Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

a great, great getaway because phones were not an issue. I forget all the things we did.
But the beard started when we went away. He had a heavy beard. He’s like Nixon. I mean
when he shaved he had a 5 o’clock shadow at 5 o’clock, even when he was young. So he
started to grow that beard. We ended the vacation to visit Danny who was attending the
Boy Scout Jamboree in Idaho. Dan kept the beard to show him. And I abided it. By the
time we got home he had a pretty good beard. And he said, “Well, I think I’ll just keep
going.”
Hughes: It was luxurious; it was dark.
Evans: Well, it was dark but as it got longer there were two white streaks on his chin,
which often happens with men. I’ve noticed this on men’s beards. So he went on, growing
this beard. In his scrapbook is a letter he got from somebody who said, “I always knew you
had skunk blood in ya!”
Hughes: Was that somebody being funny?
Evans: No. No. And he got a lot of mail on the beard. It was split 50/50, and most of the
50s against were women, and most of the 50s for were men.
Hughes: And the first lady wasn’t much for the beard either?
Evans: No. They were itchy. Let’s face it. So then I remember we were up at our condo at
Crystal Mountain – our “luxurious” condo. Actually, the square footage of the condos was
520 square feet. There were two rooms, three bunks, trundles.
Hughes: This was like the size of Happy Rockefeller’s bathroom, and without a Picasso.
Evans: Oh yeah. But we loved that condo. We had that for years. We were up there every
other weekend skiing. And you know you put on your parka, your goggles, and your hat
and nobody knows who you are. It’s a great getaway – no phone, no TV. And then we’d
be standing in line to get on the chair-lift and Dan would say something. And everybody
would turn around because his voice was so distinctive. I kept saying, “Be quiet!”
So we were up there at the condo. It was New Year’s Eve, and we’d been out
partying and the kids had been out playing. We all went to bed late. And Dan and Mark
were the first ones up. The rest of us were in the other room, sound asleep. So Mark took
(Polaroid) photos of Dan as he started shaving it off. So that he would first have less beard,
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