What do Abraham Lincoln, ZZ Top, the guys from “Duck Dynasty,” and Jesus all have in common?

There is only one simple answer to this, and that is their abundance of facial hair. The hair follicles shamelessly displayed on their faces have defined these men, and led them to their prestigious positions in life.

Cal High is proud to be home to one of these up-and-coming men, who has worked his way up through society, using the power of his proud abundance of facial hair. This man is the one and only Sean King, AP English 11 teacher and facial hair enthusiast.

King testifies to having a beard for about the past eight years off and on. It is safe to say that the beard has experienced many changes in its life. And in the opinion of senior Gregory Virant, it seems as if King cannot grow his hair in multiple places.

“Mr. King has reusable hair,” said Virant. “He can’t grow it all at once. He can only grow it either on his head or his beard.”

King and his beard have gone through many trials and tribulations, but together, they have come out on top.

“Why shave?” King asked.  “That takes much more action.”

While some students stand in awe and respect this bushy development, there are some mixed reactions regarding his beard among the student body.

“It makes him look like Jesus and Socrates combined,” said junior Kara Guse.

Some feel that this new development is King’s attempt to join the ranks of his favorite literary icons. Among these are Charles Dickens, Anton Chekhov, and the famous American poet Walt Whitman. By growing out his beard, King has officially pushed himself one step closer to joining the ranks of literary geniuses around the world. King promptly denied this assertion, however.

There are also many other practical applications for his beard, as voiced by junior Raz Mostaghimi.

“He probably puts reminders in there, and when they itch him, he takes them out and then remembers to do what he wrote,” said Mostaghimi.

But King denies that there is any other use of his beard, besides covering his face.

“I guess it should keep my face warm in the morning when I bike to school, but it doesn’t really do that well either,” said King.

This is the sad tragedy that lies behind his shaggy face. King’s beard suffers a lack of purpose or identity. While it could possibly benefit its owner, it fails to perform the task appointed to it. King even refuses to name the beard he calls his own.

“I do not see my beard as a separate person from myself,” said King.

If the beard could talk, it would probably voice how highly offended it is by this. A beard of such high status deserves to be given an appropriate name that exemplifies its personality and characteristics.

Regardless of this dilemma, King’s beard is still highly impressive in comparison to some of the previous attempts at facial hair on campus.

In the month of November, students may have noticed some of the male students on campus wandering the halls with a few desperate hairs clinging to their chin or other awkward regions of their faces. This spectacle is known as “No Shave November.”

This yearly ritual is an excuse for men all over the nation to grow out their facial hair in order to raise awareness for testicular cancer. The results of this honorable movement aren’t always successful, however.

King’s beard laughed in the face of these shameful attempts. In its luscious abundance, his beard made these attempts look like a fully carved turkey after Thanksgiving.

Overall, King’s beard is a fine story, a piece of literature, if you will. Not like one of those awful popular fiction books that teenage girls read in their free time.

It has sincerely developed itself as an irreplaceable character, who suffers from a lack of identity, and constantly lives in the shadow of somebody else’s face.

How this story ends is still a mystery, but one day the beard will have to face the razor. King, however, has provided a sneak peak to the ending of this epic novel.

At the end of the interview he hinted that there is nothing special in store for his close companion.

“I wish I had a deep religious reason behind my beard, like that I only shave when I experience changes in my life, but I don’t,” he said.  “It’s just a beard.”