Walk softly and wear a big hat

Years ago I wrote a column about my father’s skin cancer. Each time I saw him there was less of him there. The doctors had carved away so much of his nose and ears that he was slowly disappearing.

I thought it was a funny column.

I vowed at the time to start wearing a bigger hat.

I didn’t want to suffer the same fate, but wasn’t really worried because my father was an old man and I was still bulletproof.

Then last fall, my friend Johnny said he wanted to take a look at my ear. We were hunting pheasants, and had returned to the truck to take a break.

“Get a biopsy of that and send it to me,” he...