Joe Buck has a beard. Yes, Joe Buck. That might be the best sign yet the trend shark is circling patiently, waiting to be hurdled. Prince Harry we can take, maybe even Tom Brady and the entire lineups of both World Series teams, but when Jack Buck’s boy comes bristly cheeked, it might be time to lather up.

Not that I mind, really. I’ve had a beard most of my adult life, going back to college days, and during those decades I’ve been happily oddball. I mean, people used to notice a beard. It stood out, marked a maverick. The only downside to this emerged when neatly groomed parents introduced me to their children. Most got a look at the fur framing my face and ran away in fear, although a few brave toddlers would tug at it. Nowadays, though, with so many bewhiskered dads, I no longer traumatize kids when I bend down to say hello.

I should admit that vanity rears its hairy head here, too. I have vitiligo, blotches of pigmentless skin around my mouth, and the beard obscures it. About two years ago, just to check on things, I shaved. Aside from terrorizing my wife when I emerged from the bathroom, I found most people did not notice the vitiligo. In fact, most did not notice I was clean-shaven. So perhaps I misattribute my eccentricity. But after a year I tired of shaving and grew back the beard.

Somewhat against trend, I keep mine short. Not the perpetual two-day stubble favored by fashion models (talk about welcomes overstayed) but close-cut. I used to rely on barbers to do that, and between visits I took scissors to the mustache every few weeks to keep it from colonizing my teeth. But back in my Las Vegas days, a stylist at Curl Up N Dye suggested I get a Wahl trimmer like the one she used, and I’ve been keeping the fuzz at a reliable quarter-inch ever since. I need to do this because when the beard gets much longer, it bugs me. Not the look of it. The feel, thrusting its coarse tendrils into the air around my face, tickling my Adam’s apple in a brisk wind.

This might have something to do with age, too. The bushy beard didn’t trouble me in my 20s. It was, forgive me, authentic. So I can understand why flannel-shirted Williamsburg lads prefer the Stonewall Jackson cut—especially drizzled with a fine craft cider while listening to Bon Iver. Along those lines, I don’t much care for the sculpted look, with incised lines or squared-off at the lips sans ’stache—sorry, ostentation rarely wears well. I thought the medium-length chin forest favored by Cubs hurler Jake Arrieta this summer was fine, although it wasn’t much help against the more scruffily hirsute Daniel Murphy.

Much longer, though, and you’re drifting dangerously into Duck Dynasty territory, and, well, let’s not. Besides, at my age I must be mindful of the Edward Lear limerick:

There was an old man with

a beard,

Who said: It is just as I feared!

Two owls and a hen,

Four larks and a wren

Have all built their nests in

my beard.

These days, I more resemble the middle-aged “justice” described by Jaques in his “seven ages” speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It: “In fair round belly with good capon lined/With eyes severe and beard of formal cut.” I wish I could keep the belly trimmed, too, but I’ll take the author of King Lear over Edward Lear any day.