CANCER AWARENESS

This is breast cancer awareness month. Every game I go to I see kids wearing something pink -- T-shirts, ribbons, ribbon decals, shoelaces -- and there are announced collections taking place.

The MHS Dance Team -- award-winning team, by the way -- raffles off a gift basket at every home football game. Friday night, the teamhadme announce that half the proceeds would go to the Middlesex Hospital Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center. The raffle netted $210 for the Center. Perfect.

But there are schools that have enlarged the effort to fight other cancers. So it is at Mercy High and this one hits home. There will be a raffle and bake sale Wednesday at the Mercy soccer game with Amity and the field hockey game with North Haven. Proceeds will benefit a recent Mercy grad and field hockey player who has lymphoma. It might rain Wednesday. What, you can’t get a little wet to help a kid? Get out to Tiger Field and help out.

Here’s one from me. Testicular cancer is the leading solid tumor in guys 15 to 35. Yet there are no Testicular Cancer Awareness months, no TV commercials about that disease. Maybe it’s considered too -- I dunno -intimate or maybe too sexual a thing to talk about? I will talk about it. Every boy who has reached puberty should examine his testicles from time to time. Do it in the warm shower when the testicles descend from the hot water. Manipulate them. They should be smooth. If you find a lump -- it is almost always painless at first -- get to a doctor. Caught early, it is curable 95 percent of the time. Once it spreads ....

Dads and single moms, you should talk to your teenage sons. I know, not the easiest subject to bring up with your kid. Men are notoriously bad at it. I get that. It’s kind of hard for a lot of dads -- or for a kid -- to initiate a conversation about testes.

I don’t care how hard it is. Do it. And if you are really still hesitant and figure the kid will figure it out, I have the perfect solution, Call me, bring your kid to the followingmeeting place with me. Pine Grove Cemetery, South Main St. There we can meet at my son’s grave. He died of cancer; leukemia at age 14.