hacrat@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (04/13/90)
From: karl_kleinpaste@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.important Subject: Re: "Dying boy wants cards" stories Message-ID: <15525@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 12 Apr 90 14:09:18 GMT Sender: mark@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 37 Approved: Mark.Horton@ATT.COM Recently, there has been a rash of postings in numerous newsgroups (misc.kids, news.misc, soc.misc, possibly others) announcing that a young boy is dying of a terminal disease, that he has a very short time to live, and that he is attempting to work his way into the Guinness Book of World Records by being the recipient of the largest number of cards ever. A recent example: || Send a card to: || || Craig Shergold || Children's Wish Foundation || 32 Perimeter Center || Atlanta, GA 30346 || || Craig is 7 years old and has a brain tumor. He has a short time to ||live. ||But he has one wish: to break the Guiness World Book Record for card ||receiving: 1,000,265. He is trying to do this by 4/15/90. This story has acquired the status of urban legend. It varies from occurrence to occurrence, but the variations are not significant: The child has a brain tumor, leukemia, or some other form of cancer; he lives in Florida, Georgia, or Great Britain (the story appears to have originated in GB); he is anywhere from 4 to 9 years old. These stories have been floating around the Usenet for not less than 5 years. If the story was ever true, the child must have long since achieved his goal; and in any event, some of the responses to these announcements have indicated that Guinness is no longer interested in pursuing this category, if it ever did in the first place. Please ignore these notes in the future. ---------------- [Note: there have been some indications that this particular round may be for real, but that they have already received more cards than they want. In any case, there is no reason to send additional cards or to propagate this story. Please stop! - MRH]