for a newspaper story.
All I could think of the whole time was, 1.) I need to get that air-pack training ASAP; and 2.) if all I was going to do was be a reporter, I would have left the goatee on.