Tom Selleck's Mustache

I was canoodling around on Facebook last night, when I came upon a post that made me laugh.

It was from a page I do not remember joining, simply entitled "Tom Selleck's Mustache" and it has over 14,000 members. Not too shabby by any means, but especially impressive when you remember that it's devoted to someone's facial hair. 

In addition, this page is very active with many current posts from fans as well as directly from the mustache itself.

Time has darkened his mood and his mustache.

One recent entry simply says a confident "Your welcome!" to the fans who, obviously, are still besotted with not only a mustache but the man behind it...both of which put butterflies into the tummies of hordes of women in the 1970's.

A few decades have passed since that mustache ruled the airwaves, my friends. Not only has Tom Selleck aged a bit, thickening into an older and grimmer version of Magnum P.I. but we've all aged right along with him. 

Apparently, his mustache seems to have remained a constant....although  its current incarnation appears to have been crossbred with a box of Lady Clairol's all too popular shade of "Unnaturally Dark."

I enjoy thinking back to the decade exemplified by that famous mustache. 

I was still in public school...living with my mother in the house we both grew up in. We'd hang out together in the evenings in front of our small portable TV -- the one with the rabbit ears -- enjoying our shows in the evening between the completion of homework and a good night's sleep.

"The mustache" was still its original color of a warm, sandy brown at the time.

So was my own hair, now that I think of it.

Back then, I slept very well. It was my mother's turn, you see, to be the one wakefully navigating the nocturnal path through the anxieties of being a parent. I slept like the kid I still was.

Years later, when I had small children of my own and my sleep was fraught with the stress of being a parent, I remember asking my mother what she'd worried about when I was young.

I was relatively certain that I, as a mother, had more to worry about than she'd had when I was little.  But, nonetheless, I half expected her to laugh and tell me that the colossal fears and anxieties she'd endured could put my own to shame.

To my surprise, she said that other than fearing, in general, for my physical safety ("Susan, remember--don't stand too close to the edge of the subway platform! A maniac will push you off!!") what she fretted about most was making ends meet. To my horror, she confirmed that things had, indeed, gotten a lot scarier.

This was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted her to tell me to stop worrying, that things weren't as bad as they seemed. But it appeared they were.

Great. Thanks, Ma.

My routines, when the boys were kids, were similar to what I'd enjoyed with my mother....homework in the evenings and then some TV before bed. The boys slept as well as I had when I was their age...it was now my turn to lie awake and worry.

Who expected terrroism, prevalent random violence, new diseases, ruthless gangs, Ponzi schemes, global warming, internet porn and Donald Trump's hair? Not I. 

When I am older and have forgotten about whom I am supposed to worry, my sons and their wives will take the reins and lose sleep over topics I never even dreamt of.

"Ha, ha, your turn!"  I will cackle through a mouthful of cream of wheat.

I will then shout incoherently about somebody's mustache as they lock the door to the cell in the basement they wrestle me into for the night. The bastards.

Doing "The Taliban?"

The Facebook page devoted to Tom Selleck's mustache made me smile. 

I think I may visit it more often now to remind me of a simpler time when the Mets had recently won a world series, the Taliban was a dance (I just made that up but wouldn't it be nice if it were a dance?) and a mustache was a mustache.

Perhaps in years to come, my boys -- seeking nostalgia -- will travel to a Facebook page that pays homage to Lady Gaga's, well, use your imagination.

Ewwwwww. Try and sleep now.

To remove image from brain: Hit head against wall several times.