I recently received the following email via the contact link here at The Beard Coach.

I’ve been online dating and am scared to message a guy because in one of his
pictures he has a long goatee but no mustache. Please tell me what that may mean. He
is a doctor by profession and claims to love live music, he’s very athletic. Is this
beard normal or is this just some rocker look that he is going for?

I, of course, replied favorably and explained to this lady that a long goatee is nothing to be afraid of.  The crucial piece of info is that the guy loves live music.  He’s just a doctor that likes to cut loose and rock out when he’s not diagnosing Crone’s disease or gout.  Heck, even I used to wear the longish goatee and no moustache when I was a bassist back in the day.

When this lady mentioned a long goatee, this guy was the first person to pop into my head.

Scott Ian from Anthrax!  This dude is not just some part-time rock doctor.  He is a living thrash guitar legend.  But is he a nice guy if you met him online?  My friend Wikipedia says yes.  He is married to Meat Loaf’s daughter and is about to have a baby.  He’s a damn family man.  He’s also big into Battlestar Galactica, which makes him slightly nerdy as well.  Ladies, if you meet a guy who looks like this online, try to see past the long goatee and into his heart.

But, gentlemen, if you really want to avoid online dating confusion, just put a fully-bearded pic in your profile.  People know what to expect from the fully bearded.  There’s no ambiguity.  If a lady sees a full beard, she knows she’s getting a self-reliant, confident, deep-thinking man.  Try my advice and see if the contacts don’t start rolling in.

If you don’t already recognize the man above, this is Hans Langseth, who grew the longest beard ever recorded at 18 feet 6 inches long.  The photo above was taken when he was 66 years old in 1912.  Hans lived a pretty normal farming life for the time outside of the fact he had a ginormous beard.  He passed away in 1927.

But what became of his beard???

I had never given the matter even the briefest thought, until my wife forwarded me this picture…

The photo’s caption read:

National Museum of Natural History physical anthropologists Lucille St. Hoyme (1924-2001), J. Lawrence Angel (1915-1986), and Thomas Dale Stewart (1901-1997) hold a seventeen and one half foot long beard found in a North Dakota attic.

What?  Found in a North Dakota attic?  At 17.5 feet, this pretty much had to be Langseth’s beard, but why would it’s magnificence be abandoned in an attic in North Dakota?  Maybe this story is too far fetched to be true…

A quick Googling turned up HansLangseth.com which provided the answers I was searching for.

A misconception is that his beard was only 17.5 feet long. When he passed away, his family (probably son Bill, to the displeasure of the other children) cut it, leaving about 12 inches of it on him when he was buried. The part that was removed was eventually given to the Smithsonian Institute where it was displayed to the public.

Ah ha!  So the glorious beard of King Whiskers did indeed find its resting place in the Smithsonian!  Although it may not have been “given” to the Smithsonian depending on whose story you believe.  The North Dakota reference holds up, as Hans died in Barney, ND.

Thanks be to Bill Langseth (probably) for having the foresight to avoid allowing this astounding relic to be buried forever.  You were the child who knew best.  Thanks for taking all the crap from your siblings about cutting your dead dad’s beard off.