The Genius of doing good, or, "Hair" he goes again.

I'm not even going to apologize for the terrible pun, so let's get that out of the way right up front.

If you know me IRL, you know where my hairline is located.  That is to say, roughly at the back of my neck.  This is (only slightly) by choice.  It dates back to 2007; the first, and only, year I participated in St. Baldrick's head shaving fundraiser.  A friend had a child fighting a brain tumor (she kicked it's butt btw) and it seemed to me to be kind of a fun way to help out.  I wore my hair pretty close-cropped anyway and, after all, it's only hair.  I kind of liked not having any gray hair afterwards and decided to keep the look.  This, to me, eliminated the desire to do it again, since I'd already proven I'd do it.

There were a couple ulterior motives for sticking with baldness.  Shortly before this all took place, I was in the middle of a phone conversation with the Boy Child.  He'd had a union-related question and wanted to pick my brain.  He was at work at the time.  After I answered his query I heard him relay the information to his coworkers, and this is a direct quote -

"Hey, my Old Man said..."

Old.  Man.

Ex frickin scuse me?

I had never, to my knowledge, been referred to in that way before.  It didn't sit well, as confirmed by the hoots and hollers I heard back through the phone after I yelled at the Boy Child over his choice of alias. Also around this time, the Quiet Child made a similar age-related disparaging comment to me.  Apparently I was already numbed to it since I'm blanking on the particular unintended venom thrown my way.

So, my head-shaving was not completely selfless, since I gained something from it too.  As I said, not having the (mustache excluded) gray (and btw, the mustache is NOT going anywhere) was ok (except for about a three-week long lapse in judgement in my mid-twenties, it's been with me since I was able to grow one) with me.

Moving right along...

I have, here, on occasion, taken my grandfatherly privilege to spout off about the littles.  Even the not-so-little anymore Heir to the Throne, but this time I'm tipping my hat to the Boy Genius.

Last night, for the 4th year in a row, the Boy Genius took part in his local St. Baldrick's head shaving event.  This is, and has always been, something he wanted to do without any external prodding.  He does it to help kids in need.  He's a pretty special kid, all bias aside.  To do this event every year he's been win school is, to me, a very cool thing, and he's helped his school raise a nice bit of money for a charity that, by these metrics, seems to do things the right way.

And that's important.  It's important to me, and it should be important to you too.  We all work hard for our money *pulls out soapbox, climbs up on top* and if, at the end of the week when we sit down to pay bills, we have a little extra to give to those less fortunate, we should be sure the money goes where we want to go and not to pad some CEO's personal bottom line.

There are numerous examples of where not to send your money, fire up your Google machine before you give.

*puts soapbox away*

So, I just want to go on record to tell my readers, both of you, how proud I am of this guy

For doing this 

Again.

In addition to raising progressives, it seems we're doing a pretty good job of raising thoughtful, caring, considerate human beings too.

I'm a pretty fortunate guy, don't you think?

Peace