Oh come on, not another wonderful man..šRest in Peace, Dan Haggerty #RIPDanHaggerty
Such a lovely childhood memory pic.twitter.com/Kif073YLnI
ā Katrin (Artist) (@Jarlie86) January 15, 2016
The Life and Times of Grizzly
Adams starred
Dan Haggerty, the man who owned The Beard That Kept Its Promise. I was just a
kid, but even then there was something about that beard that inspired a real
confidence in truth, justice, and all things awesomely Real Man. Only on the
day of Danās death did I put it all together.
A few years ago, sporting flat shoes with no
personality, sneering at anything un-PC, wearing jeans so skinny I wondered
where their hips were and whether or not they even had room between those
toothpicks for original equipment, male bartenders in hipster cities began
growing massive beards. I had violent emotional and physical reactions
against these beards. It would not be overstating it to say I was
revolted, and that the revulsion forced me to look away lest I toss my
cookies. So, when I ordered, I looked everywhere but at thoseā¦thoseā¦I
donāt know what to call them.
I believe they picked up on my revulsion and reacted
passively yet aggressively with very slow service or delivery of wrong food and
drinks while saying, āThatās what you orderedā, their sneer implying their
utter core contempt of this woman who was not blown away by their awesome
beard.
Anyway, when I heard Grizzly
Adams died, there it was. Splashed across the news feed was The Beard That Kept Its Promise, and all of the
above reaction came into clear focus. Hipster-bartender beard versus Iām-walkinā-with-mah-grizzly-bhar
beard?
Hands down, the second wins. It wins because it isnāt
lying to you about whatās underneath. Dan Haggerty may not have been perfect.
Heck, he might even have gotten scared in the deep woods without the sound of
the city close by, but everybody will tell you this: Under that beard, Dan
Haggerty was a real man, and a Real Man. I could see it in his eyes. He was
real.
And that, hipster-bartender-beard dudes, is not a bad
thing to be. You see, in your eyes I see a demand for others to accept your
maleness, and a wish for that acceptance to make it real to you. Real Men are
real men. That knowledge is DNA deep. They donāt need anybodyās stamp of
approval to do what Real Men must. Real Men donāt have to grow beards to prove
they are a man. They grow beards when and as they want because they like it. 