Readers Weigh In: Stash the 'Stache?

**Editor's Note |** Now for something up close and personal. After an intimate relationship that began during the first Nixon Administration, Paul Solman is considering calling it quits. With his mustache, that is. During a Midwest vacation, he mustered the nerve to shear his signature salt & pepper soup strainer to see what his upper lip looks like after all these years. Paul claims not to feel much different, but the Making Sen$e team thinks he sure *looks* different. Younger, perhaps. But we'd grown accustomed to his face. So along the lines of our hat poll ([**"goofy" or "great"?**](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/business/jan-june11/cathat_06-16.html)) we want to know what *you* think: stash the 'stache, or grow it back? We'd also like just a few details about you that might be influencing your decision and prove useful to future generations of sociologists sifting through the data we collect here. Paul says he'll take this vote into account in making a final decision, though his family's ballots will be worth more. All four grandkids have now weighed in, pro-'stache. Two-and-half-year old Fintan is especially wistful for the whiskers, Paul reports. Finn's mother's first reaction: "You look like a naked vampire baby." Her older sister's response to the question "should I regrow?": "No! I'm dying to see it in person." Age 42, she has never seen her father's upper lip. Finally, in a vote taken the other day at a conference run by the Minnesota Council on Economic Education, the female high school economics teachers voted unanimously for a more revealing upper lip. The males, however, several themselves bewhiskered, were of the same mind as the grandchildren. Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments below. *This entry is cross-posted on the [**Rundown**](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/)- NewsHour's blog of news and insight.*

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