I'LL GO BALD FOR A GOOD CAUSE

I don't like going bald. In fact, good genes have given me bragging rights to not losing much hair whatsoever. In my sixties, I still have a full head of salt-and-pepper and a full ("too full," Linda would say) beard that is still tinged with the cayenne color of younger days.

So, the choice to voluntarily go bald and beardless is daunting to my vanity. Likewise is the thought of having a head that most closely resembles an oversized honeydew for the four or so months it takes my hair to grow back to fashionable length.

Why, then, tempt fate? The answer is empathy, solidarity. I look at a kid suffering from cancer, and I realize that his or her baldness is not some vain option. It is a price paid in tender years to be spared from a most sinister disease. Dare we even use the word "cured"? With the help of the Almighty and gifted, committed researchers and clinicians, cure is now a daily reality, not an elusive riddle.

I shave my head in unity with those kids for whom a head of hair is a deferred luxury. I shave my head as a conversation piece anytime a person asks a fool such as I why I have made myself look even more foolish. I shave my head because it is precious little I can do to draw complacent people not to avert their eyes, but to look with an open heart upon that suffering little kid.

But, I shave most of all to make money - lots of it. Along with 150+ other Greenvilleans, we will shave ourselves silly, because we find sponsors among benevolent people who know that our baldness is a trigger, a symbol, of deepest compassion for children who have already suffered too much.

We coalesce under the banner of "St. Baldrick's Day," part of an international effort which has raised more than $150 million in the last eleven years, including close to $250,000 right here in the Upstate in the last four. This year we will celebrate St. Baldrick's Day on Sunday, March 18, 1:00-4:00 PM, Downtown next to Larkin's on the River, part of the Peace Center complex. It will truly be a celebration, too. Activities for the kids, shock jocks to keep the party moving, food courtesy of Larkin's. And, of course, six barber chairs to accommodate the 150+ shavees, 15-20% of whom, by the way, are women!

How do you become involved? Become a shavee, of course. Assemble a team. Volunteer. Hold a fundraiser. Sponsor shavees. Don't give until it hurts; give until it feels good! You'll find all the information at www.stbaldricks.org or by calling 864-271-3715.

Shaving my head and beard does a trip on my vanity, I confess. But the price is negligible or less, compared to those precious little kids who lose their hair as the price of their cure. Join me, please, in balding-out for an honorable cause, or generously supporting someone who is.