Retired army captain Robert Edward Ludlow Sr. was one of those men with a meticulously kept beard and mustache who did not bother with all the new shaving products there were. He and Mr. Gillette did not know each other. He used a straight razor. There were reasons back into American antiquity for that, and also his personal life that even the new Mrs. Ludlow did not know.
The old Mrs. Ludlow had sent a younger lover to try to finish off her ex, a younger lover who learned what a man who had an uncle who was killed in his bathroom in a similar circumstance could do with an antique straight razor.
Not that anyone but Capt. Ludlow needed that image in his or her mind, or was alive to have it.
Not that five-year-old Robert Edward Ludlow III, his baby grandson, even brought the incident to mind when he sleepily bobbled into the bathroom, up earlier even than usual.
“G'mornin, Papa,” he said.
“Trying to make reveille, eh?” the grandfather purred affectionately. “Trying to make sure I put you in West Point, eh?”
“Well,” Lil' Robert said, “if it's early enough for you, it's early enough for me.”
The grandfather went out and brought in a chair for his grandson, and Lil' Robert was as pleased as can be on his little perch until he had a question.
“What I want to know is, why don't you just shave low enough so that the hair doesn't have anywhere to come out of? I mean, that's a big razor and you're strong.”
“Oh, I can, Robert,” the grandfather said as the unpleasant memory then came back of what he had done one day with a straight razor, “but, sooner or later, that would cause some skin problems.”
Lil' Robert thought about this for a long time. He knew nothing about anything his grandfather had been through with his biological grandmother, but he knew his grandfather's moods intimately.
“The last thing we need,” he said, “is for you to have any problems.”
“And I don't, my darling,” the grandfather said, dispelling his own memories with his bright smile. “You're here, I'm here, and it's another beautiful summer morning. God is good. There are no problems here.”
“That's good,” Lil' Robert said, and smiled back. “I don't have any problems either, Papa.”
“We don't have any problems. Not today. Let's go get our coffee and say good morning to Sgt. Trent.”
“Yay!”
I never pictured Capt Ludlow with a beard, I always thought of him as a clean shaven military man. Now I have a new vision in my head.
He is the nephew (four times removed) of a very famous white-bearded military man, who, according to his letter to his wife, became so because his luggage went one day in 1861 and he went another. Capt. Ludlow is two years into retirement, and has settled fully into the Lee family style ... still able to have a FULL head of hair, and so letting it flourish.
I just had a different image in my head
That's the beauty of reading ... and it is all right if you keep what you have!
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