Indice dei contenuti per November 2020 in Reader's Digest

It was dark outside, just after the dinner hour, when Benny Correa and Amanda Disley and three of their five kids climbed into their black Cadillac Escalade. As they prepared to exit the parking lot of the restaurant where they’d just eaten, a dark blue Honda Civic with heavily tinted windows crossed their path. “Yo, babe,” Correa hollered, “that’s that car. That’s that car!” Earlier in the day, Disley had mentioned an Amber Alert issued for a missing 11-year-old girl in Brimfield, Massachusetts, less than 30 miles from the family’s home in Springfield. The car that passed them was the same make and model as the one that had been used in her abduction. Correa took a hard right out of the parking lot and tailed the Honda in an…

MITCH ALBOM Bestselling author CLAIRE BABINEAUX-FONTENOT CEO, Feeding America SARAH FRIAR CEO, Nextdoor KELLI HARDING, MD Author of The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness BRUCE KELLEY Editor-in-chief, Reader’s Digest BONNIE KINTZER President and CEO, Trusted Media Brands ERICH OFFENBURG Executive director, Chamber of Commerce, Columbiana, Ohio (the 2019 Nicest Place in America) GERI WEIS-CORBLEY Founder and CEO, Good News Network…

SOME CARDS ARE in a child’s scrawl, complete with stickers: “You are a blessing. Love, Braylon.” Others are written in flowing penmanship: “We want you to know just how much we appreciate all your hard work and dedication to such a difficult job! We lift you up in prayer each day to keep you safe through this horrible virus. We are all so very proud of everything you do. Love, Betty McCulley.” All of them-1,861 thank-you notes in total-have one thing in common: They were written from the heart by the people of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, to health-care professionals working around the clock during the scariest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “There’s a lot of love in those cards,” says Jim Coggin, a leader at Pawleys Island Community Church.…

YARDLEY HAS A long history as a community that cares. Back in the days of the Underground Railroad, at least five places in this Delaware River town housed runaway slaves. For the past four decades, a good portion of the altruism has been centered at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, whose members meet in the 19th-century parish house every month to fix meals for elderly and shut-in residents across the Philadelphia region. Barbara Taeffner Kulp enjoyed this generosity twice. “When I broke both my legs, St. Andrew’s fed my husband and myself in such abundance that with great thanks I had to say stop,” she says. “My husband- jokingly, I hope-asked me to break my legs every month because he loved the food.” When he passed away, the cards and calls…

There’s a long-standing argument in scientific circles over how to classify viruses. They’re not inanimate, because they multiply, have genes, and evolve. Yet they’re not “alive,” as they don’t have cells, can’t convert food into energy, and can’t survive on their own. Viruses are biological zombies. They have one mission: to find a host and use it to replicate. They reproduce by hijacking the host’s cells, eventually causing them to burst and die. That’s why viruses that infect humans nearly always cause illness. Fortunately, just as we know a great deal about how viruses do their damage, so do we know how to fend them off. These facts are a good place to start. 1 There are many more viruses than you think We often think of just a few…

FROM PSYCHOLOGY TODAY IF A PRESIDENT, a legendary philosopher, and one of the bestselling authors of all time credited the same secret for their success, would you try to follow it too? What if the secret was something you already knew how to do? In fact, you probably do it every day. Here’s what Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.” Thomas Jefferson: “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.” And Charles Dickens made his point with uncharacteristic brevity: “If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.” Are you still sitting there reading this? Get walking! It’s not just these three great minds who made a case for it as…

How to Build a Better Brain My wife and I ate a balanced diet. She slept well—I didn’t. She liked puzzles—I didn’t. We took 40-minute walks every day. At 75, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. At 84, my brain still works well (I think). How did she get Alzheimer’s? I’ve spent many hours wondering but do not have an answer. –Robert Lamberson Canandaigua, New York The Smartest Dog in America Is … I read the story of Colby, the retired service dog who helped a one-yearold learn to walk. My poodle mix, Smokey, would stand very still as my son grabbed his hair and pulled himself up to walk. My son is 50 now, and Smokey went over the rainbow bridge long ago. Thank you for the warm memories. –SANDRA…

Now that some of us have gone back to the office, it’s time to stock up on excuses for being late. Just don’t use these tried-and-failed beauts: ✦ “I got my fingers stuck in a bowling ball.” ✦ “I had a dream that my cat died, and now I’m afraid to leave her.” ✦ “I rolled out of bed and knocked myself out, so I missed my alarm.” ✦ “I accidentally got on a plane.” ✦ “My goldfish was ill.” ✦ “I slept funny on my arms, and now they’re asleep.” ✦ “I thought it was Saturday today.” ✦ “My football team lost last night.” ✦ “I needed a few hours to get the alcohol in my blood down to a legal level.” -COBURGBANKS.CO.UK…

A little old lady had just returned home from an evening church service when she was startled by an intruder. As she caught the man in the midst of robbing her home, she yelled, “STOP! ACTS 2:38!” (That’s the one that goes, “Repent and be baptized, in the name of the Lord, so that your sins may be forgiven.”) The burglar stopped dead in his tracks. The woman calmly called the police to explain what she had done. As the officer cuffed the man to take him in, he asked the burglar, “Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was yell scripture.” “Scripture?” replied the burglar, stunned. “She said she had an ax and two .38s!” —EldEroptionsoftExas.com A husband and wife are playing a trivia game.…

The Memorial Day parade in Buchanan, Michigan, isn’t the biggest in the country, but pound for pound these 4,300 residents might generate more red, white, and true-blue spirit than anywhere. Of course there’s the boom-boom-boom of the high school marching band and the flashing lights of the police cars, fire trucks, and Buchanan’s one ambulance. One year, the town hitched its new rescue boat to a trailer to join the procession, where it dodged the usual caravan of red-hatted Shriners on mopeds. There are cheers all along the 1.4-mile route, for the floats and the kids and the candy and especially when the marchers pass under the 11-by-16-foot American flag casting its extra- large shadow over the intersection of Main and Front Streets. But this is also a day of…

THERE ARE MOVEMENTS, there are grassroots movements, and then there are blade-of-grass movements. Richard Lynn is that blade of grass: one man popping up out of the dirt at the edge of California’s Central Valley, hoping to make his town and the world a better place. Lynn, 57, is a union electrician. He lives in a housing development in Rio Vista, population 8,200. Half the town is a cluster of homes and businesses built by the Sacramento River. The other half is the Trilogy subdivision, Lynn’s over-55 gated community. Trilogy draws modestly prosperous retirees and older workers like Lynn, promising a peaceful, pleasant place to wind down a hardworking life. There’s a golf course. There’s a park and a senior center. But for Lynn, there is also a shadow of…

IN JANUARY, 20-YEAR-OLD Joshua Jefferson held up Red Handed Tattoo at gunpoint, took $300, and escaped through a window. When his trial began, Micah Harold, the shop’s owner, was quick to testify-in Jefferson’s defense. “I want leniency,” Harold, who had also attended Jefferson’s arraignment, said at the time. “I’d give him a job if he wanted.” That’s the kind of humanity you’ll find in Harold, and in Shreveport, the city that’s home to Red Handed Tattoo. Call it compassion that’s relentless beyond reason. Another example: Harold closed his shop in March, more than a week before Louisiana mandated the closure of nonessential businesses. Why short himself the revenue? Because he was worried that Shreveport wasn’t ready for a spike in COVID-19 cases and he thought he could help. He started…

• Alabama Owens Cross Roads• Alaska Anchorage• Arizona East Gershon Lane, Tucson• Arkansas Sardis• Colorado Struggle of Love Foundation, Denver• Connecticut Bloomfield• Delaware Edgemoor Terrace, Wilmington• Florida Pine Hills• Georgia The Dream Center, Augusta• Hawaii Kamiloiki Valley, Oahu• Idaho Meridian• Illinois Collinsville• Indiana Doorsteps of Central Indiana• Iowa Iowa City• Kansas Olathe• Kentucky Signature Health Care Nursing Facility, Elizabethtown• Maine The Cedars, Portland• Massachusetts Springfield• Minnesota Victoria’s Ristorante and Wine Bar, Rochester• Mississippi Florence Gardens, Gulfport• Missouri Thousand Oaks, Parkville• Montana Ronan• Nebraska South 32nd Place, Lincoln• Nevada Sparks• New Hampshire Temple• New Jersey Jefferson Washington Township Hospital, Turnersville• New Mexico Bueno Para Todos Farm, Villanueva• New York Riverdale• North Carolina Dirtbag Ales Brewery, Hope Mills• North Dakota Minot• Ohio Clintonville, Columbus• Oklahoma Colefax Hill, Tulsa• Oregon Hillsboro• Rhode Island Belmont Market, Wakefield• South Dakota Iroquois School District• Tennessee Nashville• Texas Highland Village• Utah Backyards of Saratoga Springs• Vermont Telehealth Access for Seniors, Barre• Virginia Virtual Tip Jar, Hampton Roads• Washington Bellden Café, Bellevue• West Virginia Huntington• Wisconsin Sassy Cow Creamery, Columbus• Wyoming Casper…

FROM CHICAGO, PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH EPIC MAGAZINE THE MAN IN the baseball cap and sunglasses waited for the teller to notice him. The morning of May 26, 2000, was quiet inside the LaSalle Bank in Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. “May I help you?” said the young woman behind the counter. The man reached to the back of his khakis as if to fish out a wallet. Instead, he presented her with an index card. The teller’s smile wilted as she stared at the words: “THIS IS A ROBBERY. PUT ALL OF YOUR MONEY IN THE BAG.” The robber, a slender man wearing a blue oxford shirt, returned the card to his pocket. “Nice and easy,” he said coolly, handing over a plastic shopping bag. While the…

A collection of poems, essays, or stories is an anthology, from the Greek anthos (flower) and logia (collection), perhaps referring to the gathering of flowery verses into one volume. If you want to feel fancy—and even more floral—you can also call such a book a florilegium (from the Latin florilegus, meaning “culling flowers”). Word Power ANSWERS 1. abridged (B) shortened. Peter read an abridged version of War and Peace right before his book club meeting. 2. riffle (A) skim. Work has been so busy, I’ve barely had time to riffle through my inbox. 3. saga (C) heroic tale. The latest Avengers saga was a box office smash. 4. prosaic (B) dull. In her weekly newspaper column, Mina can make even the most prosaic subjects feel profound. 5. omnibus (B) collection. Priya settled into an armchair…

Past the breakers, about 50 feet from shore, two brothers were fighting for their lives. They had been swept out to sea in a rip current, their mouths barely able to stay above the water. Thick fog made it difficult for beachgoers on Northern California’s Trinidad State Beach to see the guys, but the screams were unmistakable. And every second counted. The brothers, ages 15 and 20, were wearing shorts and T-shirts, unsuitable for a November day, let alone the 50-degree water. Keven Harder, a supervising ranger, told the North Coast Journal in nearby Eureka that swimming in such a temperature “takes the fight right out of you.” Luckily, four surfers in wet suits were nearby. Narayan Weibel, Spenser Stratton, and Adrian York, all 16, along with Taj Ortiz-Beck, 15,…

Angelenos might think of themselves as laid-back, the kings and queens of California cool. But according to the Instagram account OverheardLA, many La-La Land residents have very grave concerns. Scene: Woman buying wine and cookies Cashier: Do you want your receipt? Woman: Does this look like a transaction I want to remember? Over the loudspeaker at LAX: Would a dog by the name of Ray please report to gate 2. Your owner is waiting for you at gate 2. Girl to hostess: Please help me sneak out of here; I am on the worst first date. Hostess: OMG, this is what I live for. Friend 1: I need to go to therapy, but I can’t afford it. Friend 2: That’s OK, just write down all your problems and I’ll tell them…

1 ELECTION DAY used to look a lot like a frat party. George Washington won a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758 after spending his entire campaign budget on drinks for his supporters. Buying votes with booze was the norm until 1811, when Maryland passed the first campaign finance reform law prohibiting the purchase of alcohol for voters. 2 VOTING ON Tuesday is hardly a convenience now, but it was in the 19th century, when farmers often had to travel long distances to the nearest polling place. They didn’t want to travel on Sunday, and they needed to be back home for market day on Wednesday. Farming also explains why we vote in November—the harvest was over. 3 AMONG THE democracies that vote on weekdays, the United…

“Waterproof, great for winter, only comes in brown.” When Shervin Hess of the Oregon Zoo read this product review for hiking boots, he realized it also described sea otters. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums picked up on his idea and published an entire collection called Animals: Reviewed. A few of their ratings: Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth Built-in hooks make it easy to hang, but it quickly runs out of power and needs most of a day to recharge. Blue-and-gold macaw Cool colors, but the playback feature sometimes doesn’t work, and there is no volume control. Might peck at you if you try to fast-forward. Giant anteater Works well in hard-to-reach places. The nozzle does NOT detach. Leaves a slimy residue, but it comes with a bonus duster on the back.…

MITCH ALBOM, the author of Tuesdays with Morrie and eight other books, joined the advisory council (see next page) to help decide this year’s Nicest Places in America honorees. The proud Detroit resident spoke to senior editor Jeremy Greenfield about how his writing brought him to RD’s signature project. RD: You published a serialized book this year called Human Touch that’s set in the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s not the kind of thing you usually write. MA: When I announced it, I got an extraordinary number of messages from people saying, “Please write something hopeful.” I wanted to write about how a small community changes, maybe suffers, but ultimately endures. If you read it, you know one of the main characters dies from the virus, but the community still goes on. I…

As COVID-19 cases raged in April, Denise Cherry was afraid to leave her home. She had lost three family members to the virus, and with medical problems of her own, she wasn’t taking any chances. Desperate, Cherry, 65, responded to a nextdoor.com post from a stranger offering help. That stranger was Christy Cheung, who lived a few neighborhoods away in Gaithersburg, a hardworking but increasingly techy city of 70,000. She came the next day with her four-year-old son, Ethan. They took out Cherry’s trash and brought in her mail, and they kept coming until she was well enough to do for herself. “On our street, we have a few elders, so we’re the eyes and ears for them. Fixing doors and computers, mowing their lawns,” says Cheung, 32. “We said,…

1,183 total nominations were made in response to our call for entries in May. 229 places landed on our short list and were vetted by our team of reporters. 50 Nicest Places, one in each state, earned our honors. 666,933 “claps” were received on rd.com from Americans supporting their favorites among the 50 state honorees. To select our Nicest Place in America, RD editors counted the claps for each place, polled our advisory members, and then made this year’s pick: Buchanan, Michigan.…

1. abridged adj.(uh-’brijd)A adapted.B shortened.C translated. 2. riffle v.(‘rih-full)A skim.B brainstorm.C copy from. 3. saga n.(‘sah-guh)A beach read.B memoir.C heroic tale. 4. prosaic adj.(pro-’zay-ik)A uplifting.B dull.C overly wordy. 5. omnibus n.(‘ahm-nih-bus)A road atlas.B collection.C paperback. 6. scrivener n.(‘skrih-vuh-ner)A critic.B writer.C bookbinder. 7. stanza n.(‘stan-zuh)A romance.B library shelf.C poem part. 8. lexicon n.(‘leks-ih-kahn)A dictionary.B villain.C twisty plot. 9. hyperbole n.(hi-’per-buh-lee)A overstatement.B understatement.C nonsense word. 10. elegy n.(‘el-uh-jee)A scientific paper.B mournful poem.C beautiful quotation. 11. tome n.(tohm)A horror story.B poetry slam.C large book. 12. vignette n.(vin-’yet)A comedic play.B short scene.C reading glasses. 13. analogy n.(uh-’nal-uh-jee)A travel blog.B symbolism.C comparison. 14. epigraph n.(‘eh-puh-graf)A opening quotation.B illustrated guide.C words said for the dead. 15. synopsis n.(suh-’nop-suss)A Greek drama.B brief summary.C cast of characters.…