Dave in Minnesota, and other Barth fans:

I'll be helping to staff a PanCAN table at the Orioles/Twins game on Monday, Sept. 6 at Camden Yards. PanCAN is the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (www.pancan.org). We'll be distributing purple ribbons and information on PanCAN to those interested. We're told they'll flash the PanCAN logo on the scoreboard, but don't know if there will be camera coverage of the table.

Our enthusiastic "Team Hope" is made up of people who have lost family and friends to pancreatic cancer. Every Team Hope member has lost a loved one. We don't have celebrity spokespeople because they're all dead -- it's up to the surviving family and friends to carry the torch for research, awareness, and cure. I hope you'll all be watching.

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Bev

Bev, you may not own a Barth but you are becoming one of the family. Maybe you can be our mascot. Albert T. Bowers 1909-1987 was a 76 year old man in pretty good physical shape. Woke up one morning with a back ache. Four months later he died of pancreatic cancer. If this killer hadn't come along I feel confident we would have had him 10 more years. My mother, wife of 53 years followed him just 3 weeks later.

The pictures below show my dad on a construction job somewhere in the 40's just after returning from Guam. I lived in that trailer till I was around 11. The other picture was his last visit and we went to the Minnesota State Fair. I just took the little girl in from of him to her second year a University of Wisconsin. And the boy to his right is my son who just turned 28. And then of course my mom in the wheel chair. Boy is this thread drift or what...Sorry Dale.

Notice that my mom has this wild naturally curly hair. Now look at the shadow the old photo. Is that something. I think she had the first blond afro..



The O's aint got a chance....

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[This message has been edited by davebowers (edited September 02, 2004).]

Dave: So sorry to hear of your loss. I'm in the same boat. My dad, a WWII vet served in the 8th AAF, was diagnosed in December, 1989; died on February 20, 1990, at age 68. He was never sick (or at least he never complained of being sick) until he twisted a knee climbing into his truck. After arthroscopic surgery he was good as new, except for the undetected pancreatic cancer monster. As par for the course, PC is not detected until way too late to do anything, and it's 99% fatal. Symptoms are vague and can be misdiagnosed. A husband of a Team Hope member was diagnosed only 4 days (!) before he died.

You have a beautiful family, and it's so sad you lost both parents so close together. I'm not savvy on posting photos on the web, but there are photos of Dad on the 384th Bomb Group website at www.384thbg.iwarp.com, under Real Stories of Honor, Bobby Barth, Medic/Ambulance driver.

In my 'free time' I do what I can with PanCAN Team Hope.

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Bev