You may not see any profound truth in this observation, but I do.

The chief thing I get out of this rumination is the effect technology has had on our lives. The principal reason my father never shaved with an electric razor was because when he was shaving, there simply weren't any. They didn't exist.

One reason was that electricity wasn't all that prevalent when he was growing up (and growing a beard). The other was that the various inventors of electric razors hadn't worked the bugs out of them yet.

As a matter of fact, they really hadn't worked out all the bugs when I first started to shave. As I remember my first electric razor, a Sunbeam, it had a blade that oscillated back and forth beneath a screen, clipping off your whiskers as it did.

You had to clean it carefully after each shave so the screen wouldn't get clogged with hair and you also had to sharpen the little blade with a compound that you had to buy after you bought the razor. My recollection is that it never worked very well. Or at least I couldn't see much difference in how the blade clipped my whiskers.

Eventually the screen wore out and I had to buy a new one.

The Sunbeam was one of several electric razors that came along after World War II. Some had screens like the Sunbeam, some had blades that went back and forth. Most were sort of marginal in getting one's beard off.

The big revolution, so far as I'm concerned anyway, came with the Phillips invention of the rotary electric razor blade--or rather, I should say blades, because Phillips razors (now a major share of the market under their trade name Norelco) have three blades that rotate under a screen that also moves up and down with the contour of your face. They're mounted on springs which give with pressure.

They do a good job of taking off your beard (or at least my beard) and most electric razors copy their system.

And they are much superior, at least as far as I'm concerned, to a so-called safety razor.

When I started shaving--now a long time ago, I must admit--safety razors came either with a single-edged or a double-edged blade.

I started shaving with a safety razor, but I never really liked doing it much.

I haven't kept up with safety razors, but I don't think single-edged blades are made anymore. Double-edged blades eventually took over the market and lately they have been succeeded, at least on Gillette razors, by triple blades. I suppose the idea is that three blades are better than one.

Gillette blades are more like ribbons than blades and I guess they do the job, but so far as I'm concerned they're still not very safe razors. Or at least in my hands they're not very safe.

Besides, I always hated having to wash my face and then apply lather and then shave it off every morning. And there was always the threat of a razor cut. It didn't happen very often, but now and then. That almost never happens with an electric razor, thank goodness, because I am not always wide awake when I shave.

As for straight razors, my father-in-law swore by them. He left me a couple when he died. I've never had the courage to use them. They are sharp and they look mean. Now and then I take them out of their cases and admire their shiny blades and gingerly run my thumb over their edges. They're still sharp and I suppose would be even sharper if I knew how to strop them on a razor strop. And I wonder how many men today even know what a razor strop is: a long piece of leather somewhat like a wide belt. One passes the razor back and forth over the leather and that is supposed to sharpen the blade.

It never worked for me, but my father-in-law was pretty good at it. He also was good at lathering up and shaving his beard away with a straight razor.

He never cut himself so far as I can remember, even when he was an old and somewhat shaky 70. But then I suppose after a lifetime of dealing with a straight razor, he had acquired a skill most males these days have lost.

But it's one I never really wanted to acquire. I'm grateful to the technologic wizards that came up with the electric razor for never having had to learn.

Oh, I know, if we ever have a power blackout, I'll be out of luck. In which case I think I'll just let my beard grow.