Last summer, Katie Steller pulled off the freeway on her way to work in Minneapolis. She stopped at a traffic light, where a man was sitting with a sign asking for help. She rolled down her window.

“Hey!” she shouted. “I’m driving around giving free haircuts. If I go grab my chair, do you want one right now?”

The man looked to be in his 60s. He was heavyset, balding, and missing a few teeth. As Steller likes to tell the story, he laughed, then paused. “Actually,” he said, “I have a funeral to go to this week. I was really hoping to get a haircut.”

“I’ll be right back,” Steller said.

She drove off, went to the salon she owns, and recruited one of her stylists to help her load a red chair into her car. Then the two of them drove back. The man, named Edward, took a seat, and they trimmed his curly graying hair. He told them about growing up in Mississippi, about moving to Minnesota to be closer to his adult children, and how he still talks to his mom every day.

After Steller was done, Edward looked in a mirror. “I look good!” he said. “I’ll have to remember to put my teeth in next time.”

To date, Steller has given 30 or so such haircuts to people around the city. These clients are all living on the margins, and she is keenly aware of the power of her cleanup job.

“It’s more than a haircut,” she says. “I want it to be a gateway, to show value and respect, but also to get to know people. I want to build relationships.”

Steller knows that a haircut can change a life. One changed hers: As a teen, she suffered from a bowel disease called ulcerative colitis that was so severe, her hair thinned drastically. Seeing this, her mother arranged for Steller’s first professional haircut.

“To sit down and have somebody look at me and talk to me like a person and not just an illness, it helped me feel cared about and less alone,” she says.

After that, Steller knew she wanted to have her own salon so she could help people feel the way she’d felt that day. Not long after finishing cosmetology school in 2009, she began what she now calls her Red Chair Project, reaching out to people on the streets.

“Part of what broke my heart was just how lonely people looked,” she says. “I thought maybe I’d go around and ask if people want free haircuts. I can’t fix their problems, but maybe I can help them feel less alone for a moment.”

Steller listens to people’s stories of loss, addiction, and struggle to get back on their feet. The attention apparently works. When she was cutting a woman’s hair one day, someone drove by and yelled, “You look amazing!” The woman in the chair beamed.

“I’m not invisible,” she exclaimed. “I thought I was invisible. Look, people see me!”

Another man was on his way to a job interview at a pet-supply store when he accepted Steller’s offer. When she followed up, she learned he didn’t get that job, but he did get a landscaping job soon afterward.

An offshoot of the Red Chair Project is the Steller Kindness Project, in which people who commit acts of kindness (volunteering for hurricane relief, helping neighbors in need) are invited for a free makeover at Steller’s salon. In exchange, they tell their stories, which Steller shares on her website. Her hope is that by reading about kind acts, others will be inspired to spread their own.

So far, it’s working, she says. “I’ve had people reach out from around the country, saying, ‘I’m going to shelters and cutting hair.’ Or, ‘I’ve driven by this woman for the past two years, and I’ve never stopped to say hi. Now I say hi to her every time I drive by.’”

And it all began with a belief in simple acts of kindness, such as a free haircut. “The way you show up in the world matters,” says Steller. “You have no idea what people are going to do with the kindness that you give them.”

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The post This Woman Gives Free Haircuts to Those Less Fortunate and Her Simple Act of Kindness is Starting to Spread appeared first on Reader's Digest.

UPS driver Ryan Arens was making his rounds near a pond in Bozeman, Montana, when he heard an unearthly sound. “Like a cry for help,” he told the Dodo. It was December 2018, and about 15 feet from the frozen banks was the source of that cry—a half-submerged brown-and-white wirehaired hound, struggling to cling to a thin layer of ice. How she got there no one knows, but an elderly man was already on the scene, determined to save her. He’d entered the pond in a rowboat and was hacking away at the ice with a rock to create a path to the dog. It was slow going, and Arens, 44, thought he stood a better chance.

“Animals are my weakness,” he told the Great Falls Tribune, explaining why he stripped down to his boxers and socks, even though the temperature was in the 30s, and commandeered the rowboat.

His heart thumping, Arens slid closer to the dog and used the other man’s rock to smash away at the ice. He gave one strong heave too many and slipped off the boat, crashing into 16 feet of frigid water.

He resurfaced in time to see the dog going under. Using nervous energy to keep warm, he swam about five feet toward her, grabbed hold of her collar, and pulled her to the ice. He then boosted the dog into the boat and slid it back to the shore, where anxious bystanders carried the dog to the home of the rowboat owner, a retired veterinarian. Once in the house himself, Arens jumped into a warm shower with the dog until they both defrosted. A few more minutes in the pond, the vet told Arens, and she would have likely suffered cardiac arrest.

The next day, Arens was back working the same neighborhood when the dog’s owner came over to thank him for saving Sadie. “Would you like to meet her?” he asked.

He opened the door to his pickup, and Sadie bolted out. She made a beeline for Arens, leaping on him and bathing him in wet kisses. That special delivery, says Arens, “was the highlight of my UPS career.”

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The post A UPS Driver Rescued a Dog from a Frozen Pond Without Hesitation appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Curtis Whitson knew the water­fall was coming. He’d rafted down the Arroyo Seco, a river in central California, before. He figured he would hop out of his raft into the shallow water, rappel down the rocks on either side of the falls, and continue on his way, as he had on a previous trip.

But this year was different. Heavy snow and spring rains had turned the usually manageable falls into ­something fierce. And this year, instead of his buddy, Whitson’s companions were his girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, and his 13-year-old son, Hunter. As the three of them ­approached the falls late in the after­noon of the third day of their ­camping trip, Whitson could tell from the ­increasing roar of water in the ­narrowing canyon that they were in serious trouble. There was no way they’d be able to rappel down the rocks as planned.

“The water was just gushing through there with tremendous force,” recalls Whitson, 45.

They could wade to the shore, but would anyone find them there? They had no cell service, and they hadn’t seen a single person in the past three days. And Whitson knew that they’d be sharing the ground there with rattle­snakes and mountain lions.

As he pondered what to do, Whitson hit on a bit of luck—he heard voices coming from the other side of the falls. He yelled, but the sound of the rushing water drowned him out.

We have to get these people a message, Whitson thought.

He grabbed a stick and pulled out his pocketknife to carve “Help” in it. Then he tied a rope to it so the people would know it wasn’t just any stick. He tried tossing it over the falls, but it floated away in the wrong direction.

“We’ve got to do something!” Whitson yelled to his son. “Have we got anything else?”

Then he spotted his green Nalgene water bottle. Whitson grabbed it and carved “Help!” on it. Ramirez also reminded him that he had a pen and paper, which she’d brought to play games with, in his backpack.

Whitson knew it was a long shot. But he scrawled “6-15-19 We are stuck here @ the waterfall. Get help please” and shoved the note into the bottle.

This time, his throw over the waterfall was perfect.

“All right, that’s all we can do,” Whitson told Hunter.

It took 30 minutes to navigate back upstream to the beach where they’d had lunch. They made a fire and laid out a tarp. With no reasonable ­expectation that their message in a bottle would find its way to anyone, they threw another Hail Mary pass: They spelled out SOS in white rocks, which they set on the blue tarp. As the evening wore on, they placed a headlamp with a flashing light on a ledge so that the SOS could be seen from overhead.

By about 10:30 p.m., they decided they probably weren’t going to get rescued that night, so they pulled out their sleeping bags. Before turning in, Ramirez stoked the fire to keep the mountain lions away.

Then, just after midnight, they heard a helicopter hovering above them. Whitson turned to his son and started shaking him.

“They’re here!” he said.

Whitson ran over to the headlamp and started flashing it at the heli­copter. He, Ramirez, and Hunter were waving and hollering when they heard the magic words: “This is Search and Rescue. You have been found.”

The helicopter circled as the ­pilot looked for a good place to land. ­Finding none, the crew announced to the campers over the PA system that they would not be rescued until morning and told them to conserve their firewood.

The next morning, the helicopter returned and lowered a crew member on a cable. Then rescuers lifted Hunter, Ramirez, and Whitson out of the gorge one by one and deposited them and their gear on the closest bluff where the helicopter could safely land.

It was a moment of pure happiness as the three chatted with the officers who had rescued them. Together, they marveled at the unlikelihood of it all.

“They said that in the 25 years that they’ve been performing these kinds of rescues, no one’s ever been rescued by a message in a bottle,” Whitson says.

When the officers dropped them back at the Arroyo Seco Campground, the trio learned more about the long shot events that had saved them: Two men had seen the water bottle bobbing in the water. When they picked it up, they noticed the writing on it—“Help!”—which piqued their curiosity. Then they realized there was a note inside. After they read it, they hightailed it to the campground, turned the bottle in, and took off without leaving their names.

“It wasn’t about notoriety; it wasn’t about leaving their names,” Whitson says. “It was just a matter of: Here’s the water bottle, here’s the note, here’s the information we know.”

A few days after news of the rescue broke, one of the hikers contacted Whitson. That’s when he learned the rest of the story. There were actually two little girls hiking with the men that day. It was the girls who first spotted the bottle and swam to get it. Whitson is planning on having a big barbecue to meet the hikers—and thank them.

“I imagine it’s going to be one of the greatest moments of my life,” he says.

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The post After Getting Stranded at the Top of a Waterfall, These Rafters Were Saved After Sending a Message in a Bottle Over the Falls appeared first on Reader's Digest.

It began like any other May morning in California. The sky was blue, the sun hot. A slight breeze riffled the glistening waters of San ­Diego Bay. At the naval airbase on North ­Island, all was calm.

At 9:45 a.m., Walter Osipoff, a sandy-haired 23-year-old Marine sec­ond lieutenant from Akron, Ohio, boarded a DC-2 transport for a rou­tine parachute jump. Lt. Bill Low­rey, a 34-year-old Navy test pilot from New Orleans, was already put­ting his observation plane through its paces. And John McCants, a hus­ky 41-year-old aviation chief machinist’s mate from Jordan, Montana, was checking out the aircraft that he was scheduled to fly later. Before the sun was high in the noonday sky, these three men would be linked for­ever in one of history’s most spec­tacular midair rescues.

Osipoff was a seasoned parachut­ist, a former collegiate wrestling and gymnastics star. He had joined the National Guard and then the Ma­rines in 1938. He had already made more than 20 jumps by May 15, 1941.

That morning, his DC-2 took off and headed for Kearney Mesa, where Osipoff would supervise practice jumps by 12 of his men. Three sepa­rate canvas cylinders, containing am­munition and rifles, were also to be parachuted overboard as part of the exercise.

Nine of the men had already jumped when Osipoff, standing a few inches from the plane’s door, started to toss out the last cargo con­tainer. Somehow the automatic-re­lease cord of his backpack parachute became looped over the cylinder, and his chute was suddenly ripped open. He tried to grab hold of the quickly billowing silk, but the next thing he knew he had been jerked from the plane—sucked out with such force that the impact of his body ripped a 2.5-foot gash in the DC-2’s alu­minum fuselage.

Instead of flowing free, Osipoff’s open parachute now wrapped itself around the plane’s tail wheel. The chute’s chest strap and one leg strap had broken; only the second leg strap was still holding—and it had slipped down to Osipoff’s ankle. One by one, 24 of the 28 lines between his precariously attached harness and the parachute snapped. He was now hanging some 12 feet below and 15 feet behind the tail of the plane. Four parachute shroud lines twisted around his left leg were all that kept him from being pitched to the earth.

Dangling there upside down, Osi­poff had enough presence of mind to not try to release his emergency parachute. With the plane pulling him one way and the emergency chute pulling him another, he real­ized that he would be torn in half. Conscious all the while, he knew that he was hanging by one leg, spin­ning and bouncing—and he was aware that his ribs hurt. He did not know then that two ribs and three vertebrae had been fractured.

Inside the plane, the DC-2 crew struggled to pull Osipoff to safety, but they could not reach him. The aircraft was starting to run low on fuel, but an emergency landing with Osipoff dragging behind would cer­tainly smash him to death. And pilot Harold Johnson had no radio contact with the ground.

To attract attention below, John­son eased the transport down to 300 feet and started circling North Is­land. A few people at the base no­ticed the plane coming by every few minutes, but they assumed that it was towing some sort of target.

Meanwhile, Bill Lowrey had landed his plane and was walking toward his office when he glanced upward. He and John McCants, who was working nearby, saw at the same time the figure dangling from the plane. As the DC-2 circled once again, Lowrey yelled to McCants, “There’s a man hanging on that line. Do you suppose we can get him?” McCants answered grimly, “We can try.”

Lowrey shouted to his mechanics to get his plane ready for takeoff. It was an SOC-1, a two-seat, open-cockpit ­observation plane, less than 27 feet long. Recalled Lowrey afterward, “I didn’t even know how much fuel it had.” Turning to McCants, he said, “Let’s go!”

Lowrey and McCants had never flown together before, but the two men seemed to take it for granted that they were going to attempt the impossible. “There was only one decision to be made,” Lowrey later said quietly, “and that was to go get him. How, we didn’t know. We had no time to plan.”

Nor was there time to get through to their commanding officer and request permission for the flight. Lowrey simply told the tower, “Give me a green light. I’m taking off.” At the last moment, a Marine ran out to the plane with a hunting knife—for cutting Osipoff loose—and dumped it in McCants’s lap.

As the SOC-1 roared aloft, all activity around San Diego seemed to stop. Civilians crowded rooftops, children stopped playing at recess, and the men of North Island strained their eyes upward. With murmured prayers and pounding hearts, the watchers agonized through every move in the impossible mission.

Within minutes, Lowrey and ­McCants were under the transport, flying at 300 feet. They made five approaches, but the air proved too bumpy to try for a rescue. Since radio communication between the two planes was impossible, Lowrey hand-signaled Johnson to head out over the Pacific, where the air would be smoother, and they climbed to 3,000 feet. Johnson held his plane on a straight course and reduced speed to that of the smaller plane—100 miles an hour.

Lowrey flew back and away from Osipoff, but level with him. McCants, who was in the open seat in back of Lowrey, saw that Osipoff was hanging by one foot and that blood was dripping from his helmet. Lowrey edged the plane closer with such precision that his maneuvers jibed with the swings of Osipoff’s inert body. His timing had to be exact so that Osipoff did not smash into the SOC-1’s propeller.

Finally, Lowrey slipped his upper left wing under Osipoff’s shroud lines, and McCants, standing upright in the rear cockpit—with the plane still going 100 miles an hour 3,000 feet above the sea—lunged for Osipoff. He grabbed him at the waist, and Osipoff flung his arms around McCants’s shoulders in a death grip.

McCants pulled Osipoff into the plane, but since it was only a two-seater, the next problem was where to put him. As Lowrey eased the SOC-1 forward to get some slack in the chute lines, McCants managed to stretch Osipoff’s body across the top of the fuselage, with Osipoff’s head in his lap.

Because McCants was using both hands to hold Osipoff in a vise, there was no way for him to cut the cords that still attached Osipoff to the DC-2. Lowrey then nosed his plane inch by inch closer to the transport and, with incredible precision, used his propeller to cut the shroud lines. After hanging for 33 minutes between life and death, Osipoff was finally free.

Lowrey had flown so close to the transport that he’d nicked a 12-inch gash in its tail. But now the parachute, abruptly detached along with the shroud lines, drifted downward and wrapped itself around Lowrey’s rudder. That meant that Lowrey had to fly the SOC-1 without being able to control it properly and with most of Osipoff’s body still on the outside. Yet, five minutes later, Lowrey somehow managed to touch down at North Island, and the little plane rolled to a stop. Osipoff finally lost ­consciousness—but not before he heard sailors applauding the landing.

Later on, after lunch, Lowrey and McCants went back to their usual duties. Three weeks later, both men were flown to Washington, DC, where Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox awarded them the Distinguished Flying Cross for executing “one of the most brilliant and daring rescues in naval history.”

Osipoff spent the next six months in the hospital. The following January, completely recovered and newly promoted to first lieutenant, he went back to parachute jumping. The morning he was to make his first jump after the accident, he was cool and laconic, as usual. His friends, though, were nervous. One after another, they went up to reassure him. Each volunteered to jump first so he could follow.

Osipoff grinned and shook his head. “The hell with that!” he said as he fastened his parachute. “I know damn well I’m going to make it.” And he did.

This article first appeared in the May 1975 edition of Reader’s Digest.

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The post His Parachute Got Stuck on the Plane’s Wheel and He Was Suspended in Midair with Little Chance of Survival—Then Another Plane Came to His Rescue appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Complete exhaustion. That’s my excuse. It had been a long, sleepless, overnight flight from Lima, Peru, to JFK Airport in New York. I always worry about airline food—the quality, the scarcity, the unrecognizable veggies, the soggy pasta—so I try to grab something healthy before I board, usually an apple or, in this case, a banana. Oh, the banana. Sure, it seems like the perfect handheld snack, but it turned into a soggy mess after being pinballed from the X-ray machine to the gate before being tilted under my seat, so I tossed it out before the flight landed, without eating it. Spoiler alert: I didn’t even have the banana that got me busted.

Just the facts

How, you’re probably wondering, did I get in trouble? Call it exhaustion motor mouth. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent at JFK asked if I had any fruits or vegetables. The answer, dear reader, should have been a simple “no.” Take a minute and write that down, maybe Memento-style inked on your arm: “Do you have a banana? No.”

If only I had done the same.

Instead, when the agent asked, I said something along the lines of: “I had a banana, it got smushed, so now my bag smells like banana, but I don’t have a banana, but it probably seems like I do, because it smells like a…banana….”

I may be paraphrasing, but my ramblings about banana-scented carry-on luggage went on long enough that it evidently triggered a response in the agent I couldn’t have anticipated. Although no droopy-eared CBP beagle patrol sniffed my bag, the agent stood up, took my passport, and then started to walk away, looking at me only once to say, “Follow me.” That was it. No explanation, no going back.

Agriculture jail

The banana police then brought me to what I like to call “agriculture jail,” which is a holding room for the USDA. Here, as with the agent, no one spoke to me or explained what was happening—or gave me back my passport. I frantically sent a message to my husband about the situation. “Stop texting,” he responded. “You’re going to get in trouble.” Right, that ship had already sailed. Here’s what else a TSA agent first notices about you.

The rules

In case you’re not up on your USDA international fruit and vegetable rules, here’s the official wording: “Travelers entering the United States must declare all agricultural products on their U.S. Customs forms. Almost all fresh fruits and vegetables (whole or cut) are prohibited from entering the United States because of the potential pest and disease risks to American agriculture.” All of that, I know. And then there’s this: “As long as you declare all the agricultural products you are bringing with you, you will not face any penalties—even if an inspector determines that they cannot enter the country.” So, theoretically, my banana declaration should have put me in the clear.

Screen, screen, screen

After a while, an agent behind the desk called my name and handed me my passport. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” I inquired.

“Take your bags to the secondary agriculture check,” was the reply. So, that was a “no.”

I took my tote bag to the screening, where I encountered the first friendly face of the day. “What ya got here?” the jovial screener asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

He looked at me funny. “No, I mean do you have fruits or veggies? Or is it dried fruits or other snacks? Why are you here?”

“I don’t have anything; I used to have a banana….” I told him my sad fruit punch line. He seemed both amused and confused, and proceeded to X-ray my bag. He found nothing amiss and sent me on my way. Here are some more things that will get your luggage flagged by the TSA.

And even more extra screenings

I honestly would have forgotten about the whole incident, but it turns out that this banana did not simply fade to black. The next month, while returning home from a work trip to Africa, I was completely fruit-free. But when I got to the customs desk, the agent scanned my passport…and started walking away with it. “Follow me.” It was fruit and vegetable Groundhog Day. Back to agriculture jail, then back to screening…and my friend from last month, who recognized me.

This, evidently, is a thing

Now, you don’t usually have time to make a connection with employees at a massive airport like JFK, so the fact that I was back there and the guy recognized me was unusual, to say the least.

“Fruit, veggies, snacks?” Nope, nope, nope. “But why are you here?” he asked. I told him about the passport. I mentioned the last time being similar to today and my repeat attendance in both holding and screening. He grimaced and gave me the bad news: “This is going to happen to you every time you enter the country for at least a year.” Wait, what?! “You’ve been put on a watch list, and every time you come into the country, you’re going to get flagged.” On the flip side, these are the 11 secrets to speeding through airport security.

Yes, every airport, every time

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t just get flagged coming into JFK. My next flight was from Toronto to Newark, and I was with my husband and son. Since, as a family, we were all on the same customs form (a practice we no longer continue), all three of us got sent to the USDA holding area. Want to scare a kid for life? This is a good start.

Repeat again…and again…and again

It might not sound like the worst fate to have your bag X-rayed, but having my passport taken away every time I entered the country, worrying my friends and family traveling with me or waiting for me outside customs, and never just walking up to a customs officer and getting the “welcome home” I used to enjoy all started to take a toll. It added another layer of stress and uncertainty to every flight. I stopped carrying any kind of snacks or food at all, and I even became nervous about souvenirs, worried that I was breaking the rules even though I’d read everything—thrice—by that point.

The end

And then, about 14 months later, as randomly as it started, my USDA detention ended. I still don’t know exactly what terminated my “most wanted” status, but a few things happened around the same time: I cried hard enough that someone finally handed me a form to send to CBP about my situation. Simultaneously, my passport expired and I got a new one. And finally, I started using the Mobile Passport app, a free option that speeds you through customs without needing to talk to a customs agent or having to shell out for Global Entry (which I haven’t applied for because—you guessed it—you won’t be approved with a U.S. Customs Agriculture black mark). Speaking of which, this is the difference between Global Entry and TSA PreCheck.

The lessons

I already knew this, but NEVER bring fresh produce—or meat, or cheese, or even rice—back from a trip overseas. If you are caught with an actual banana, you can be fined up to $500 in addition to the extra screenings, the loss of Global Entry and TSA PreCheck, and the general stress and aggravation of being noted as a person who’s broken the rules. You should also avoid these things you should never do at the airport if you want to have a smooth trip. And, of course, make sure to leave the banana in the fruit bowl!

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The post I Tried Bringing a Banana Through Airport Security—And I Got Put on a Watch List appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Amazing women in history

Whether supporting war efforts abroad, fighting discrimination at home, or inventing new scientific methods, women are equally responsible for the growth of a free, modern society as men yet have not received even close to equal credit for the feats, accomplishments, and victories. History textbooks are historically flawed because they have been written and curated by, in large part, Caucasian men who have time and time again, squeezed women—and even more women of color—out of the narratives. To celebrate women’s history month, here’s a look at incredible women whose contributions to world history are criminally under-discussed and taught. You’ll also want to learn about the 11 young women who are about to make history.

The post 16 Incredible Women You Didn’t Learn About in History Class appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Susan B. Anthony

Believing failure to be impossible, this New York disruptor is one of the main reasons ladies get to collect a sticker on election days in the United States. In fact, the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution—which granted the right to vote to all U.S. women over 21 in 1920—is also known by her name. According to the Susan B. Anthony House museum, she participated in her first women’s rights convention in 1852. Over the next 54 years, she published The Revolution; circulated petitions for married women’s property rights; established a press bureau to provide articles to national press outlets; gave speeches; formed Working Women’s Associations for the publishing and garment trades; called the first Woman Suffrage Convention in Washington, D.C. (1869); and was arrested for voting (1872). She was also a vocal advocate for abolishing slavery and improving workers’ rights, higher education for women, and training standardization and registration for nurses. Check out these rarely seen photos of the first women voters in 1920. 

The post 30 Women Pioneers Who Changed the World appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Things Your Airplane Pilot Won’t Tell YouIf you knew everything your airplane pilot knows, would you still fly? Find out!

The dark truth

TSA Agents have been trained to spot little known red flags. Ever wonder why you’re always getting stopped? I’ll tell you all the secrets. We also have a few secrets for flying through airport security. Richard is a pseudonym to protect the author’s identity.

The post I Was a TSA Agent for 2 Years—And This Is Why You’re Getting Stopped at Security appeared first on Reader's Digest.

September 11, 2001, is a day I’ll never forget, like anyone else who lived through it. It was a devastating day on which so many innocent lives were lost, and it was also the day my life was hijacked by a national narrative I couldn’t control. I was the CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority at the time, and in the aftermath, I was personally blamed for the attacks—a burden that proved to be almost too much to bear. I lost my job, my colleagues, and the respect of my nation. I’ve decided to tell my story now because it’s one of redemption against all odds, and if redemption is possible for me, then it is really is possible for anyone.

A day like any other

On the morning of September 11th, I was a working mom with a two-year-old son, and I was five weeks pregnant with my daughter. I was 36 at the time and had been appointed the CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which also meant that I was the head of Logan International Airport for two years prior. The position was a politically appointed one, and I had already served as Chief of Staff to two Massachusetts governors. It was going well, up until that day. We had been working on getting support to build a new runway, and we were making good progress.

The call that changed everything

That Tuesday morning, I was actually on my way to Logan to catch a flight to D.C. I was scheduled to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). I was listening to the radio when I heard the report of the plane hitting the first tower. I thought it must have been an accident like a lot of people did, and then, I listened live as they reported the second plane hitting the other tower. Then I knew it was terrorism. A staff member called me and said the six words that haunt me to this day: “Two planes are off the radar.” Those two planes had been hijacked and were the ones that had hit the towers—and they were from Logan. I wanted to weep as I heard the reports coming out of New York, but I knew I couldn’t freeze in the face of the horror that was happening. I could not scream. I could not cry. I had to do my job, and I had to lead Logan through this.

The center of a firestorm

No one knew at the time how the hijackers could have gotten through security. We know now that they carried small knives or box cutters through that went undiscovered. (Editor’s note: Blades four inches or less were permitted on flights at the time, so the ones the hijackers used would not have been confiscated.) This sparked a lot of anger, most of it directed at me. Suddenly, I found myself in the middle of a media firestorm. Story after story, and columnist after columnist, said I had no business running Logan. Some even went so far as to say that Logan was targeted because of me. Other airports had been compromised, too, but mine was the one whose planes took the towers down.

The long way down

It just got worse from there. The governor at the time, Jane Swift, forced me to resign six weeks later. It was either that or she was going to fire me. Then, the family of one of the victims sued me for wrongful death. That was absolutely shattering for me, to think that a widow and the mother of two children held me personally responsible for the death of her husband.

Nights were filled with horrifying dreams that I tossed and turned my way through. Peaceful sleep was a thing of the past. I feared that my name would forever be linked to that disastrous day, instead of what it used to be: a good, hardworking person—someone who would never dream of hurting someone else. And I kept wondering: Could I have prevented this? Were the deaths of all those people my fault?

While those around me urged me to move on, to put it behind me, I wondered how moving on from something so horrific as 9/11 was even possible. I didn’t know if I would ever find an answer to the question that haunted me endlessly: Was I to blame for this? The idea that I could end the pain was a powerful one. So much so that one evening, I entertained the idea of suicide. But instead, I listened to the voice within that told me to hang on. It was incredibly difficult to do.

Ultimately, the wrongful death case was dropped, but the suit against Logan lasted ten years. It was a long time, and it felt every bit of it.

The quest for redemption

When the 9/11 Commission Report was compiled, I testified before the Commission investigators, a panel authorized by Congress. I said, “If you find that Logan security was no different than any other airport that day, please say that. Say it for all of us feeling this burden.” It was their first footnote on the report—that Logan International Airport security had been no different than any other airport that day. Still, it wasn’t enough to help me move forward. I wanted some form of external exoneration, like for the president or someone else to say something about it. I wanted to know that others finally saw that I wasn’t to blame and that there was nothing I could have done to stop those planes from hitting the towers.

Being the hero in our own stories

The only thing that saved me was listening to myself. I had to listen to the belief I held within that I could not have done anything else. The security at Logan on 9/11 was exactly the same as it was at every other airport in America that day. None of us could have foreseen that planes themselves would have ever been used as weapons.

This entire experience has shown me that when terrible things happen, it’s scary. We want to blame someone for it; it makes us feel safer somehow. But that’s really no different than blaming a crime victim by saying she wore the wrong thing and that it wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t. I have also realized that it’s so hard—especially as a woman—to be your own hero. We tend to want someone else to come in and be the hero for us. But we can be the hero we need and save ourselves—we have it within us.

Moving beyond brokenness

I had my daughter the spring after I resigned, and about a year later, I began looking for work again. I’ve always defined myself by my work, but I needed to find a new career path. I have always loved writing—getting paid to choose the correct words is such a joy—and I couldn’t believe it when I got a job writing for the Boston Herald. Unfortunately, that became controversial because of my political past. Several writers there signed a petition for my termination, but I ended up working there for four years until I made the move to the private sector, working in public affairs.

Over that period of time, I just felt a sense of failure. I was failing to heal emotionally and mentally. I realized that our cultural definition of resilience isn’t a good fit for everyone. There’s this idea that you can bounce back better than ever, like the trauma never happened, but that isn’t true for all of us. It certainly isn’t true for me.

The lessons in sea glass

I wrote the book On My Watch (which will be released on April 14, 2020) to give meaning to it all. If one person finds that it helps them through a difficult time, then writing it was worth it. In terms of getting through trauma and ultimately healing, I often think of sea glass. It begins with a bottle broken by waves but eventually turns into something beautiful. I felt very broken for a long time, but I am still able to bring beauty to this life I live. I want people to know that in order to really get through something, you have to accept that you are forever changed. But you also need to know that you can carry joy right next to your pain and still have a wonderful life.

Next, read the story of a first responder at 9/11—and why he decided to tell his story 18 years later.

What Surviving a Terror Attack Taught Me

The Questions Young People Ask the Most About Surviving 9/11

Twists of Fate That Saved Lives on 9/11

The post I Was Personally Blamed for the Terrorist Attacks on 9/11—Here’s What Happened appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Randy Lazer started running back in 1990 as a way to step into a healthier lifestyle. As an asthma sufferer who didn’t work out much, he took it one step at a time, going out for a half-mile jog his first time on the road. It took about four tries for him to make it a full mile, but that only motivated him to go farther. In 1995, Lazer went the ultimate distance, clocking 26.2 miles in his first marathon. He completed three more by the time he was in his early 40s. Then, his stride came to a sudden stop.

The day that changed everything

One Sunday morning, in the midst of his typical training cycle, Lazer began to feel so terrible that he drove himself to the hospital. There, he suffered a heart attack, and he flatlined for two minutes. Thanks to the hospital staff and a strong will to live, Lazer pulled through double bypass surgery.

“A heart attack was the last thing I thought would possibly occur,” Lazer says. “At the time, I thought I was entitled to great health until I turned 90 or 100 years old because I ran and I was healthy, but what I learned is that I’m not entitled to the next 30 minutes.”

While rare, a heart attack can happen to anyone, at any age. That’s also what one woman found out when she was just 21 years old.

The road to recovery

Because of the stamina he’d built up with all of those marathons, Lazer assumed he’d hop out of bed after his heart surgery and start running—or at least walking. “When I got home, I couldn’t even make it up the stairs to my bedroom,” Lazer says. His new goal quickly became walking for just a few minutes every day. On that first walk back home, Lazer could only stroll for about six minutes, but he kept at it day after day. Less than two weeks later, he was walking a mile.

Soon after he hit that milestone, Lazer found out that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas marathon was three months and three days away. His friend, who barely ran, said he’d run it with him, so they both signed up and Lazer went back to pushing his pace on the road. A mere seven weeks out from the race, Lazer turned his typical walk into a run. In those next 50 days, Lazer once again built up his mileage so he could eventually cross his first Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon in 2001, which would kick off his 18-year streak.

Running marathons can certainly be addictive…in a good way, of course. Just take a look at this story of the first woman who ran the Boston Marathon—and then ran it again five decades later.

More health setbacks, more running gains

Lazer kept up the marathon tradition for three more years after that initial Rock ‘n’ Roll race. In 2004, he finished it in a breezy three hours and 50 minutes. But 13 days later, he was back in the hospital, undergoing another heart surgery. “I had done the marathon with an artery that was 80 percent blocked—I was lucky I made it through,” Lazer says.

After that 2004 surgery, doctors gave Lazer about a year to live with his heart condition. “When I heard that, I really did feel this kind of shock and depression. But I held it together in the doctor’s office,” says Lazer, who only let that sadness take over for about 10 to 15 minutes while he walked to his car. “By the time I got to the car right before I called my parents, it hit me that I can’t control when I die. [I thought,] I want to get married; I want to live. I’m 45 years old, and I am having all of this taken away from me—my great career, everything,” says the now-60-year-old. “But again, it hit me: I cannot control when I die—that was the epiphany—but I can do everything possible to be as healthy as I can.” Of course, that included running.

The drive to stay healthy

By 2008, Lazer had undergone six heart surgeries, and the last one left him debilitated. In an attempt to feel stronger, he decided to switch up his diet and, at the suggestion of a friend, started drinking more nutrient-packed juices. Eventually, he began to feel good enough to lace up his sneakers and hit the road again.

“After getting out of the hospital, my goal was not to compromise. I wanted to live my life as I desired, and that meant to continue running and be in the best shape that I can,” he says. “I wasn’t going to be sedentary and sit on a sofa and press the remote. The big thing for me was that I wanted my own life. I was going to do everything I could to get my life back.”

To Lazer, that meant running, since it was such a big part of that life. So, just months after that sixth surgery in 2008, he was back on the starting line of the Las Vegas 26.2. And this past November, he crossed the finish line of his 18th consecutive race.

Lazer credits running as one of the main reasons he’s lived well beyond that one-year prognosis he got back in 2004. “I believe I started running somehow knowing that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be living too long,” he says. “Running is a part of who I am—I am striving to be the best that I possibly can be. It’s such a huge part of my life that my life seems out of order if I’m injured or I can’t run. It’s kind of my anchor.”

To read more about Lazer’s decades of simultaneously conquering marathons and heart problems, keep an eye out for his forthcoming book, Running Beyond Death, Reversing Heart Disease.

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The post 14 Years After a Fatal Diagnosis, This Man Ran His 18th Straight Marathon appeared first on Reader's Digest.

When Tony Morfin, a sophomore at Molalla High School, interrupted Miss Behrle’s agriculture class by handing her an envelope, what she saw shook her so deeply that her students wondered what was wrong.

“I looked in the envelope and was like ‘oh my gosh,’” MacKenzie Behrle told Reader’s Digest. “The students asked what’s wrong and I said ‘nothing.’”

Behrle and Morfin spirited the envelope to her office and called Clay Sperl, a junior, to come take a look. As the lead coordinator for Share the Love, a three-week whirlwind of raising-money-for-good-causes now in its 20th year, Sperl was used to dealing with bad news and logistical snafus, everything from fundraising events falling through to bad weather putting a damper on others. He braced himself.

What he saw when he looked in the envelope was “unbelievable” and left him, Morfin, and Behrle all “speechless.”

It was a letter wrapped around a check. It read:

“In December 2019, I was at a doctor’s appointment and in the waiting room was a Reader’s Digest. I decided, Hey, I haven’t read one of these since 1975 when my grandma had them on her living room table. I was excited to read about Molalla High School as one of the 50 Nicest Places in America in the November 2019 issue. After reading, I researched Share the Love online and decided to attend the opening assembly.

“Wow, I was so moved not only by the challenging stories of the 2020 recipients but the amazing student body, how well-behaved and polite they conducted themselves…. As I sat in the bleachers watching this assembly unfold, it restored my faith in the young people of today, the power of community and a mighty nice small town called Molalla in our great state of Oregon. Keep up the good, positive work. Doing good for others is what it’s all about!”

It also read: “Please find enclosed a check for $55,000.”

The letter was unsigned and the check left no clue as to who the anonymous donor was. It stayed a secret between Morfin, Sperl, and Behrle until this year’s campaign was over.

Raising big sums of money for good causes is hard work in Molalla, a rural town of 9,000 people 45 minutes south of Portland. But for 20 years, students at Molalla High have done it with incredible success, each year raising more than the last. It all started with an empty mason jar on the desk of a teacher who was trying to raise money for a family member in need. Two months and $400 later, a movement was born. Now, they need a much larger mason jar.

This year, powered by the Reader’s Digest-inspired $55,000 donation, Share the Love raised $147,000, up from $90,000 the year before. In its 20 years, the program has raised about $650,000. The effort got the school named the Nicest Place in Oregon in the annual Reader’s Digest search for the Nicest Places in America.

Share the Love is a 501(c)(3) organization run almost entirely by students—this year, led by Sperl, 35 helped manage the effort, along with two teachers. Beneficiaries of the nonprofit’s efforts come from a pool of nominations and are chosen based on their level of need and community involvement. This year, the money will be split between the families of Felipe Us-Zapata, Lynne Blatter, and Mike Campbell.

Us-Zapata, a father of six and his family’s sole breadwinner, is battling brain cancer and now requires around-the-clock care. Blatter, a local teacher and volunteer, has to get regular dialysis to treat diabetes-related renal failure in addition to paying off past hospital bills. Campbell, a local teacher and sports coach, was diagnosed with metastatic stage IV lung cancer in 2018 and had to give up his jobs to attend to his health.

The recipients were announced in a moving ceremony at Molalla High in early February.

“It was a really powerful assembly,” said Sperl. “One hundred percent, there were tears, especially from those close to the families.”

What followed was three furious weeks of fundraising, including a cardboard boat race, a 5k run, and, new for this year, a tattoo-a-thon, where local artists donated their time and talents and ended up raising $3,000 for Share the Love.

For the families who benefit, it’s about more than the much-needed money.

“With the amount of love you get during the process and after, you’re so supported,” Faith Marr told Reader’s Digest. A 2012 recipient, she was three-years-old when she was diagnosed with a form of cancer never seen in a child’s spine, where she suffered from it. Without the $13,000 Share the Love raised for her family, a potentially life-saving experimental treatment would have been out of reach.

“I tell people all the time: if I did not get that money to go to Boston, I don’t think I would have lived,” she said. “We never thought we would be nominated. We still don’t know who nominated us.”

Columbiana, Ohio: The 2019 Nicest Place in America

Share the Love also changes the lives of the students who run it. Sperl, who ran this year’s program as coordinator and will do so again next year, wants to be a nurse practitioner. “I live to serve people and I want to make a difference in people’s lives. Being part of this awesome organization, I knew I could make a difference and it makes me full inside.”

Marr, now 17 and still working to overcome pain and complications for the experimental treatment that saved her life, wants to be a pediatrician. “I have to go into the medical field,” she said. “I want to advocate for people in explaining their pain because that is the really hard part going through life like this.”

As for Behrle, the teacher at Molalla who helps the students bring it all together, it brings her pride as a teacher to see her students running such a complex and successful organization. Some of the students who were coordinators before Sperl have gone on to careers in the nonprofit world. And, to think, it all started with an empty mason jar.

“We started small! You don’t have to start off raising $147k in three weeks,” she said. “Start small and it grows from there.”

24 Stories About the Kindness of Strangers

Moving Photos That Show the Power of Kindness

Random Acts of Kindness That Changed Lives

The post Anonymous Donor Writes Check for $55,000 After Reading a Reader’s Digest Article appeared first on Reader's Digest.

It’s gonna be OK

Sure, life has plenty of things to stress and worry about, but fear not. Behold, our guide to surviving basically anything: from the actually deadly (but super unlikely), like a plane crash, to the so-embarrassing-you-could-“just-die,” like asking a non-pregnant woman her due date. With these tips, you’ll be ready to conquer the world—plus, check out our tips to live long, be happy, and have financial success.

The post 42 Everyday Fixes to Survive Basically Anything appeared first on Reader's Digest.

When I was a very young man, just beginning to make my way, I was invited to dine at the home of a distinguished New York philanthropist. After dinner, our hostess led us to an enormous drawing room. Other guests were pouring in, and my eyes beheld two unnerving sights: Servants were arranging small gilt chairs in long, neat rows; and up front, leaning against the wall, were musical instruments.

Apparently I was in for an evening of chamber music.

I use the phrase “in for” because music meant nothing to me. I am almost tone deaf—only with great effort can I carry the simplest tune, and serious music was to me no more than an arrangement of noises. So I did what I always did when trapped: I sat down, and when the music started, I fixed my face in what I hoped was an expression of intelligent appreciation, closed my ears from the inside, and submerged myself in my own completely irrelevant thoughts.

After a while, becoming aware that the people around me were applauding, I concluded it was safe to unplug my ears. At once I heard a gentle but surprisingly penetrating voice on my right: “You are fond of Bach?”

I knew as much about Bach as I know about nuclear fission. But I did know one of the most famous faces in the world, with the renowned shock of untidy white hair and the ever-present pipe between the teeth. I was sitting next to Albert Einstein.

“Well,” I said uncomfortably and hesitated. I had been asked a casual question. All I had to do was be equally casual in my reply. But I could see from the look in my neighbor’s extraordinary eyes that their owner was not merely going through the perfunctory duties of elementary politeness. Regardless of what value I placed on my part in the verbal exchange, to this man his part in it mattered very much. Above all, I could feel that this was a man to whom you did not tell a lie, however small.

“I don’t know anything about Bach,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve never heard any of his music.”

A look of perplexed astonishment washed across Einstein’s mobile face.

“You have never heard Bach?”

He made it sound as though I had said I’d never taken a bath.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to like Bach,” I replied hastily. “It’s just that I’m tone deaf, or almost tone deaf, and I’ve never really heard anybody’s music.”

A look of concern came into the old man’s face. “Please,” he said abruptly. “You will come with me?”

He stood up and took my arm. I stood up. As he led me across that crowded room, I kept my embarrassed glance fixed on the carpet. A rising murmur of puzzled speculation followed us out into the hall. Einstein paid no attention to it.

Resolutely, he led me upstairs. He obviously knew the house well. On the floor above, he opened the door into a book-lined study, drew me in, and shut the door.

“Now,” he said with a small, troubled smile. “You will tell me, please, how long you have felt this way about music?”

“All my life,” I said, feeling awful. “I wish you would go back downstairs and listen, Dr. Einstein. The fact that I don’t enjoy it doesn’t matter.”

Einstein shook his head and scowled, as though I had introduced an irrelevance.

“Tell me, please,” he said. “Is there any kind of music that you do like?”

“Well,” I answered, “I like songs that have words, and the kind of music where I can follow the tune.”

He smiled and nodded, obviously pleased. “You can give me an example, perhaps?”

“Well,” I ventured, “almost anything by Bing Crosby.”

He nodded again, briskly. “Good!”

He went to a corner of the room, opened a phonograph, and started pulling out records. I watched him uneasily. At last, he beamed. “Ah!” he said.

He put the record on, and in a moment, the study was filled with the relaxed, lilting strains of Bing Crosby’s “When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.” Einstein beamed at me and kept time with the stem of his pipe. After three or four phrases, he stopped the phonograph.

“Now,” he said. “Will you tell me, please, what you have just heard?”

The simplest answer seemed to be to sing the lines. I did just that, trying desperately to stay in tune and keep my voice from cracking. The expression on Einstein’s face was like the sunrise.

“You see!” he cried with delight when I finished. “You do have an ear!”

I mumbled something about this being one of my favorite songs, something I had heard hundreds of times so that it didn’t really prove anything.

“Nonsense!” said Einstein. “It proves everything! Do you remember your first arithmetic lesson in school? Suppose, at your very first contact with numbers, your teacher had ordered you to work out a problem in, say, long division or fractions. Could you have done so?”

“No, of course not.”

“Precisely!” Einstein made a triumphant wave with his pipe stem. “It would have been impossible, and you would have reacted in panic. You would have closed your mind to long division and fractions. As a result, because of that one small mistake by your teacher, it is possible your whole life you would be denied the beauty of long division and fractions.”

The pipe stem went up and out in another wave.

“But on your first day, no teacher would be so foolish. He would start you with elementary things—then, when you had acquired skill with the simplest problems, he would lead you up to long division and to fractions.

“So it is with music.” Einstein picked up the Bing Crosby record. “This simple, charming little song is like simple addition or subtraction. You have mastered it. Now we go on to something more complicated.”

He found another record and set it going. The golden voice of John McCormack singing “The Trumpeter” filled the room. After a few lines, Einstein stopped the record.

“So!” he said. “You will sing that back to me, please?”

I did—with a good deal of self-consciousness but with, for me, a surprising degree of accuracy.

Einstein stared at me with a look on his face that I had seen only once before in my life: on the face of my father as he listened to me deliver the valedictory address at my high school graduation ceremony.

“Excellent!” Einstein remarked when I finished. “Wonderful! Now this!”

“This” turned out to be Caruso in what was to me a completely unrecognizable fragment from Cavalleria Rusticana, a one-act opera. Nevertheless, I managed to reproduce an approximation of the sounds the famous tenor had made. Einstein beamed his approval.

Caruso was followed by at least a dozen others. I could not shake my feeling of awe over the way this great man, into whose company I had been thrown by chance, was completely preoccupied by what we were doing, as though I were his sole concern.

We came at last to recordings of music without words, which I was instructed to reproduce by humming. When I reached for a high note, Einstein’s mouth opened, and his head went back as if to help me attain what seemed unattainable. Evidently I came close enough, for he suddenly turned off the phonograph.

“Now, young man,” he said, putting his arm through mine. “We are ready for Bach!”

As we returned to our seats in the drawing room, the players were tuning up for a new selection. Einstein smiled and gave me a reassuring pat on the knee.

“Just allow yourself to listen,” he whispered. “That is all.”

It wasn’t really all, of course. Without the effort he had just poured out for a total stranger I would never have heard, as I did that night for the first time in my life, Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze.” I have heard it many times since. I don’t think I shall ever tire of it. Because I never listen to it alone. I am sitting beside a small, round man with a shock of untidy white hair, a dead pipe clamped between his teeth, and eyes that contain in their extraordinary warmth all the wonder of the world.

When the concert was finished, I added my genuine applause to that of the others.

Suddenly our hostess confronted us. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Einstein,” she said with an icy glare at me, “that you missed so much of the performance.”

Einstein and I came hastily to our feet. “I am sorry too,” he said. “My young friend here and I, however, were engaged in the greatest activity of which man is capable.”

She looked puzzled. “Really?” she said. “And what is that?”

Einstein smiled and put his arm across my shoulders. And he uttered ten words that—for at least one person who is in his endless debt—are his epitaph:

“Opening up yet another fragment of the frontier of beauty.”

Jerome Weidman was a novelist, screenwriter, and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright who died in 1998. He wrote the book for the musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale, which marked Barbra Streisand’s first Broadway appearance. “The Night I Met Einstein” first appeared in Reader’s Digest in November 1955 and is one of the most requested pieces from our archives. Photo credits: Adam Gault/Getty Images; E.O. Hoppe/Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

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The post The Night I Met Einstein appeared first on Reader's Digest.

The benefits of the Girl Scouts are well-known: developing leadership skills, instilling a strong sense of self, encouraging positive values and healthy relationships, among others. One of the most important facets of the program involves fostering healthy relationships, often leading to unbreakable bonds, sometimes through the Buddy Program. But for one Girl Scout alum, Linda Walker, now a retired school teacher, the Girl Scouts was so much more than just a path to friendship—they actually saved her life. (Psst: did you know these famous women were also Girl Scouts?)

Meeting the buddy who would save her life

In the summer of 1967, Walker was about to enter sixth grade after having recently moved. Being new to town, her mother signed her up for Girl Scouts. She joined Pisgah Girl Scout Camp in Brevard, North Carolina, where she was paired with a buddy named Laurie Luna in a four-person tent. At camp, Walker and Luna’s lives were tightly intertwined. Walker explains to us, “As a Girl Scout, you are taught the Buddy System. To have someone to rely on, to know where you’re going, to talk over things with, and to develop a friendship. Little did I know how important that single skill would be in my life.”

Disaster strikes

After canoeing with Luna one afternoon, lightning struck a tree outside the girls’ A-frame tent. “As happens in the mountains in summertime, a storm blew in and sent us all to our tents,” Walker recalls. “Lightning struck and its path lead through me. I was laying on the floor severely burned and unconscious.” As bad luck would have it, Walker had been standing on her metal bed at the time. As she told the Girl Scouts: “It traveled from the metal clothesline stretched between that tree and another one—burning all the bathing suits—went down into the tree roots, which were tied up into the floorboards of the tents, and hit my bed.” Instantly, two-thirds of Walker’s body was burned.

Saved by a Scout

The other three girls in the tent screamed and fled, but Luna quickly realized her buddy was missing and went back to look for her—only to find Walker on the floor of the tent. “The other three girls ran from the tent, unaware, scared to death,” Walker remembers. “Laurie realized her Buddy was not among them. She came back for me. Seeing me, she sped to the counselors, brought help, and, in doing so, saved my life.” The counselor raced to give Walker CPR, who then was rushed to the hospital by a nurse.

Although her parents were told to mentally prepare themselves for bad news due to major burns, both internally and externally, Walker turned a corner—all thanks to Luna’s quick intervention. “The timing of getting artificial respiration and being taken to the hospital allowed me to recover with little health issues and to continue on with my life—to be a teacher, a wife, a mother, and a part of the world,” Walker says. Looking for more inspiring stories? New York has launched its first Girl Scout troop for homeless girls.

The aftermath

“I was in pretty bad shape in the hospital as camp ended and my parents focus, was, obviously, on me,” Walker tells Reader’s Digest. “So, even though they brought Laurie by to see me as she headed home, but we didn’t think to get her contact information. She actually walked out of my room thinking I was moving toward death.” Walker recovered and returned home, but the memories lingered. “Each day, month, year that propelled my life forward made getting a thank you to Laurie more difficult.”

Reconnecting years later

After years as a Girls Scout troop leader, followed by three decades as an eighth-grade science teacher, Walker and Luna finally got back in touch thanks to the “Missed Connections” series on NPR. “An NPR story finally gave me a glimmer of hope. The story was part of a series of helping with getting lost connections reconnected. They worked with me to finally make finding Laurie a reality,” Walker says.

Together, they toured the camp where their lived had fatefully interviewed, more than 50 years after first camping together as buddies. “As we were escorted around, we pieced together common memories of camp. It was very surreal. My memories of her were fully realized: caring, kind, humorous, and very responsive,” Walker remembers. “We had a thread that had stayed intact over all those years. I owe much to her, however, she was gracious and we fell comfortably into conversation.

“I have had a full, rich life—with a great career and a family—all because of Laurie and the Girl Scout buddy system,” Walker says. “I feel immense gratitude for the Girl Scout Buddy System and Laurie Luna. My future now includes a friend that has a claim many friends cannot declare: my friend gave me my future.”

Can’t wait for Girl Scouts cookie time each year? Check out these 10 surprising secrets about Girl Scouts cookies.

The Most Useful Thing I Learned as a Girl Scout

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The post How Being a Girl Scout Saved My Life appeared first on Reader's Digest.

The human-pet connection

When I was living alone in Santa Rosa, California, and running a business division for Intuit, my two cats Wiley and Wilbur were my family. We took care of one another, needed one another, entertained one another, periodically annoyed one another, and unfailingly adored one another. Then, at only ten years old (not very old for a cat), Wilbur was diagnosed with cancer.

Letting go of Wilbur was devastating, and I was heartbroken when the time came to say goodbye. Wiley, my other cat, was bereft too. He and Wilbur were best friends. He had always been happy and well-adjusted, but he seemed lost and adrift after Wilbur’s passing. Wiley and I grieved and healed together.

Day after day, we cuddled and comforted each other, and slowly I started to pick up the pieces of my life and move forward. Wiley was my safe haven, and I was his. The refuge we gave each other during that sad time carried us both through.

The power of adoption

When people adopt a homeless pet, it’s clear that they are saving the animal from homelessness and adding animal companionship to their lives. They’re obviously providing a far better life for the animal—just look at these dog adoption before and after pictures that will melt your heart. What’s less clear is just how transformational living with and caring for an animal can be for the human. Time after time, people who adopt homeless pets find their own lives being saved too.

That’s just one of the benefits of adopting a shelter dog. And that’s why I created Mutual Rescue, an animal-welfare initiative aimed at highlighting this special bond so that more homeless animals’ lives (and adopters’ lives) can be transformed. I also wrote a book with journalist Ginny Graves about the impact animals have on our lives: Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too (April 2020, Grand Central Publishing). Here are some of the beautiful, life-changing stories I’ve encountered.

Judy and Yuki

When Judy’s mother passed away, she inherited her nine-year-old cockapoo, Josh. It took some time for the two to acclimate to one another, but once they did, they formed an incredibly strong bond. When Josh died three years later, Judy was heartbroken. For the first time in her life, she began to feel the depths of her choice to remain unmarried and not have children. She experienced a profound sense of loneliness, and couldn’t fathom any dog ever replacing Josh. She assumed she’d never adopt another dog.

A few weeks later though, mired in the depths of despair, Judy knew something had to give. She began searching local shelters for a small dog she felt drawn to know more about, but none of them quite suited her, so she cast a wider net. Within days, she found a group of small poodle mixes in Texas, over 500 miles away from her Sedona, Arizona home. Inspired, she made the trip to the Animal Rescue League of El Paso.

She connected with a small white poodle mix and decided to adopt her. Judy named her new friend Yuki, a Japanese name that means “happiness.” After the long drive home and some acclimating of their own, Judy and Yuki became fast friends, and Judy felt a lightness return to her heart and her life.

“Yuki is the reason I get out of bed,” says Judy. “I know she’s waiting for me and needs me—and I love that feeling. There’s something deeply satisfying about being needed. … She’s like the child I never had. Together, we’re a family.” Don’t miss these other stories of rescue dogs finding their forever homes.

Joe and Meatball

Joe spent 16 years as a fireman and emergency medical technician (EMT) and has been honored for his bravery in risking his life on numerous occasions to save others. One emergency call exposed him to noxious chemicals that later led to repeated strokes. At only 38, the man who had grown accustomed to having the physical strength and mobility to save lives was now unable to tie his own shoes or button his own shirt. He was prone to drooling and couldn’t feel the left side of his face. Worst of all, the strokes left him with debilitating migraines and seizures that would strike randomly.

Before his health deteriorated, Joe was known for throwing spur-of-the-moment parties and jumping in the car for spontaneous road trips. After his strokes, he spent day after day in bed, dangerously depressed. One of his only remaining joys was Lucky, his 12-year-old Dalmatian, but Joe’s wife Kim feared what would happen to Joe when Lucky passed. She didn’t want to wait to find out, so she suggested they add a new dog to the family.

Enter Meatball. Meatball was saved as a puppy from an Afghan war zone and brought to the United States for adoption by the nonprofit Puppy Rescue Mission. Joe and Kim went to the airport to meet Meatball upon his arrival. The moment Meatball emerged from his crate, he peed all over Joe—and Joe burst into his first genuine laugh in months!

Months later, Kim was awakened by Meatball’s panicked barking. She went to see what was wrong and found Joe having a violent seizure. Joe was rushed to the hospital—Meatball had saved the day. And it wasn’t the only time. When Meatball would see or hear Joe having an episode, he would call for help with his alerting bark.

“He’s always there watching me, helping me, making sure I’m okay,” says Joe. “Since I got sick, many of my friends have fallen by the wayside, but this beautiful dog loves me, and that has to mean something. That has to mean I’m worth something after all.” Dogs save lives every day. Check out more shelter dogs who saved their owners’ lives.

Erin and Pippy

Erin suffered a serious concussion after a car accident, leaving her with motion sickness, difficulty concentrating, and no ability to read or watch TV. Erin, a typically very motivated and active person, found all this downtime incredibly challenging. Her saving grace, she says, was Pippy, the potbellied pig she and her husband had adopted a few months before the accident.

Because pigs are social, emotional animals that have emotions just like we do, Pippy was instrumental to Erin’s recovery: “She knew I was in emotional distress, even if I wasn’t crying or acting sad. She watched over me the whole time I was stuck at home. If I was on the couch, she wanted to be in my lap or snuggling alongside me. Pippy knew I was down. She knew I was struggling.”

Once Erin recovered, she and her husband decided they loved Pippy so much that they wanted to adopt another pig. That’s when they learned that there is a huge need for pig rescue in the United States. Most people who adopt pigs don’t know what they’re getting into, and fewer than five percent of adopted pigs end up staying with their original adopters.

“These poor animals are being constantly abandoned,” says Erin. “We were so concerned and upset by the problem that, after we adopted our second pig, Boris, we decided to start a pig rescue, Hog Haven Farm. Pigs are far more amazing than most people realize. They’re one of the most emotionally intelligent creatures on earth—right up there with humans.”

Erin and her husband have now rescued more than 150 pigs, 86 of which live with them at their pig rescue in Deer Trail, Colorado. Meet the man who adopts only “unadoptable” animals—and now has 21 pets.

Kim, Brian, and Lana

Kim and Brian were devastated by the death of their newborn baby, Aria. For both Brian and Kim, the weeks that followed felt like a bottomless pit of grief. About a year later, still struggling under the weight of despair, they moved from Florida to Texas and bought a home. They had always talked about getting a dog, and now it was possible.

They adopted a German shepherd mix, Lana, from local rescue organization Paws in the City. They began taking her for daily walks and training her together, and spent hours oohing and ahhing over how cute she was. Finally, Kim and Brian had a positive outlet for their grief.

“Every day I still wake up and always think about how Aria’s not here,” says Brian, “but I think with Lana the gift she’s given me is the ability to say, ‘Being happy doesn’t erase Aria’s memory.’”

“Lana coming into our home and the way she has changed us has been nothing short of a miracle,” says Kim, whose story is featured in a Mutual Rescue film.

Thanks to their renewed closeness, the couple came through the worst of times and is now celebrating another new addition to their family with the birth of their son, Noah. Ready to adopt? These are the shelter dogs that will need a home in 2020.

***

Carol Novello is the founder of Mutual Rescue and author of Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too (Grand Central Publishing, April 2020). Mutual Rescue is a national initiative that highlights the connection between people and pets to inspire and support life-saving efforts in communities around the world. Mutual Rescue’s first short film, “Eric & Peety,” went viral and has been viewed more than 100 million times.

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The post 5 Times Adopting a Homeless Animal Saved the Owners’ Lives Too appeared first on Reader's Digest.

I love my job at the Paris Las Vegas, which is my home away from home. As an Eiffel Tower ambassador, I escort guests and visitors as they take the elevator to the top of the hotel’s 46-story tower, where I like to point out the local attractions and help people find the best spots for taking photos. The mountain range you can see from the tower is the Sierra Nevada. It’s 400 miles long. On the base of the mountain outside Vegas is an area called Summerlin. It’s named after Howard Hughes’ grandmother.

More than 40 million people come to Las Vegas every year from all around the world. In the United States, we are second only to New York City, even though the Strip is only 4.2 miles long. Most visitors here stay three or four days and spend $500 minimum. As for me, I visited Vegas 35 years ago—and never left. I have Asperger’s, and at the time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. But I found my calling here.

Surviving childhood challenges

I was first diagnosed with Asperger’s when I was six years old. I would later be diagnosed twice more, by two different doctors, when I was 12 and 51 years old. My father is an “Aspie,” my son has autism, and my nephew and niece have eidetic, or photographic, memories. Now that I know a lot more about Asperger’s, it has answered a lot of family questions and helps me understand more about my father and my son.

As a child growing up in Compton, California, I was shy and loved to read and recite facts. This sometimes made me a target for bullies. One of the biggest challenges I faced as a child and teenager was communicating with others. I couldn’t comprehend what was coming out of a person’s mouth when talking with them. Now I know that challenges with social interaction and communication are very common for people with Asperger’s, but back then, I didn’t really understand as much about Asperger’s or how it affected me.

Having a family that stayed closely knit helped a lot. Still, I didn’t understand the bullying, and it was a terrible time in my life. I changed schools often because of it and because the teachers had no idea how to teach people like me at that time.

My Vegas journey

I arrived in Las Vegas for good on August 2, 1984, when I was in my 20s. I had visited the city before, but this time, my sister had asked if I could help her move to her new apartment, as she’d just landed a job at the Four Queens Resort and Casino. It was supposed to be a quick, one-night trip.

Since my brother and late grandfather are both named Caesar, I asked my sister if we could go in the building with their name on it on our way back to California. So, we went into Caesars Palace, and I watched a guest win a small jackpot. I was so excited for that guest! Then, a Caesars Palace employee asked me if this was my first time in the hotel. I excitedly responded yes and that this was also the first time I had ever watched anyone hit a jackpot before. The employee kindly told me that I would be a great addition to the company, and I applied right then. I’ve been here ever since. It’s been 35 years and counting!

Here are the best casino games to play if you don’t want to lose all your money.

Learning to use my strengths

When I first arrived in Vegas, people didn’t know as much about Asperger’s as they do now, and some people didn’t understand me or see how I could be an asset at work, especially since I didn’t really talk much at first. I really like helping people, but it took me a while to get comfortable with the public and talking to so many people every day. I have a problem with change in everyday life, especially when interacting with people who are different from me. I tend to overthink, and a lot of times, I think it’s me. But I like to memorize facts, and that really helps in my job because people love to learn all of the interesting things about Vegas.

Everyone is different, and everyone has a gift. It took me more than 50 years to realize that I am different. I didn’t understand when people would say that before. Now, I tell people to just be yourself, to be kind, and to try to make a difference in somebody’s life. I can’t believe a couple of years ago I was considered a quiet person. Now I’ve discovered that I am a mouthpiece! I definitely love what I do, but I am still trying to look directly at guests, and it still makes me a little nervous.

Every day is an adventure

I love coming to work. The excitement! The people! How many people can say that they get to meet people from all around the world every day? Not many. Las Vegas is unique, and I treat it as such. Every day when I clock in, I feel it’s time for me to perform for and entertain the guests. I love when I learn something new because I can’t wait to share the information with others. For example, Howard Hughes checked into the Desert Inn on November 27, 1966. He wanted a penthouse, but they told him all of the penthouses were booked for the upcoming holidays. They would only let him stay for ten days. But after those ten days, he wouldn’t move. He bought the hotel for $13.6 million. Then he bought the Silver Slipper next door.

Here are 12 things you never knew about the Las Vegas sign.

Always learning

The largest jackpot ever hit in Vegas was in March 2003. A software engineer from L.A. took a hundred dollar bill and hit for $39,713,982. Almost $40 million! But there are still lots of things I don’t know about Vegas. It’s easy to stump me—just ask me about the timeshares. There are so many in Las Vegas, but I haven’t been able to learn much about them yet, as the information isn’t as readily available.

It’s hard to say if retiring is on the horizon for me. I feel that all the years I spent being somewhat mum enables me to add a lot more years. I don’t really know what the future holds for me, as tomorrow is not promised to anyone, but I will continue to enjoy my work while I’m there.

Check out these must-see Vegas attractions that aren’t casinos.

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The post I Have Asperger’s—And I Found My Dream Job in Las Vegas appeared first on Reader's Digest.

How to snap your own perfect rainbow pic

Is there anything more naturally beautiful than a rainbow?! Just looking at a rainbow, or even a gorgeous photo of one, can have an instant calming effect. Of course, rainbows are fleeting, and that’s part of what makes them so beautiful. But if you manage to snap a picture of one, you can immortalize that beauty! Our sister magazine, Farm & Ranch Living, offers some advice for how to take a perfect rainbow photo: “Late afternoon showers can lead to dramatic skyscapes, including rainbows! Shoot with the sun at your back or side. Be patient and ready for the colors to intensify as the conditions change.”

This particular photo was taken by Grace Westerman of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, and appeared in the December/January 2017 issue of Farm & Ranch Living. Check out some more truly stunning rainbow photos submitted by readers of our sister brands.

The post 20 Stunning Rainbow Photos That Will Brighten Your Day appeared first on Reader's Digest.

“You are about to experience something very unique,” the card on my bed reads. It’s sitting on top of a small denim tote bag with instructions to pack just what’s “necessary to sleep in a unique setting.”

That may be the understatement of all time. I’m about to embark on one of the most unusual evenings of my life: a night spent in a transparent dome just a few feet away from Asian elephants in the deep bush of Thailand’s Golden Triangle. Although I’m one of the first people to experience it and I should be a little nervous, honestly, I could not be more excited!

I’ve been fascinated by elephants since I was a child, and as an adult, I’ve been able to go on safari in Africa and spy them from the safety of a safari car. But it’s been my longtime wish to visit the conservation area of the Golden Triangle to get up close, and hopefully even hands-on, with the elephants here. I was excited just about being in a jungle paradise with these intelligent giants, but then I discovered the just-opened Jungle Bubbles and jumped at the chance to spend sundown to sunup with massive pachyderms as my nighttime companions.

The adventure begins

Zipping along the Mekong River on the way to the Anantara Golden Triangle Resort is a fantastic adventure in itself. And then, as I arrive at the hotel’s dock, I spy an elephant trunk just beyond the riverbank, and then another, and another. A welcoming committee of elephants are munching on bamboo and waiting to say hello as I walk into elephant paradise.

I’m handed a chilled coconut with a bamboo straw, but before I can slurp up all of the cold juice, a curious trunk comes winding onto the deck, looking to take it for herself. I place the coconut into the crook of the incredibly muscular proboscis and watch as the whole hardball, shell and all, is crunched like a tiny peanut in her muscular jaws.

Then my arrival group walks up to the check-in of the open-air lobby—escorted by our ele friends. I’m in complete, joyous awe. After I say a temporary goodbye to my VIP escort, I check out my plush room, which has views of Myanmar and Laos from my window here in Thailand (the three points of the “triangle”). The thick herbaceous foliage of the jungle goes as far as I can see, and I hear the trumpeting of the 21 rescued elephants that call this area home. Here are 8 of the most endangered elephants in the world.

My own personal Jungle Bubble

At 5 p.m., after I’ve squeezed my absolute basics for an overnight into the tote (the rest of my gear stays in my hotel room), I’m driven to a well-tended rice paddy hidden in the shadows of the hotel. From here, I’m led along a secluded stone stepping path, green shoots making way to a lamp-lined passageway, and there they are: the Jungle Bubbles.

The clear domes look like Jetson-esque living spaces that have landed in Land of the Lost. Two large bubbles, each with dark green sidecar bubble attachments, are connected by sleek teak decks with tables and chairs. I’m going to stay in one bubble, and about 100 yards away, another lucky hotel guest (or, in this case, a couple) will occupy the other. There’s complete privacy with a wooden fence, and where I’m sitting, all I see and hear are elephants.

The bubble itself seems surprisingly spacious inside. There’s a four-poster, king-size bed; a minibar stocked with beer and soft drinks; a Nespresso machine; and then a bathroom, hidden behind green tent walls, with a sink, shower, and toilet, as well as plenty of luxe amenities, including soft robes and towels and delicious-smelling toiletries. But what I’m really here for is waiting outside.

Elephants all around

My guide is trying to explain the details of the tent, including the fact that there’s a compression chamber, so it’s important that I close the outside door before I open the interior one so the bubble doesn’t deflate. I stop and stare: Wait, it’s an actual bubble, not just a round room? That’s good to know! And then I spot the elephants right outside the plastic walls and I lose focus.

Three enormous eles are close enough that I can hear them breathing, snorting, shuffling, and munching. Noises, I’ll soon discover, that they make all night. Elephants, it seems, never sleep. Well, they actually get two or three hours a night, and according to scientists, they may lay down for an hour every few days, but realistically, they don’t really stop. It’s kind of like having a newborn: You can hear the twitching and slight shuffling of appendages before an early-morning cacophony of grunts, squeaks, and endless gut noises. That’s what it’s like to sleep next to elephants. And also like having a newborn, it’s exquisite. Nothing is more fascinating, or compelling, or satisfying, or just downright amusing and charming as being able to watch elephants undisturbed, in private, for as long you can keep your eyes open. Check out these 14 amazing things you didn’t know elephants could do.

Alone at last

When my guide departs, it’s 5:30 p.m. It’s still a warm 80 degrees, and the light is golden—magic hour for pictures. And I’m as giddy as a kid opening presents on Christmas morning as I take picture after picture of the elephants standing just a few yards away.

It’s also amazingly relaxing here. The only thing I have to do is watch elephants. No phone, no news, no chitchat. I grab a beer out of my mini-fridge and watch as the three elephants that will be my neighbors this evening play in a mud hole that they have been expanding deeper and deeper for the past half hour as they splash and roll in the goop. The largest of the three, an elephant named Dah, trumpets just a few yards from where I’m sitting, and I get a chill.

The smallest, Mae Noi, is sitting in the mud bath, splashing like a rowdy toddler. She’s joined by the middle-sized Pumpui in the raucous dirt fest. I think they look like a family of father, mother, and baby, but I know from talking to the conservationists here that most of the elephants are females and none of them are babies; Dah is actually around 3, so tubby toddler is definitely how I think of her.

Sunset picnic

The sun sets, and the lanterns in the tree next to my bubble illuminate like the most exclusive cocktail party being thrown for the three guests of honor. It’s just before 7, and when the sun starts to settle, the jungle gets noisy. The air is alive with the buzzing, chirping, and clicking of bugs and birds as they gear up for what sounds like a nocturnal party. Was this chorus going on all day and I missed it? Or did it just start when the sun started to set?

The elephants finally leave the mud as it gets dark, blowing hard to clear the mud out of their of trunks. My picnic dinner arrives in a woven basket, filled with delicacies I selected earlier—sandwich wraps, rice crackers with peanut sauce, fresh fruit, sparkling water, and watermelon juice—and I eat watching the eles as the last light of day fades away.

Side note: It’s absolutely prohibited to feed the elephants or try to interact with them during the night. And no matter where you travel, it’s important to interact with animals responsibly, according to environmental experts.

The dark, dark night

The temperature has dropped at least 15 degrees in the last hour. It’s so cool and pleasant out, I can barely believe I was sweating in Bangkok just 24 hours ago. And bonus: There are none of the biting insects I had feared; the low evening temps, combined with burning coils, are keeping them at bay.

Although I don’t camp, I think seriously about sleeping outside. I’ve turned off my porch lanterns and the tree lights and sit in the dark listening to the mixtape of elephants munching leaves and insects chirping and buzzing. The stars begin to peek through the velvet sky, and it’s incredibly peaceful. This definitely qualifies as one of the most peaceful places on Earth.

Elephants. Don’t. Stop.

Now that it’s cooler out, my massive neighbors are going for dirt baths instead of mud ones. It’s dark, so I can’t see the elephants as well, but I hear the swoosh of a trunk throwing gravel over leather-like backs and the steady crunch of dirt falling back onto the ground.

Then there’s a sudden loud crack! I think an elephant has knocked over a tree? Broken down the fence? Oh, wait—I think one just snapped a branch to eat. I can’t see, but I hear munching.

And then there’s a gentle trumpeting, a little bit like a gently honked horn as a patrol drives by to check out the area. It’s a reminder, too, that unlike an African safari, I’m not alone out in the bush; I even have a phone in my bubble, should I need help. Plus, there are no other wild animals nearby, since an electric fence protects the entire perimeter of the bubble platform.

Eyes wide shut

Even though it’s relatively early, just 9:30, jet lag and complete darkness and silence are lulling me to sleep while sitting on the deck. I doze off in a deck chair, and then I decide to head to bed.

There’s a constant flow of cold air inside to keep the bubble inflated, and in the mountainous jungle, the temperature dips into the 60s at night. So, I jack up the space heater and snuggle under an extra duvet while listening to the sound of chomping and gazing at the stars through the dome. I’m sound asleep within minutes.

Midnight madness

Hold on—who set off the alarm?! Where am I? The elephants are trumpeting loudly! Then it sounds like they’re talking…or maybe crying? What is happening? Something has upset them, and they are LOUD! And then, silence again.

I am now, of course, sitting straight up and wide awake. I can see the three eles together by the trees in front of my bubble. Everything is evidently fine. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this is the real reason elephants startle so easily.

Breakfast with the elephants

Apparently I drift off, and at 4:30, I’m awake for good. I hear munching outside. Is it breakfast or a prolonged midnight snack? Thai elephants eat about 300 kg a day (about 660 pounds), so it’s hard to tell since the eating never stops.

A rooster crows, and the light gently turns on all around. The elephants are on round 500 of breakfast, but I’m on my first cup of coffee. Dah is rubbing against the trees, getting her morning scratch on; it sounds like wood being pulled against a washboard. Instead of mud, Mae Noi has transitioned to a morning dust bath, grabbing large trunkfuls of dirt and throwing it over her back, so big puffs of beige smoke rise all around her.

I’m supposed to be picked up at 7 a.m., but the morning light is gorgeous and this is the most peaceful morning I’ve had in memory, so I try to hold onto every last second. I toast the elephants with my coffee and listen while they chomp their breakfast. There will be no better way to ever start a day or, for that matter, to spend a night. The Jungle Bubbles are truly a window into the amazing world of these incredible animals.

The details

The Jungle Bubbles experience is part of the Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort. You’ll need to book a room at the resort, and then the overnight experience costs an additional 20,000 Thai bhat (approximately $660 in U.S. currency). During the rest of your stay, you can participate in additional elephant encounters, including Walking with Giants conservation walks and educational experiences.

The entire resort works to support the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF), which helps to rescue elephants from abuse on Thailand’s city streets. The GTAEF also places mahouts, the traditional elephant handlers who have worked with the animals in Thailand for hundreds of years, in positions where they can live with their human families while taking care of their elephant ones. Today, 21 elephants, 19 females, and two males live here in comfort in the wild, with a full staff of veterinarians and conservationists to look after them. Next, check out these stunning photos of elephants in the wild—and some more fascinating facts about these gentle giants.

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The post I Stayed in a Bubble in the Jungle to Get Closer to Elephants appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Michael Evans was standing in line at the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office in Detroit last August, waiting to pay his taxes, when he heard a disturbing sound ahead of him. The elderly woman at the window was crying—and so was the cashier helping her. Then Evans learned why: He heard the cashier inform the woman that her house was in fore­closure and headed for auction. He also heard the woman tell the cashier that her daughter had recently died.

Evans, a businessman who had just buried his father, couldn’t stomach the idea of this woman losing her home right after losing her child. He approached the window. “I don’t mean to butt in,” he said to the cashier, “but if y’all can get her house back, I’ll pay for her taxes.” The amount due: $5,000.

The two women were stunned. Their despair turned to disbelief. The cashier left for a moment to confirm the amount and that it was all right for Evans to pay it. Evans vowed to go straight to the bank and come right back with the money. And he did.

But when he returned to the treasurer’s office, he asked someone else waiting in line to hand the $5,000 check to the cashier. Evans was trying to slip away quietly and, preferably, anonymously.

“I didn’t want this attention,” he explains.

Of course, attention found him—it’s not every day that someone pays a stranger’s hefty tax bill. That said, Evans often finds himself on the giving end of charitable situations, though for years he went unrecognized for it. He is the president of M2E Investments—the name is a reference to his son (and namesake), Michael Evans II. The firm owns a variety of businesses, from restaurants to a portable restroom company, most located in the inner city of Detroit and many devoted to improving it. His 1 Premium Driving School gives driving lessons to teenagers, often for free. In 2015, when he saw a story on the news about a local boy with an incurable bone disease, Evans held a fund-raiser at his Detroit Shrimp & Fish restaurant to help pay for the boy’s wheelchair and van. He also donated all the money the restaurant made that day to the boy’s family.

“We help people, me and my son,” Evans says. “We send a check; we walk into funeral homes and just pay for the whole funeral. We try to help our community.”

Why does Evans give so much to strangers? It’s a question he never fully answers. “To be honest, I don’t like putting money in the banks,” he says. “Doing things with your money is better.” As for paying the elderly woman’s taxes, he says he did it “for no other reason but to make sure the lady was in her house.”

A few weeks after the tax incident, Evans received the Spirit of Detroit Award for his lifetime of generosity. Again, he didn’t want the attention, but his son felt the honor was overdue. “It was good to see my dad finally get the recognition he deserves,” the younger Evans says.

Michael Evans Sr. is nearing 60 and will retire soon. Before he does, he hopes to convert some commercial spaces he recently acquired into low-income housing. And he’ll continue to sponsor his local youth football league team—he pays for their equipment, uniforms, and out-of-state travel.

His son will carry on with the business, and—no less important—with his dad’s penchant for philanthropy. “I model my life after him,” Evans II says of his father. “When I have kids, I want them to look at me the way I look at my dad.”

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The post A Man Heard an Elderly Woman Was About to Lose Her House, So He Gave Her the Money to Keep It appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Kemira Boyd had just jumped in the shower when she heard her stepmother, Tammy Boyd, banging on the door. Kemira’s 12-day-old daughter was choking. Having fed and burped baby Ryleigh just 30 minutes earlier, the 24-year-old new mother burst out of the bathroom and began patting her daughter on the back. Ryleigh was usually quick to cry. Now she didn’t make a sound. “I’d been told to raise their arms when babies are choking, so I tried that, but she still was hesitating to breathe,” Kemira told Today. She knew Ryleigh needed to get to the hospital fast.

The trio had barely made it out of their Summerville, South Carolina, neighborhood when the flashing lights of a police cruiser appeared behind them. Deputy Will Kimbro figured that the speeding driver was either too distracted to notice him or plain unconcerned. Kimbro soon found out it was a frightening combination of the two.

Once she’d pulled over to the curb, a frantic Tammy jumped out of the car, exclaiming that her granddaughter had stopped breathing.

Desperate for help, Kemira handed the baby to Kimbro. He put a hand on her little chest. Ryleigh’s heart was barely beating.

Kimbro radioed for an ambulance—it was seven minutes out, and the hospital was even further away. That was seven minutes Ryleigh didn’t have, her lips already an ominous shade of blue.

The fact that Kimbro was there was something of a miracle. He is a school resource officer who usually spends his days patrolling the halls of the middle school ten miles away. But he travels farther afield when school is out in the summer. Even luckier: He had recently completed a CPR class and knew exactly how to treat an infant.

“Although I was shocked, my training kicked in, and I went to work to keep that baby alive,” says Kimbro.

The deputy gave Ryleigh to Kemira to hold, his hands busy as he checked for a pulse. Then he began tapping and kneading Ryleigh’s chest, hoping to massage her heart back into action. Thanks to the CPR class, Kimbro knew the choking infant didn’t have a chance if there was a blockage, and he used one finger to clear her airway. That was the magic touch; 20 seconds later, Ryleigh began to fuss. Then came a whimper.

“If she’s crying like that, she’s breathing,” said Kimbro, the relief palpable in his trembling voice. “As long as she’s crying, she’s breathing.”

But they still had five more minutes until EMS would arrive, and Kimbro worried that Ryleigh would asphyxiate again. He continued with delicate chest compressions and periodically clearing her airway. “The whole time I was thinking, Do not let this baby die in front of her mother and grandmother,” he later told Inside Edition. “Just don’t.”

In the body cam footage, Kimbro can be heard reassuring Kemira, the approaching sirens wailing in the background: “I didn’t feel a heartbeat earlier, so I started massaging her heart, and now I feel it. It’s real strong now.”

After transferring Ryleigh to an EMT, Kimbro peeked into the windows of the ambulance until it pulled away. At the hospital, Ryleigh recovered quickly, and she was back to her usual feisty self in no time—thanks to a determined school police officer who was in the right place at the right time. Said Kimbro to the Washington Post, “That baby was living no matter what I had to do.”

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The post A Cop Just Happened to Be in the Right Place at the Right Time to Save a 12-Day-Old Baby’s Life appeared first on Reader's Digest.