No Shave November the National Holiday

The masculinity of American men has taken a tremendous blow in the past 100 years. In those golden days of yesteryear, the average man labored in the field, fighting Mother Nature at every whim, to grow crops, and ventured deep into the wilderness, risking life and limb in search of sustenance so that his family could eat and survive. He now sits at a desk staring at a screen for 40 hours a week, and when he fancies a snack, he merely drives to the closest grocery store to stuff his face with high fructose corn syrup and other saturated fats. This old fashioned man would chop down mighty trees, cleaving them with an axe, wiping his brow on the flannel that covered his back, so his family could stay warm. He now is left with the daunting task of paying the gas bill. Don't get me wrong. There are still a fair share of manly men out there, but they are few and far between.

So why give up the silky-smooth, babys bottom soft, clean-shaven appearance of, say, David Hasselhoff for the entire month of November? If the human body were a night of drinking, growing a beard is the point where you can set parts of your body on fire without even flinching. Yeah, its that awesome.

All of us remember our first time shaving, the pride welling up in your chests after that first, and probably only, stroke of the razor. You were finally one of the cool kids who shaved. But after those first six hairs sprouted into twenty and those twenty multiplied into a countless cluster and that cluster into, dare I say it, a beard, you have a prolific mess on your hands. That "mess" of a beard must now be cleanly shaven before the start of every day, per society. To continue the previous metaphor, having to deal with shaving daily is like having to deal with the next-morning consequences of consuming an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. After 11 months of doing it every day, you need some kind of a break.


No Shave November used to be a rite of passage into the glories of manhood. Now its a welcome break from soaping up the old razor. A change of pace, a chance to tell The Man, Hey, I know what Im going to look like if I disappear into the country for four weeks with nothing but a month-long supply of flannel; but thats okay. Its an opportunity to display your ruggedness and to smile proudly through the bush you will politely reassure the passers-by is your face.

Because man is no longer given the chance to explore unmapped territories, build giant forts, kill for necessity, or tame the untamed, he is forced to sit at a computer wishing someone would allow him to be a manly man. Not only for his sake, but also to show to his children an example of what it truly means to be a real man. By making No Shave November a national holiday, the average American man will be allowed to cease his monotonous shaving ritual for the entire month of November, no matter what his occupation may be. By throwing off the social order, he will proudly show the rest of the world that he still is the manly man his grandfather and great-grandfather were.