It was probably the highlight of my year, that and swimming pools and movie stars and a bunch of other stuff tossed in between.

You won't see any photo of me with the beard because the only one I took made me look like I had smoked a half-acre of some of Colorado's finest medicinal herb.

I grew the beard because the last few weeks of the month I didn't have any real obligations, that and I really didn't feel like shaving.

It wasn't an attempt to try to be a hipster because I'm not sure what a hipster really is. If a hipster is somebody like some kid I saw wearing skinny jeans, a pea coat and a look of smug condescension on his face while carrying around a big gourd in the grocery store earlier in the year, holding it like a baby, then I don't want to be a hipster.

I also saw some kid walking out of the grocery store in a new pair of Levi's, the ones that are stiff when you buy them and take a thousand washings to soften. They were cuffed way above his ankles exposing European-style boots.

He was wearing high waters, that's what we called them in school, telling the young'un wearing them his mamma must be expecting the flood. That's considered bullying now even though your best intention was to get the kid wise that rolling his pants legs up isn't going to keep him dry unless he stays indoors. Floodwaters also have a tendency to ruin your butter cookies. We simply called them cookies back in the day, the Urban Dictionary now putting a new twist on that meaning.

I wanted to tell him he was essentially wearing Capri pants. Men, under any circumstances, should not wear Capri pants, not even if Cam Newton wears them. I still have a column in the hopper about men wearing Capri pants. I'm just waiting for the right time to bust loose with it.

The beard became itchy going into the third week, even though I wore it home for Christmas with my mom. She never said she didn't like it or did like it. She made more of a fuss about my cousin's wavy hair and how he was growing it out. That got me thinking about a column I wrote earlier in the year and how I can't escape bald discrimination even in my own family.

The whole beard thing got me thinking of the next biggest thing in the year, that being the marriage of George Clooney. That's big because he has worn beards in his movies before and his nuptials now make me the most eligible bachelor in the world. Look out, Gwyneth Paltrow, you need another Martin in your life.

For some reason the George Clooney thing got me thinking about swimming pools, I think that's because of the Beverly Hillbillies ballad, the one that mentions swimming pools and movie stars.

Thinking of swimming pools and movie stars made me think of the Roanoke Rapids Aquatic Center debate and how the folks wanting the expensive dehumidifier repaired did so in an organized, peaceful way because, like we editorialized in June, it was a matter of public trust.

Maybe I can convince dear, sweet Gwyneth to come down to Roanoke Rapids once the dehumidifier is installed so we can spoon by its tepid waters.

There's no telling what the rumor mill would dredge up on that and I might even make TMZ or the New York Post with some salacious headline: Bearded Web Mogul, Hollywood Hottie Exposed in Poolside Tryst.

It wouldn't be the first rumor about me and certainly wouldn't be the last but since I don't pay the rumor mill much mind, except when it forces me to, I go along my merry way. It helps not listening to Fox News, either, which has a tendency to get things mixed up, like the impending ban on donut sprinkles, which you don't want to get caught in your beard.

I may try this beard thing again, probably after I get the Corolla paid off and buy a Subaru.

I don't think you can drive an Outback without a beard and I may just grow one that will make Walt Whitman look like a well-groomed, I was going to say debutante, but I'm not so sure you can call a man a debutante, unless he's wearing Capri pants.

At any rate, for a couple of weeks this month I had a beard.

Happy 2015 to you and yours. Gwyneth and I will see you at the pool! — Lance Martin