SCENE ON THE STREET : Sideshows

Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, who won some and lost some for the North in the Civil War, was bald and bold of brow. Head like a cannonball, with the goldarndest set of whiskers you ever saw.

Nothing on the chin, mind you. But imagine two great snarly bird’s nests, bisect them down the middle, put ‘em side by side, plant the inner edges under the nose and the outer edges under the ears, and you have Burnside’s sideburns. That’s how they got the name.

Sort of like two extra pockets, festooned on the face there, like Christmas decorations. Lord knows what he kept in there. Could’ve kept two or three snuff boxes on each side. Or hatched any number of bird’s eggs.

Could’ve kept his hands warm on the battlefield. You’ve heard of mutton-chop whiskers? These were mitten chops.

Anyway. That’s how the fashion started, in the 1860s. Since then, all that drapery of 19th-Century shrapnel-catcher on either side has kind of faded back. The sideburn as we know it is just a vestige. The appendix of the hair world.

But what a vestige! Since the 1860s, tonsorial wars have been fought over those crucial square inches in front of a guy’s ears. Yesterday the hair south of the eye line gave way to bare skin. Today the northern hair is driving way down to the lobe.

Some say Jason Priestley and Luke Perry, of TV’s “Beverly Hills 90210,” are responsible for the current trend. Who knows? Could be it was these guys in Pomona and Pasadena?