Movember

This year our office is participating in Movember.

For those that may think I could benefit from Spell Check, I should explain. ‘Movember’ is an initiative whereby men grow a moustache for the month of November for the purpose of raising awareness of prostate cancer detection and treatment.

I was I bit delayed in climbing on the bandwagon. I realize it’s a great cause, and many men are affected by prostate cancer annually, but I really didn’t want to ‘grow a mo’ again. I had one for years, beginning in senior high school. I recently searched through a bunch of old photos and found my high school student card from grade 11, and an old Driver’s License from 1990. Just for kicks I showed both pieces of ID to a couple of office colleagues. They both said they really couldn’t see any resemblance between the ‘young’ me and the ‘now’ me. I must say, that’s intriguing. To me, of course, it’s me in both photos.

I think another reason for my reticence to grow a mo is the amount of grey that’s currently present near my chin, not to mention temples. I got a haircut on the weekend to try to reduce the overall effect. I continue in my efforts in attempting to embrace salt and pepper.

In any event, my ‘scruff-start’ began officially on Wednesday, ‘Movember’ 3. Although I’ve bent the rules and modified the moustache to incorporate a goatee; it suits my aversion to strictly limiting facial hair to my upper lip. I’ll have to come up with another moniker, however. Something along the lines of ‘Govember’, perhaps. Goatee plus November. Or maybe Bovember; beard plus November.

Thus far, I’m 6 days into it, and I don’t know if it’s just because I’m sporting more growth than a moustache and I notice it more, or if it’s more due to genetics, but the beard is growing in quickly. Even my wife hasn’t complained about it all that much (yet), probably because she knows it’ll be short term and the event is tied to a information/ fund raising campaign for important health awareness issues.

It’s kind of fun considering about half a dozen of us in the office are doing it, and also I don’t have to raise $2500 to participate, as I have done twice now in preparation for The Ride to Conquer Cancer. I’ve signed up for the 2011 event, by the way. But I'll save that introduction for a future blog post.