"Pursuant to my letter of November 9, 1959, we have decided we would like the following one line epitaph on the monument you are constructing for us:" Thus opened my father's letter on November 24, 1959, to Wm. B. Snelbaker & Son, Designers of High Grade Memorials. It was one of the last of numerous correspondences they had over the period of about a month, between my parents in Aruba and the company in NJ. My dad was 27, mom 26, and they were making preparations for the burial of their first child. No parent should have to go through what they did. My father passed away in 1994, the same year my first daughter was born, while visiting us in Phoenix where my parents had come for her Christening. Several years later when we moved my mom to a smaller and easier-to-maintain home, I became the recipient of several boxes of my dad's files. This past year, while going through some of them I came upon one which contained the sobering correspondence I mentioned above. My dad, an engineer, kept copies and records of most everything, including a folded-up, full-size drawing of the gravestone they designed for their first daughter. While sobering, I also always consider things like this important wake-up calls. So to help continue the fight to improve survival rate for kids with cancer, for the 4th year now I'm going to shave my head as part of St. Baldrick's Shaving the Way to Cure Kids' Cancer. (This event serves to raise both donations - St. Baldrick's Foundation funds more in childhood cancer research grants than any organization except the US Government - and awareness.) There is the historic personal connection for me doing this (you can read more about my sister Karen by following my website link below), as well as two perhaps selfish desires to do something good and to never lose touch with how blessed I've been. The event has snuck up on me this year and is less than 3 weeks away as I write this! It took my son Thomas (I'm proud he's doing it too this year!) asking me just this past week, "when is St. Baldrick's this year, dad?" for me to realize the event we are participating in is on March 6th! While I'm lucky to still have a good bit of hair, my becoming bald is perhaps not as newsworthy anymore (I know I bothered many of you about this in the past). But the reason I'm doing it is still important and something I never want to lose sight of. (To make it a little more enticing, I'm planning to go to an earlier event and get a mo-hawk to sport for a week before my official shaving.) So, anyway, I would love your support ---- please consider clicking the donation link above and/or reading any- and everything about St. Baldrick's elsewhere on this site. I hope this finds all who read this healthy and happy! -Bill