Bill O’Boyle

Beyond the Byline: Life with or without a moustache is still good

Last week, I decided —again — to shave off my moustache.

And, as I have always done in the past, re-started growing it immediately.

So it got me to thinking of when I first started growing a moustache and why.

Well, it was in the late 1960s and The Beatles were just about done. John, Paul, George and Ringo had quite a run. These four guys from Liverpool had managed to change the world through their music, their antics, their irreverence, their fashion and their hair — on their heads and on their faces

So my pals and I decided to give it a try, and we grew moustaches. Some of us have kept them throughout our lives.

I know, it’s 2022, so why have a moustache today when most of the world is clean-shaven, or sports full beards or just goes with that scruff look — shaving every third or fourth day.

I don’t have an answer — the moustache is part of me, I guess.

And thinking about the origin of the moustache on my face, I also recalled the effects The Beatles had on me and my generation and the world.

Simply put, the impact of those four kids from England remains immeasurable.

So I hopped into the Way Back Machine, and I returned to 1969 and the scene back then. There was so much going on back then and I am really surprised how we all turned out. It was a struggle — so many temptations to lose focus. At least for me. I sure did lose focus. But I managed to hang in there, and I finally crawled out of that black hole I was in for a while.

Let’s go back five years for a minute. Yes, to a great extent, life was simpler before Feb. 9, 1964. I was a 13-year-old kid struggling with the newness of puberty and uncertainty of life itself. There was such anticipation of watching “The Ed Sullivan Show” that Sunday night. It was exhilarating.

Now we had heard a few songs by The Beatles, but we had not seen them. We couldn’t wait to see what this fuss — this Beatlemania — was all about.

What it was, was far more than anyone ever could have imagined.

I sat on our living room floor, eyes glued to the black-and-white, Admiral TV with Mom and Dad firmly planted on the couch and the recliner. I was the one with the eyes opened widest.

And then Ed Sullivan said those words, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles.” And Paul shouted, “One, two, three, four” as they broke into “All My Loving.” From there it was “Til There Was You,” “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”

In that one hour, from 8 to 9 p.m., and over the next six years, The Beatles changed the world.

Why else would I have regretted having gotten a buzz cut the day before at Chet’s Barber Shop? I so wanted to be able to, like so many other kids, immediately comb my hair down. Not to look like Moe Howard from “The Three Stooges,” but to emulate John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Obviously, music changed that night. We had really never heard anything like that before. We were still lost in a world of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello and movies like “Beach Blanket Bingo.”

Authority was being challenged. Drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, would surface, and the decade would be culminated by the world’s largest rock concert — the August 1969 Woodstock Festival in Bethel, N.Y.

As we continued on from Feb. 9, 1964, we changed. Our clothes looked different, our hair grew longer, we became more defiant, we developed our personalities and we all wanted to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band.

And a lot of us grew moustaches.

So where does this story go? Well, I now know it wasn’t The Beatles that made my life. Not their music, their hair length or their wit.

My parents — Bill and Elizabeth Kraszewski O’Boyle — they are the ones responsible. They got me through my pre-moustache life. Just like your parents did,

All they taught us all what really matters — moustache or not.