One of my favorite songs is "Cat's In The Cradle" performed by Harry Chapin.  Harry Forster Chapin was born December 7, 1942 in New York City.  Chapin graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1960, following which he briefly attended Cornell University, but did not complete a degree program.  Harry's first solo album "Heads & Tales" was released in 1972 and contained his hit "Taxi".  In 1974, the "Verities and Balderdash" album produced Chapin's only #1 hit "Cat's In The Cradle", based on a poem written by his wife, Sandra.  When Harry's son, Josh, was born, he put the words to music and recorded "Cat's In The Cradle".
Harry Chapin died July 16, 1981 at the age of 38.  He was driving on the Long Island Expressway when witnesses observed he began to slow down, swerve and put on his emergency lights.  He veered into the path of a tractor trailer truck; the truck unable to brake fast enough hit the rear of Chapin's vehicle which burst into flames.  Chapin was pulled from the burning vehicle and taken to a local hospital.  Nassau County Medical Center stated that Chapin suffered a heart attack and died of cardiac arrest, but it was unable to be determined if he died before or after the accident occurred. Harry Chapin's remains are interred at Huntington Rural Cemetery in Huntington, New York.  His epitaph reads
"Oh if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man's life could be worth
I wonder what would happen
to this world."

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