The role called for a clean-shaven man. Denny Miller looked again at his beard and debated. Should he take it off? Miller had grown a full beard for acting parts in a couple of westerns, and it looked good. "Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it," he said to himself, and left his razor behind in the medicine cabinet. However, after arriving at the audition, he took stock of his competition and wondered if he'd made a mistake. There were hundreds of other actors vying for the job, but there was only one beard among them - his.

Hey don't get us wrong. we don't hate everything about sailing. In fact, there are lots of things about sailing that powerboaters are thankful for, such as…uh, hmmm, well, for one thing, it keeps sailors off the streets. Also, sailing is responsible for many common words and expressions that all of us use.

August has no real holidays. Oh, there's National Mustard Day on the 5th and National Spongecake Day on the 23rd, but just try getting off from work for those bogus celebrations.

Stuff your history teacher never told you.

Ah, tradition. There's something grand and glorious about the ways of the sea. Like calling a boats pointy end the bow, the square end the stern and any boat smaller than yours a piece of crap.

Sometimes I get a warm and gushy feeling. If it doesn't mean that I'm moved by the sense that we boating folk are members of a proud fraternity. A fraternity that fosters strong bonds and condones drinking beers for breakfast, yet doesn't make us live with forty college kids that never change their socks.