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Subject:      Craig Shergold
From:         Rodger Morris < rodger@fishnet.net>
Date:         Sun, 12 May 1996 12:28:46 -0700
Message-Id:   <31963BEE.3051@fishnet.net>
Organization: Fishnet Internet Services
Newsgroups:   rec.scouting

Aladdin wrote:
...
>Craig Shirgold is a 7 year old boy who lives in Keen, N.H.  He is
dying from an inoperable brain tumor.  He made a wish to Children's
> >Wish Foundation, that he wants one million get well cards sent to him
> >by August 15 so he can make the world book of records before he dies.
> >Cards can be made or bought.  PLEASE send the cards to the following
> >address:

This is an urban myth wrapped around a kernal of truth, and spread 
endlessly around the world by well-meaning and ill-informed people.

Facts:

1) There _was_ a Craig Shergold in England.
2) He was dying of a brain tumor that was inoperable in Britain
   with the medical technology available there at that time.
3) He wanted to set a record for postcards received in the
   "Guinness Book of World Records".
4) Over 12 million people responded with postcards.
5) Craig was brought over to the USA by billionaire John Kluge.
6) He had brain surgery to remove the tumor and survived.
7) The postcards _still_ keep coming in, a decade later.
8) Guinness has disestablished this category, because of the
   Shergold incident.
9) Craig Shergold is now in his late teens, and reportedly
   wishes that he had never made his dying wish.

Bottom line: This story has mutated, and Children's Hospital
in Altanta, Georgia is apparently now the designated victim,
where once Charing Cross Hospital in London was.

Yours in Scouting,

Rodger Morris