Boys to Men: the tale of Movember
December 13, 2017
On November 1st, 2017, My buddies and I set out to so something very few high schoolers have done before. We made a deal to go all out for No-Shave November, no matter how patchy our growth became.
‘Movember’ is the nickname fondly given to the month of November for this very practice. During the month, men across the world grow out their facial hair to the best of their ability in order to raise awareness for prostate cancer. Just think of it as a October, but for the boys.
Luckily, this was a journey I did not have to embark upon on my own. In order to carry this project out to the end I had to assemble a squad of equally dedicated men. After days of observation, I was able to convince three of my closest associates to pledge to tag along with me on this journey, no matter how hairy it got.
Once they were fully committEd to the cause, Ray Hasanaj, Chase Clark and Will Frame, all ’18, set their razors and shaving cream aside for the month.
The first two weeks were a breeze for everyone but Chase. It only took about four days for Chase to have a full-fledged goatee. Meanwhile, the rest of we’re enjoying having hardly noticeable tufts of hair peeking out from underneath our skin. This raised some questions in our minds. When were we gonna have more substantial facial hair? When were we gonna look like Chase? When were the girls going to flock to compliment our manly moustachios? It was a waiting game and we were becoming impatient.
I’d say it was day 22 of Movember when defeat started to rear it ugly face. Chase was the only one of the four of us who had any substantial lip foliage. There were only 8 days left in the month and Ray, Will and I had only managed to grow a quaff of hair on isolated parts of our faces.
At this point, Ray was sporting a gnarly set of mutton chops, Will had the neck beard on lock and I had what I thought to be the most dominant chin beard in the Midwest. Chase would laugh at us lesser men every day while we compared the strong patches of our lady ticklers.
On day 30, everyone was anxious to rid themselves of their facial hair. Chase’s beard was getting itchy and the rest of us just looked ridiculous with our patches. Movember had defeated us.
The last month was an incredible learning experience that I am blessed to have partaken in. The funny part of it is, if you combined my chin beard, Will’s neck beard and Ray’s mutton chops, you would have one big bushy beard. The lesson I took away from this is that while everyone might not be the perfect package like Chase, with teamwork and friendship you can work together and combine resources to make something big, bushy, and beautiful. If that’s not poetry, then I don’t know what is.
Mark my words: this will not be my last Movember. As long as a prostate is cancerous, my facial hair will grow. Even though I turned Movember into a fun challenge to tell all the world about, I don’t want people to forget what we’re really doing it for. Much like Saturdays, this one was for the boys.
If you or anyone you know has been affected by not just prostate, but cancer in general, please do what you can to raise awareness. Whether it’s by creating an awful crumb catcher on your skin or wearing pink during October, anything helps. A lot of people are working very hard to kick cancer once and for all, and everyone should try to do what they can to help.
And for Movember specifically? Until next year big guy, rest easy.
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