Housatonic Community College - Stentorian Yearbook (Bridgeport, CT)

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BEARDOM The best way I can describe Beardom is to tell of my own experiences while having been there. What's that? I make it sound like another world you say? Well, listen to my story and tell me if it is not another world. My first visit to Beardom was a relatively mild one. I had grown about three weeks of fuzz on my chin and I was on my way home from work, when I saw an old, very dear neighbor of mine. She had been walking home from the market and had dropped her groceries on the sidewalk. I naturally ran to her assist- ance and was shocked to hear her say, Go wan ya damn beatnik. I don't need yer help. I won't go into how I felt at this, my first reiection. I called a girlfriend of mine a couple of weekends later and asked her if she wanted to go to a movie. Yes, she said, I'd love to. I told her I'd be there about eight and she said fine. I rang her doorbell a little after eight and her father came to the door. He said, Wait there. He left me outside! I wouIdn't have minded quite so much had it not been raining. I heard some screaming going on inside and the words hippie-idiot came up a few times. After about ten minutes of the rain and the insults, I left without saying good-bye. I must explain that prior to my visiting Beardom, I had been an extrovert in the truest sense of the word. It took me quite some time to realize that people would no longer smile and greet me as they had done in the past. Children laughed, old women shook their heads, old men lectured, and most of others treated me like the plague or asked me why. This is the world of Beardom. Women, I pity you, that you are unable to visit Beardom and see for yourselves that it truly is another world. I still visit there occasionally and it never ceases to astound me how quickly love turns to hostility. Men, I speak to the stronger willed of you, visit Beardom and note what a grand communication system the world you left had. Note how well people practice what they preach. Watch how they iudge you for what you are rather than what you appear to be. And if you have the strength, stay! Stay in Beardom! Don't come back to this hypocritical world of ethnocentricity. Better you stand in the rain be- cause you have a beard than to be accepted by the fireplace with love merely because you're cleanly shaven. Sam Provenzano

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4 if , A 4, 5 wg 3' M1 fi, Michael Krause Susan Kraus f ' if Lucille Kulikowski Linda Kuraczea Hedwife Kuepper Rosemary Kvaca ,MMM Louis Lachioma Debbie Lane Evelyn L. Lee George Linardos William Leopold Patricia Link