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 DECEMBER 2018/JANUARY 2019
The
Church
That
Wouldn’t
Burn
BELIEVE IN
MIRACLES
By BILL HANGLEY JR.

REAL-LIFE STORIES OF HOPE

Secrets of
HOLIDAY
SHOPPING
An RD ORIGINAL

A 4-Year-Old
Hunger Activist
By CLAIRE NOWAK

Unfreeze
Your Brain
From the book
ELASTIC

Brilliant

32
The Man Who
Made-Up Rigged the
Lottery
Words From THE NEW YORK
By BILL BOULDIN TIMES MAGAZINE
 Reader ’s Digest

80
98
military life
You Own Every Bullet
CONTENTS In the midst of a tense
ambush in Iraq, a sol-
dier recalls his father’s
valuable lesson.
by matt susko
Features from reddit.com

58
cover story
80
first person
The Magic Trick That
104
inspiration
Luck and the
REAL-LIFE Changed My Life Four-Leaf Clover
MIRACLES After perfecting it for One woman’s knack for
This holiday season, six years, a magician finding good fortune.
let these eight stories tries out his big stunt. by teva harrison from
by nate staniforth the walrus
stir a sense of wonder
from the book
and faith. here is real magic
108
true crime
74 88 The Man Who
department of wit health & medicine Rigged the Lottery
The Best Made-Up The Lifesaver on Dad’s He got hold of the
Words Ever Computer Screen winning numbers—
Do you suffer from A daughter caring for five times. But how?
“carcolepsy”? Are you her father finds help— by reid forgrave
matthew cohen

an “afterclapper”? The and peace of mind— from the new york times
magazine
dictionary won’t tell from a virtual
you, but we will. companion.
on the cover:
by bill bouldin from the by lauren smiley photograph by yasu+junko
del rio news-herald from wired ornament courtesy swarovski

rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 1

Reader ’s Digest Contents

i won!
Departments 18 The Chicken Wing
Super Bowl
6 Dear Reader
8 Letters quotable quotes
22 Paul Rudd, Gisele
everyday heroes Bündchen, Bruce
10 The Caped Springsteen
Crusader
by claire nowak how to
25 Maintain Your
14 Dog’s Best Friend Purpose in Life
by andy simmons by david g. allan
40 from cnn.com

Super helper
Austin Perine
with his dad,
TJ Perine
10

from top: serge bloch. cary norton

2 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

SWEET RAISINS

CRUNCHY BRAN FLAKES

PLOT TWIST
WE ADDED BANANA SLICES ®, TM, © 2018 Kellogg NA Co.
Reader ’s Digest Contents

news from the your true stories

world of medicine 39 Chance Meetings
32 Fasting, and Christmas
Glaucoma, and Memories
Spirituality
13 things
life well lived 40 Holiday Money
36 The Gift of a Great Savers That
Neighbor Work All Year
by nicole burrell
i am the food
on your plate
45 Potatoes

49 by kate lowenstein
and daniel gritzer
we found a fix 20
Life in These
49 Airport Security
and More United States
52
The Genius Laughter, the Best
Medicine
Section 73
118 Unfreeze Your Laugh Lines
Brain
by leonard mlodinow 79
from the book Humor in Uniform
elastic
122 Brain Games 96
125 Word Power All in a Day’s Work
128 Photo Finish
from left: matthew cohen. shutterstock (3)
Reader’s Digest (ISSN 0034-0375) (USPS 865-820), (CPM Agreement# 40031457), Vol. 192,
No. 1146, December 2018/January 2019. © 2018. Published monthly, except bimonthly in July/
August and December/January (subject to change without notice), by Trusted Media Brands,
Inc., 44 South Broadway, White Plains, New York 10601. Periodicals postage paid at White
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4 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

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Reader ’

When I was a kid, my mother had

the Christmas-tree bug, and I’ve
taken the same silly joy in the ritual.
I remember her holiday jazz albums
(Jimmy Smith, Stan Getz) dropping
from the stack onto the turntable as
my two older brothers and I danced,
quibbled, and dressed the tree.
So I string the lights and build the
fire, then let each ornament trigger
smack talk and memories. The ugly
glass owl? A memorial to Neil’s ob-
sessive hunting for owl pellets when
he was a kid. “I was a freaking Steve
Irwin,” he deadpans. The handmade
sleeping kitty with a crack across it?
DEAR READER My sweet mother-in-law, Ruth, glazed
that in honor of our first cat. Only the
ornament remains, glued and proud.
Each object fills me with emotions
I can’t otherwise always tap. Our dear
The Miracle friends the Nashes sent the jaunty
mini cowboy boot after they’d moved
of Memory away from us to Texas. The tiny San
Francisco  Giants baseball in glass
s I hang the first ornament, I’m brings back the incredible day in 2010

A singing along with Eartha Kitt.

I know I look like a fool in
my Santa hat, belting out “Santa
when we all finally celebrated, for real.
Bent, awkward, or old orna-
ments join the pretty bulbs up
from top: matthew cohen (3). mike mcgregor

Baby,” but it’s the Sunday before front. We sing along with Lu-
Christmas, tree-dressing day. ther Vandross—“Have Yourself
I’ve chosen the towering Ba- a Merry Little Christmas”—and
varian stick-skier in a red quilted I feel all the people and places
jacket that my dad loved. “Not life has lucked me with.
right in front, it’s dorky,”
Bruce Kelley,
Rachel protests. She is
editor-in-chief
grown, a working nurse,
but revisiting the “OMG, Write to me at
Dad!” role of youth. letters@rd.com.
Reader ’s Digest

panic attacks were

gone. I have not had
LETTERS
Notes on the
one since.
—jany sabins
October issue Maplewood, New Jersey

Learn to Not Fall

I would add: Do not
wear backless shoes.
Old-Time Doctor Twice, more than
Remedies That Work 30 years apart, I had
I can’t treat eyestrain by placing falls from wearing back-
less shoes. The last one
cucumber slices on my eyelids because led to a broken arm—
I’m allergic to cucumbers. I tried to and the inability to do
achieve similar results by closing my some ordinary things
eyes for 15 minutes, but I failed since for myself. There is also
a psychological compo-
I couldn’t resist reading the rest of your nent to a serious fall.
fine magazine. However, I still wonder —Alice Marcus
whether the secret to avoiding eyestrain is Solovy Highland Park,
simply to close your eyes once in a while. Illinois
—markell raphaelson west Laurel, Maryland
Sympathy for My Bully
I was bullied from
You encouraged peo- How to Conquer sixth to eighth grade.
ple to use aloe vera Panic Attacks When I complained to
for burns, but you I had panic attacks for our vice principal, she
failed to mention that 28 years, took every told me she didn’t be-
bottled aloe vera prod- prescription drug in lieve the young man
ucts may actually con- the book, meditated, would do such things.
tain very little aloe exercised, etc. Three I recently learned that,
vera. The most reliable years ago, I went on a after being in and out
source is the real plant. vegan diet but contin- of jail, my bully passed
matthew cohen (2)

Everyone should ued to eat seafood be- away of an overdose at

have one on their cause my nutritionist 30 years old. I can’t
windowsill. advised against quit- help but wonder, What
—T.B. ting meat cold turkey. if my report had been
via e-mail In four months, my respected? Might it

8 dec 2018 ) jan 2019

have opened a dialogue May 18, 1980. It is pre-
that would have helped sumed he is now under
him? As the author 200 feet of landslide
says, “Look at every debris, along with his
bully and his or her 16 cats: modern fossils
victim and you’ll often in the making.
find two kids who need —kirke Campbell
help, not just one.” Corvallis, Oregon
—ALEKA STEFANOPOULOS
Munster, Indiana Heaven Can’t Wait Scout’s Honor
You will be waiting a I work for the Boy
Word Power long time if you start Scouts in Tennessee
The pronunciation of looking for the next and enjoyed the article
the word bruschetta total lunar eclipse on about the man who
was incorrect: The January 20, 2019, as Joe went to Camp Minsi to
letters sch should be Rao urged. In fact, it see whether he had
pronounced sk as will happen the day what it takes to be a
in scheme and not after, on January 21. Scout. But I have a ques-
sh as in she. —Bill Schoenborn tion about the boy who
—John Kellett Agawam, Massachusetts consumed 35 slushies
Los Osos, California in seven days: Only 35?
According to meteo- —Joe priester
From the editors: rologist Joe Rao, who Franklin, Tennessee
Our go-to reference, wrote the story, the
Merriam-Webster’s eclipse starts on Janu-
got
Collegiate Dictionary, ary 20 and finishes on any bad
says that both January 21. On the advice?
pronunciations are 20th, the moon will
correct but sh is begin moving into No doubt there’s a
preferred. Earth’s dark shadow, pearl of wisdom that
called the umbra, at has stayed with you for
How to Make It 10:33 p.m. (EST). The your entire life, but what
as a Fossil total phase will begin about the other kind?
Harry R. Truman, the at 11:41 p.m. and The worst advice you
man who ran Spirit last for 62 minutes. ever got can be memo-
Lake Lodge at the foot The moon will move rable, too—and maybe,
of Mount St. Helens, out of the umbra in the in retrospect, amusing!
refused to leave when early morning of the Tell us about it at
the volcano erupted on 21st, at 1:50 a.m. rd.com/worstadvice.

rd.com 9
Reader ’s Digest

EVERYDAY HEROES

A four-year-old boy discovers that

compassion for the less fortunate can
produce superhuman results

The Caped Crusader

By Claire Nowak

Austin Perine is not your typical
superhero. Oh, sure, he looks the
part, with his signature cape flapping
against his blue shirt. He has an arch
nemesis, as all good heroes must. He
even uses a catchy name for his heroic
alter ego: President Austin.
But two things set this caped cru-
sader apart : His adversary is not
confined to the pages of a comic
book—President Austin’s foes, hunger
and homelessness, are very real. Also,
he’s only four years old.
Our hero’s origin story started this
past February in the Perine family liv-
ing room in Birmingham, Alabama.
Austin and his father, TJ Perine, were
watching a program on Animal Planet
about a mother panda leaving her
cubs. “I told him that the cubs would
be homeless for a while,” TJ says. “Aus-
tin didn’t know what homelessness
meant, but he was sad and wanted to
know more.”
Seeing this as a teachable moment,
TJ took Austin to the Firehouse Min-
istries, a local shelter that provides
housing, food, and other services for
chronically homeless men. As they
drove by the redbrick building, they
saw a group of 25 homeless men
standing on the street corner. “Dad,
they look sad,” Austin said. “Can we
take them some food and make them
smile?”
That day, Austin used his allowance

10 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com Photograph by Cary Norton

 Austin models his
costume, which he
created for those
times he works
with the needy.
Reader ’s Digest Everyday Heroes
to buy each man a Burger King sand-
wich and handed the food out him-
self. Seeing what their presence meant
to the men at the ministry, Austin
and TJ returned the next week. Austin
again dipped into his piggy bank to
buy sandwiches, which he handed
out along with his new catchphrase,
“Don’t forget to show love!”
After he returned every week for
five weeks, word of Austin’s acts of
kindness spread through social media
and national news outlets. Burger
King jumped aboard, agreeing to
AUSTIN DOLES OUT
FOOD AND A MOTTO:
“DON’T FORGET TO
SHOW LOVE!”
donate $1,000 a month for an entire
year toward the cause. Soon, churches
and shelters across the country began
inviting Austin to come distribute food
in other poverty-prone areas. He’ll
have visited at least 15 locations by the
end of this year, including Skid Row in
Los Angeles and parts of Puerto Rico
affected by Hurricane Maria. Whereas
before Austin and TJ could feed 25 to
50 people at a time, now, thanks to cor-
porate and community support, they
can feed 800 to 2,000 people at once.
But Austin isn’t just filling bellies.
He’s improving the lives of those he
meets. On that first trip to Firehouse
Ministries, TJ and Austin talked to
12 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
a man named Raymont, who was
estranged from his family. The respect
Austin bestowed on 41-year-old Ray-
mont touched the man, and he shared
with TJ just how grateful he was to be
treated so considerately by a four-
year-old stranger. Raymont and TJ
kept in touch. With help from TJ’s
mother, Audrey Perine, who worked
at the Alabama Department of Trans-
portation at the time, TJ helped Ray-
mont collect all the credentials he
needed to get a driver’s license. The
license helped Raymont get a job. And
with money in the bank, he was able
to rent his own apartment. All that
was made possible because a little boy
took the time to care.
Austin’s passion has now become
his family’s calling. After raising
money through a GoFundMe page,
Audrey established the Show Love
Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated
to fighting homelessness. She now
serves as president, and TJ left his
job as a project manager for a hospi-
tal chain to oversee public relations
for the foundation full-time. He’s in
talks with the city of Birmingham to
secure the redbrick building where
it all started—Firehouse Ministries is
moving—as the site of their own shel-
ter, which would offer medical and
mental health care as preventive steps
against homelessness.
As for President Austin, he contin-
ues to give out food, smiles, and his in-
spirational message of love. “It makes
me feel like I’m saving the day.”
Reader ’s Digest Everyday Heroes
Dog’s
Best Friend
By Andy Simmons
Jarrett little was road testing his
mountain bike outside of Columbus,
Georgia, when his riding partner,
Chris Dixon, stopped suddenly. Some-
thing in the distance moving among
the trees had caught her attention. It
turned out to be a sandy-colored five-
month-old Great Dane mix.
“He was really thin, ribs showing,
and had a lot of road rash and a bro-
ken leg,” Little told CBS News. The
cyclists fed the friendly pup and
shared their water. They also quickly
realized that the dog was coming with
them, although they had no idea how.
They were more than seven miles
from downtown and riding bikes.
“We couldn’t leave him,” Little told the
Ledger-Enquirer. “Out there next to the
Oxbow Meadows, he was going to end
up as alligator food.”
Little, a 31-year-old brick and con-
crete business owner, had an idea. He
carefully picked up his new friend and
slipped the 38-pound dog’s hind legs
into the back pockets of his cycling
jersey. Then he draped the dog’s front
paws over his shoulders.
“He was injured, so he wasn’t try-
ing to fight,” Little says. “He was also
NOTE: Ads were removed from this edition. Please continue to page 18.
14 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
Jarrett Little tried a few ways of carrying
Columbo. This proved the easiest.
happy that we were there, touching
him, and hadn’t taken off on him.”
The trio’s 30-minute ride into town
ended at a bike store, where they got
more water and food for the dog. That
was when Andrea Shaw, a corporate
attorney from Maine in town on busi-
ness, happened by. The dog made a
beeline for her, licking and “loving on
her,” says Dixon. Shaw was smitten
and, after learning what had trans-
pired, declared her intentions: “I am
keeping this dog.”
Shaw called him Columbo after the
town where they’d met and sched-
uled an operation on his leg. Today,
courtesy jarrett little
Columbo is living the high life on
a farm with a horse, a pony, a six-
year-old boy, and two coonhounds to
keep him company. As Dixon told the
Ledger-Enquirer, “He is literally the
luckiest dog alive.”
WHAT CAN WE HELP YOU ACCOMPLISH?
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Reader ’s Digest

I WON!

The
CHICKEN
WING
SUPER BOWL
molly schuyler, age 39,
Plumas Lake, California

You ate 47 pounds of

chicken wings in 30 min-
utes to win Wing Bowl 26.
How do you train for
that? The night before,
the girls had a night out with cinnamon rolls, than I would make in
and we ate a lot of bratwurst, pudding, and a whole month.
nachos. That morning, fried mushrooms, though
I drank at least three not at the same time.) What do people say
gallons of water to when you tell them what
stretch my stomach. But how do you still you do? People make
weigh only 127 pounds? fun of us sometimes.
When did you realize you Any professional eater But competitive eating
might be good at this? will not eat like that at is a physical sport. If
When I did my very first home. It’s fruits and you overeat on Thanks-
challenge, everybody veggies in our house. giving, you’re doing the
took note of it. I kept same thing we are—
saying, “I just ate a How did you find this only we’re getting paid.
hamburger, whatever.” career? I had four small
children. I was working The Wing Bowl is
Do you compete often? as a bartender to be held every year in
Fifteen to 20 times a home during the day, Philadelphia the Friday
year. I won $22,000 but when I started do- before the Super Bowl.
at my first Wing Bowl. ing this, I was making Schuyler has won the
(She has also competed more money in minutes contest three times.

18 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com Illustration by John Cuneo

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Reader ’s Digest

LIFE
in these
United States

On the phone with

my 93-year-old brother
in Wisconsin, and I told
him I thought it was
time he paid someone
to shovel snow for
him. He suddenly
grew indignant. “Why
should I pay someone
to shovel?” he de-
manded. “I can get
“You keep giving me advice when what I need
my son to do it. He’s is herbal tea and lemon bars.”
only 70!”
—David Groeschel
Philadelphia, Scene: A public bus in New York City.
Pennsylvania Bus Driver: “Everyone remember to keep
your headphones plugged in. From the
All I’m saying is, if we
looks of all of you, I can already tell I hate
had a dungeon, my
wife would decorate it your music taste.”
with throw pillows. —instagram.com/overheardnewyork

— @TheBoydP
(Boyd’s Backyard™) ward off any potential simple sugars and salt.”
stomach troubles. My daughter liked
Before heading off to Instead, the doctor that. “Oh,” she said,
Mexico on vacation, prescribed bottled “like a margarita?”
my daughter asked her water and electro- —Kaaryn Roberts
doctor for medicine to lytes, “which have La Sal, Utah

20 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 Cartoon by Phil Witte

My three-year-old son: ✦ Today, I was at alcohol, and sex.
I don’t know what the doctor’s office. Be- It asked whether I
I want to be when I cause I’m a teenager, was in a gang. I wrote
grow up. I was required to take “marching band.”
Me: You can be a survey about drugs, —mylifeisaverage.com
anything you want.
Son: (after a few
seconds) I think I’ll be MY BIG, FAT SHOPPING LIST
a mother.
—Mary Lahl Ever go to Costco only to realize you need a moving
Chaska, Minnesota van to bring your purchases home? The women behind
the Instagram account imomsohard understand com-
Looking for a reason to pletely. This snapshot posted before a recent haul
chuckle? Three people might make you feel better the next time you overdo it.
share their wry stories:
✦ “Today, I met a girl
named Unique,” I said.
“She has an identical **My List**
twin sister.” No one
Wine
thought it was funny.
✦ Today in Latin, my 50lb bag of trail mix that will never get eaten
teacher was trying to Chicken
figure out how many 6 pack of John Grisham books, just because
days were in July. I said Box of chicken nuggets 6" too wide for my freezer
31. He asked whether I Big ol’ bag of spinach that turns into green water
knew it from a rhyme or Extra TV
something. I said yes.
Wine with a handle on it
The real reason I know
is because Harry Pot- Chorizo I sampled but will never cook
ter’s birthday is July 31. So much chicken salad, so so much
Tent?
Bucket of pickles—only thing under $10
Got a funny story Gross vitamins
about friends or fam- Wine in box
ily? It could be worth Magnum of Head & Shoulders for my babe
$$$. For details, go to
—instagram.com/imomsohard
rd.com/submit.

rd.com 21
Reader ’s Digest

QUOTABLE QUOTES
Discipline shows who you really are.

from left: mediapunch/shutterstock. lou krasky/ap/shutterstock. lovekin/shutterstock. courtesy mara wilson

To control yourself, that is the ultimate power.
—Kendrick Lamar, rapper

If somebody asks, “What are you doing in five years?”

and you have an answer, I think there’s a good chance you aren’t
going to get there. If you pick one thing,
then you’ve neglected all other opportunities.
—Darla Moore, philanthropist

“That’s not my problem” is possibly the

worst thing people can think.
—Atul Gawande, surgeon

I have no social media. I don’t need

things in my life to distract me from my life.
—Paul Rudd, actor

If you can affect someone when they’re young,

you are in their hearts forever.
—Mara Wilson, actor

22 lamar moore rudd wilson

 The speaker at my high school commencement concluded by
asking us whether we would explore and develop the spiritual
part of our identity throughout our lives or wait for illness or
advancing age to force a crash course … Ultimately, I came to the
conclusion that this is the most important question of all.
—Francis S. Collins, director of the national institutes of health

Mental toughness is the ability to see the bright side of a

hopeless situation. Adversity is an experience, not a final act.
—George Raveling, basketball coach

Nature is the biggest teacher:

She’s always teaching you how to adapt.
—Gisele Bündchen, supermodel
from left: charles krupa/ap. cindy barrymore. broadimage. all shutterstock

POINT TO PONDER
People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come
to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down
in their gut ... It’s the reason true rock ’n’ roll will never die.
—Bruce Springsteen, singer

raveling springsteen bündchen

 DIVE DEEP INTO DANGER WITH THE

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 Reader ’s Digest

HOW TO

Maintain
Your
Purpose
in Life
Start each year by
writing it down
anew. Your ever-
changing answers may very January for the past
help you live longer
and better.
E 20  years, I have taken a few mo-
ments to ponder the answer to
the big question “What is the meaning
of life?”
It’s one of those enormous questions
shutterstock (5)

that is so important—philosophically
and practically in terms of how we
live our lives—and yet we never stop
By David G. Allan to really think about the answer. Given
from cnn.com that you might be able to formulate

rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 25

Reader ’s Digest How to Maintain Your Purpose in Life
your response in less than a minute,
the wisdom-to-effort ratio for this
philosophical exercise could not be
more advantageous. I tend to ponder
such things as the creator of the Wis-
dom Project, a collection of writings
about the wisdom in everyday life
experiences.
Doing this simple exercise might
even help you live longer. According
to two separate studies published in
2014—one with 9,000 participants
around age 65 and another with
6,000 people between 20 and 75—
those who could articulate the mean-
ing and purpose of their lives died
Readers Share What Brings
Meaning to Their Lives
Spreading Warmth
Helping those in need. I make
blankets for children’s hospitals,
pet blankets for animal shelters,
and shawls for the elderly.
—Christen Lippincott atascocita, texas
Collecting Memories, Not Stuff
Stop buying trinkets that give you mo-
mentary pleasure. Rather, make memo-
ries that will last a lifetime. Travel and visit
as many places as you can, reconnect
and build friendships, and take plenty of
26 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
“THE PURPOSE OF
LIFE,” SAID
ROBERT BYRNE, “IS A
LIFE OF PURPOSE.”
later than those who saw their lives
as aimless. It didn’t seem to matter
what meaning participants ascribed
to their lives, whether it was personal
photos along the way. Memories have
given me much more long-lasting happi-
ness than any physical object can bring!
—Sriram Sridhar raleigh, north carolina
Building Literacy
I truly believe we can change the world
one person at a time, which is why I
became a literacy volunteer. Nothing
is more memorable than the look in the
eyes of an adult when he or she reads
for the first time. You know for as long
as they live they will remember you.
—Charlotte DiPaola niverville, new york
 NEW!
(such as happiness), creative (such BIG
as making art), or altruistic (such as
making the world a better place). It
VANILLA
was having an answer to the question
that mattered.
LATTE
FLAVOR
The connection to longevity could
be causal—having purpose may help
one cope with daily stress, as other
research has shown. But it could also
be that those who think about life’s
meaning are more likely to do other
activities that promote good health.
The reason I ask this question year
after year is that my answer changes
over time, which I find interesting
and insightful. There is no objectively

Savoring Everything
The meaning of life became clear to me
after watching my parents battle short
illnesses and pass away a mere six weeks
apart. My faith told me they were in a
better place, but I was feeling sorry for
myself and my family. I gradually came to
believe that our time on this earth is short
and we never know when it will end, so
while we are here we need to live it to
the fullest. Take time to sit on the deck
BIG FOOD
and watch the sunset, stay up late during
FOR
the week to visit with a friend (who cares BIG DAYS
if you’re tired at work the next day?), use
those vacation days, and let the dishes
sit in the sink so you can watch your kids
play ball. As they say, “Don’t sweat the
© 2018 Kellogg NA Co.

small stuff—and it’s all small stuff.” If we

aren’t enjoying life, then what’s the point?
— Amy Wasson waukon, iowa
Reader ’s Digest How to Maintain Your Purpose in Life
correct answer, I believe—only an-
swers that are right for you at any
given time.
Great thinkers have given the ques-
tion thought, so you can look to the
words attributed to them for inspi-
ration. Plato, the Greek philosopher
who lived more than 2,300 years
ago, concluded that only “love can
light that beacon which a man must
steer by when he sets out to live
the better life.” Russian author Leo
Tolstoy wrote, “The sole meaning
of the old Peanuts comic strip in
which Lucy asks Charlie Brown,
“Why do you think we’re put
here on earth?” Charlie Brown
says, “To make others happy.”
Lucy then asks, “What are the
others put here for?”
—Mike Adamkosky columbus, ohio
Empowering Others
Growing up with a disability, I was subject
to discrimination and what is now called
bullying. All I wanted was the equal
28 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
Martin Luther King Jr. framed the
sentiment as a question: “Life’s most
persistent and urgent question is,
‘What are you doing for others?’” And
the Dalai Lama added, “If we find we
cannot help others, the least we can
do is desist from harming them.”
Others came to the same conclu-
sion, in their own words. For in-
stance, Scottish rugby legend Nelson
Henderson put the notion poetically
when he said, “The true meaning
of life is to plant trees under whose
shade you do not expect to sit.” And
actor Whoopi Goldberg’s meaning-
of-life metaphor was to “throw little
opportunity to pursue my dreams. Em-
powering others to pursue theirs through
teaching, advocacy, and the practice of
law is what brings meaning to my life.
—Cindy Simon wayne, new jersey
Playing as a Team
My husband coaches high school tennis.
In a preseason conditioning run, the lone
freshman, new to the team, was falling
behind. One of the older boys left his spot
with the pack to go back and run with the
new boy, encouraging him not to give up.
To me, the meaning of life includes exactly
this: eyes that see those falling behind and
hearts motivated to do something about it.
—Jenna Filbrun goshen, indiana
 BIG DAYS
torches out to lead people through ARE RIPE
the dark.” WITH
My favorite answer, though, is the POTENTIAL
Zen-like circular reasoning attrib-
uted to writer Robert Byrne, who
put it, “The purpose of life is a life of
purpose.”
Some have concluded that life’s
meaning is subjective. “There is not
one big cosmic meaning for all,” au-
thor Anaïs Nin wrote in her diary.
“There is only the meaning we each
give to our life, an individual mean-
ing, an individual plot, like an indi-
vidual novel, a book for each person.”
I agree, which is why I recommend

Remembering All
God’s Creatures
Every day I try to do something for
someone, whether human or animal.
Take spiders outside into their natural
habitat, rescue stray dogs, tell someone
they are beautiful or worthy, coax a
turtle to water, hold the hand of a dying
person, plant flowers and trees, take
care of the environment, honor people
of other cultures, try to be caring. BIG FOOD
—Annette Thomas clarkston, michigan FOR
BIG DAYS
Cherishing Connections
First we are someone’s child. Then a
sibling, a friend, a spouse, a parent.
Who we are to others defines us and
© 2018 Kellogg NA Co.

gives us meaning in life.

—Marie Bray
southington, connecticut
Reader ’s Digest How to Maintain Your Purpose in Life
formulating your own answer. Tak-
ing a few moments to record your re-
sponse to the question “What is the
meaning of life?” is the kind of simple
exercise that effectively adds meaning
to your life.
And then I suggest answering it
every year. Looking back at how
your thinking has evolved and been
influenced by experience tells you
something more about yourself.
Cumulatively, it gets you closer to a
deeper self-understanding.
In 1997, my answer was “The dis-
covery, pursuit, and attainment of
one’s bliss,” inspired by myth
Readers Share What Brings Meaning to Their Lives (continued)
Ending Up in the Right Place
It is simple. Life is a test to
determine where you will
spend eternity.
—Ron Jostes ballwin, missouri
Using Your Talent
Ask yourself, “What do I most like to
do?” It’s what you’ll do best. I found my
meaning when a cow moose ran through
our yard. My husband snapped a picture,
and I submitted it to the local newspaper
with a caption. “Can you do more?” the
publisher responded. For more than
30 years, I’ve written columns, feature
30 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
expert Joseph Campbell. A year later,
it was to make “the world a better
place.” In 2002, the year I got engaged,
it was simply “Love.” And the year we
conceived our oldest daughter, it was
the less-romantic “Continuation of
one’s DNA to the next generation.” But
most years, my answer is some com-
bination of love, legacy, happiness,
experience, and helping others.
If you do the annual “meaning”
exercise, I suggest not looking at past
answers before answering anew. I
write them down on the same now-
yellowing piece of paper and keep it
someplace safe.
stories, news items, and two books.
At age 95 (not a misprint), I’m still writing
and using the gifts God gave me. Try
using yours. You’ll learn the true mean-
ing of life. So will the lives you touch.
—Betty Starks Case riverton, wyoming
Finding Joy in the Present
I have spent many years trying to
figure this out. I went through life never
thinking of the future or where my life
might lead me. Now I finally know what
is important and the meaning of life.
Remember your blessings every day.
Be nice. Take care of each other. Too bad
it took 62 years to figure this out.
—Kristi Schmidt
shingle springs, california
 FILL UP
The last use of this experiment is
to try to turn your answer into ac-
FOR
tion. If you conclude, as Tolstoy
and Einstein did, that the meaning
BIG DAYS
of life is helping others, that should
help motivate you to do more of it.
If “love” is the answer, then love
more. If it’s “find your bliss,” then get
searching for it.
This is not a theoretical exercise.
Whatever small step you take toward
finding the meaning of life is a step
toward a more meaningful, and lon-
ger, life.
cnn.com (july 20, 2018), copyright © 2018
by cable news network.

Being a Caring Partner

My wife and I were having the usual
tense discussions about the fair division
of labor at home. Then one day at church,
the sermon was about the hidden value
of service to others. I challenged myself
to serve my wife every day for a month
and see what happened. For a month, I
never walked by something that could BIG FOOD
be done; I just picked it up, put it away, FOR
emptied the dishwasher, took out the
trash. No thinking about whose turn it BIG DAYS
was or who made the mess. At the end of
the month, I found that our life was hap-
pier, more contented, more intimate. I
kept it up and won more than the lottery.
© 2018 Kellogg NA Co.

We have been married 30 years and look

forward to many more.
—Daniel Townsend hayward, california
Reader ’s Digest

A Blood Test That

May Warn of
Alzheimer’s Sooner
The only way to catch
Alzheimer’s early—
allowing treatment to
News From the slow the progression of

WORLD OF symptoms—is through

expensive imaging or
MEDICINE invasive tests. Now
researchers have devel-
oped a blood test that
they hope will spot the
amyloid beta that forms
brain plaque, a hall-
mark of the disease.
Working with archived
blood that had been
collected between July
2000 and December
2002 from participants
in a study of adults ages
EARLY DINERS ARE 50 to 75, they compared
HEALTHIER samples from 65 people
who were later diag-
A study of more than 4,000 men and women nosed with Alzheimer’s
in Spain found that people who ate their evening to more than 800 con-
meal before 9 p.m. or at least two hours before trols. The new test cor-
going to bed had a 20 percent lower risk of breast rectly identified those
or prostate cancer than those who ate after 10 p.m. with the disease in al-
or went to bed soon after eating. These cancers most 70 percent of the
may be bolstered by disruptions to the biological cases—and it would
clock, and meal timing impacts sleep cycles. have done so as many
More research needs to be done to confirm the as eight years before
link, but it’s worth noting that studies have already they received their
shown that eating dinner earlier can help you diagnosis using the
maintain a healthy weight and sleep better. current tests.

32 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 Photograph by The Voorhes

 Treat Glaucoma The 16:8 Diet
While You Sleep Works
Scientists have In a small study,
long known that researchers at the
cannabigerolic acid, University of Illinois
a compound from the at Chicago recruited
cannabis (aka mari- 23 obese participants
juana) plant, can relieve to spend 12 weeks
glaucoma symptoms, following a type of in-
but the key elements termittent fasting called
don’t easily dissolve the 16:8 diet. In the
and therefore can’t be “SENSITIVE” eight hours between
turned into effective TOOTHPASTE 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., par-
eye drops. Researchers ISN’T ENOUGH ticipants could eat as
at the University of much as they wanted of
British Columbia may Many toothpastes claim any food. However, for
have solved that prob- to treat sensitive teeth, the remaining 16 hours
lem with a compound but researchers re- of the day, they were
called a hydrogel. The cently found they don’t allowed to have only
hydrogel is adminis- help much. A tooth water and other calorie-
tered as drops that then grows sensitive when free drinks. Compared
form a sort of lens upon its protective enamel with a control group,
contact with the eye, erodes, exposing den- the 16:8 dieters con-
allowing the cannabig- tin, a layer with tubules sumed an average of
erolic acid to dissolve that lead to the nerves. 300 fewer calories per
during the night and The researchers tested day, lost 3 percent of
penetrate the cornea. nine “antierosive” their weight, and saw
In pig corneas, which and/or “desensitizing” a significant drop in
vladimir konstantinov/shutterstock

are similar to human products and found their systolic blood

corneas, the gel was that they all caused pressure. One reason
absorbed quickly; the enamel wear, just like may simply be that
next step is to test regular toothpastes. the 16:8 diet is easier
the gel in human eyes. Some desensitizing for most people to
toothpastes might help maintain than other
to block pain, but you types of intermittent
likely also need to see fasting.
your dentist for other
treatment options.

rd.com 33
Reader ’s Digest News from the World of Medicine

HOW SPIRITUALITY MAY Overhead Light

Kills the Flu
DE-STRESS YOUR BRAIN A new study has found
spiritual experience can do wonders that continuous low

A for your soul, but does it help your brain?

To find out, researchers from the Spirituality
Mind Body Institute at the Teachers College of
doses of a spectrum
of UV light called
far-UVC can kill
Columbia University and the Yale University School airborne flu viruses
of Medicine hooked 27 young, healthy subjects up without harming hu-
to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) man tissue. Though it’s
machine to scan their brains while they recalled not a spectrum found
a “personal spiritual experience.” What’s that? It in standard fluorescent
depends. One participant thought about having or incandescent bulbs,
“a two-way relationship with a higher power” while far-UVC light in hospi-
another focused on “being in a zone of tals, schools, and other
intense physical activity.” public spaces could
The subjects’ experiences one day provide a
may have been different, but powerful check on
their brains responded the seasonal flu epidemics.
same way. The regions associ-
ated with emotions, sensory Antibiotics May
processing, and awareness of Foster Kidney
themselves as distinct from Stones
others were all less active.
In other words, being in a A study that examined
spiritual state calmed and en- more than 280,000 U.K.
livened them while increasing patients’ records sug-
their sense of connectedness. gests that people who
Another telling finding: Past took five common
studies on spirituality and the types of oral antibiotics
brain enlisted overtly religious (sulfas, broad-spectrum
shipfactory/shutterstock

subjects, such as Carmelite nuns. penicillins, fluoroquin-

But participants in this study olones, cephalosporins,
defined their own spiritual situa- or nitrofurantoin/
tions. It seems that anyone, even methenamine) had
nonreligious folks, can experience a greater chance of
some transcendence—and the developing kidney
brain benefits that come with it. stones within a year.

34 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

 Treating
your COPD
and still
struggling?
Chronic productive
cough?
Repeated antibiotic use
for chest infections?

These may be indicators of

bronchiectasis—a common
but frequently undiagnosed
condition caused by
chronic inflammation of the
airways.1
Half of people
with serious
COPD may have
bronchiectasis.2

inCourage® Airway Clearance Therapy is a drug-free way to clear excess mucus

from the lungs. Ask your doctor if the inCourage System may be right for you.

For a bronchiectasis information kit, call 833.208.5324 or visit

www.respirtech.com/be.

We change lives. We help people breathe better.

1. Maselli DJ, Amalakuhan B, Keyt H, Diaz AA. Suspecting non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis:
What the busy primary care clinician needs to know. Int J Clin Pract. 2017;71(2):e12924.
2. Martínez-García MA, de la Rosa Carrillo D, Soler-Cataluña JJ, et al. Prognostic value of
bronchiectasis in patients with moderate-to-severchronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2013;187:823–831.

© 2018 Respiratory Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. 910172-001 Rev B

Reader ’s Digest

LIFE WELL LIVED

Passed from one home to the next, a box of

ornaments reminds a family of the bonds around them

The Gift of a
Great Neighbor
by Nicole Burrell

y kids sit in Gee’s living a lifetime, have found a new home.

M room and reverently lift

antique Christmas or-
naments out of a well-
loved cardboard box.
They gasp when they discover a tiny
stuffed cat. They giggle at Raggedy
Ann, who is a foreign character to
them. Gee stands beside them, qui-
etly explaining each treasure. She tells
me that she and Tom built their orna-
ment collection piece by piece during
each year’s after-Christmas sale. She
smiles as we leave with the box. Her
precious heirlooms, gathered over
Nicole Burrell is a Reader’s Digest
reader from northern New Jersey.
We first met Tom and Gee in the
early days of our marriage. Someone
had been returning our garbage cans
to the garage each garbage day, and
Jim and I had wondered who. Then
one day we spotted him: an elderly
man who lived across the street.
I baked cookies and left them on
a stool outside the garage with a
thank-you note. When we got home
from work that day, a typed letter had
replaced the gift. The letter was from
Tom and explained how he had come
to walk the neighborhood on garbage
day, returning cans for people he
barely knew. Back when he’d been
fighting a war I wasn’t alive to see, his
young wife, Gee, had found herself

36 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com illustration by Tracey Long

Reader ’s Digest Life Well Lived

living alone. Neighbors had taken the
time to handle her garbage cans so
she didn’t have to, and he never for-
got. Now he paid it forward by doing
the same for all of us. (It was also his
way of sneaking a smoke while Gee
wasn’t looking.)
WE KNOW IT’S TIME
TO MOVE, AND YET WE
CAN’T SEEM TO PUT
THE FOR SALE SIGN UP.
A few years after we’d moved in,
Tom died. We photocopied that letter
and attached it to one of our own for
Gee. We told her how special Tom had
been to us, how we grieved for her,
how thankful we were to have known
him—the inadequate words that come
with condolence. She wrote back and
told us she still talked to Tom every
day. When Gee invited us over to look
through Christmas ornaments, I real-
ized how hard it must be to part with
that box, a piece of Tom.
These days, we’re piling up boxes
of our own. We’re planning a move.
The house that seemed so huge six
years ago is filled to capacity with
furniture and books and toys and, of
course, people. We know it’s time to
go, and yet we can’t seem to stick the
For Sale sign up on the lawn. Gaining
a third bedroom and maybe an office
sometimes seems like a lousy trade
for all we stand to lose.
It’s not just Gee. It’s the man who
lets our kids pick peaches off the tree
in his front yard. It’s the ladies who
call Jim when their pool filter breaks
and leave overflowing baskets for our
kids on Easter. It’s the corrections
officer directly across from us, who
smiles and waves and makes me feel
a little safer when Jim is away.
The moving boxes are still neatly
packed in our basement, but Jim
and I agree to wait until January. This
Christmas, we’ll decorate our tree with
Gee’s ornaments, out of the box that is
labeled in Tom’s handwriting. Maybe
I’ll talk to him just as Gee still does.
Thank you, I’ll say. For teaching us
what it means to be a neighbor.

In the Line of Fire

Jerry Parr, a Secret Service agent who helped save
President Ronald Reagan’s life during a 1981 assassination attempt,
was inspired to join the Secret Service after seeing the movie
Code of the Secret Service. The film’s star? Ronald Reagan.
wtkr.com

38 dec 2018 ) jan 2019

 Reader ’s Digest

They Shared a Drink—

and Then the Future
YOUR By chance, I was sent to
a conference in a nearby
TRUE city. At the welcome re-
ception, I reached for the
STORIES
in 100 Words
same champagne glass
as the man standing next
to me. We struck up a
conversation until dinner
was called in the next
Fly Me room. The man asked to
I’m a flight attendant sit beside me. As the
and former radio host. waiter passed, he turned
One day, I was giving to the man and said, “Sir,
my predeparture spiel what would your wife like
about the seat belts and to drink?” The man looked
oxygen masks. I used my to me and smiled. “Dar-
deep voice to see whether ling, what would you like
I could make anyone to drink?” he asked. That
smile. As I finished the was 20 years ago. We
announcement and married a few years later.
prepared to walk down
—Melissa Price
the aisle, a couple in the jupiter, florida
front row held up their
hands to get my atten-
tion. I figured they were The Manger’s Made Men
going to comment on my
announcement. I bent Every Christmas season, my four-year-old
down with a grin, and granddaughter, Jordan, helps me set up
they said, “Hey, buddy ... my nativity scene. It has many small pieces:
your fly is open.” Ouch.
—Troy Hullin
the stable, the manger, baby Jesus, animals,
detroit, michigan shepherds, an angel, and the three wise men.
This year, she wanted to do it all by herself.
To read more true sto- After much arranging and rearranging of
ries and to submit your things, she started to cry. “Jordan,” I said,
own, go to rd.com/
“what’s the matter?” She replied, “Grandma,
stories. If your story is
published in the maga- I don’t know where to put the wise guys.”
zine, we’ll pay you $100. —J.D. via rd.com

Illustration by Joana Avillez rd.com 39

Reader ’s Digest

Finding a sale in
December isn’t all that
13 THINGS difficult—you might
even say ’tis the season.
What’s tricky is taking

Holiday the shopping secrets

you unwrap now and

Money Savers making them work for

you all year long. Here
are some evergreen
That Work money savers.

All Year
By the Editors of Reader’s Digest
1
Discounted Gift Cards
Cardpool.com and
giftcardzen.com sell
cards for Lowe’s, Target,
Whole Foods, and other
national chains at prices
below face value. The
typical markdown is
around 7 percent, but
we found deals for up to
17 percent off. Costco
also discounts gift cards
for retailers, restaurants,
movies, and more
(example: ten movie
tickets for $89.99). Don’t
just give them as gifts;
use them for your own
shopping or pleasure.

2
Online Clearance
Sections
Websites have
their own discount
aisles, just as their
brick-and-mortar
siblings do. Some good

40 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 Illustration by Serge Bloch

ones: Kohl’s, Nord-

5 7
Trade-In Programs Your Age
strom, Target, and Take your old At Kohl’s, you’ll
T.J. Maxx. To find phones, laptops, save 15 percent
them, do an online and other electronics in the store on Wednes-
search for the retailer’s to Apple or Best Buy days if you’re 60 “or
name plus “clearance.” and exchange them better,” as they put it.
for store gift cards. At Michael’s, you’ll
When we checked, Best save an extra 10 percent

3
Amazon
Bargain Bins Buy was offering $80 every day once you
You can “clip” cou- for a Samsung Galaxy hit your 55th birthday.
pons at amazon.com/ S7 smartphone in good For the younger set,
coupons to save on condition. Also, Target students get special
household staples such sometimes holds car deals at Amazon,
as detergent and toilet seat trade-in events, Eastern Mountain
paper as well as some where you can swap Sports, Microsoft,
bigger-ticket items your child’s old car and elsewhere.
($5 off an electric tooth- seat for a coupon for
brush, $10 off a router). 20 percent off a new

8
Your Profession
And amazon.com/ model. Teachers who en-
outlet has overstock bar- roll in the Barnes
gains up to 70 percent & Noble Educator Pro-

6
Belated
off, such as five pairs of Markdowns gram save 20 percent
cozy women’s socks for Some retailers on most books, toys,
$8 (down from $30). have price-adjustment and games. J.Crew and
policies that allow JOANN have their own
you to get the lower teacher programs, with

4
Price Matching
Home Depot, price if something 15 percent off. Military
Staples, and even you buy now goes on personnel and veterans
some local shops won’t sale later. Most of these earn special discounts
just match a competi- programs give you at many retailers;
tor’s price—they’ll beat a limited time to stake Lowe’s, Pottery Barn,
it. These extra-generous your claim: At Macy’s, and others extend the
offers mean you may it’s 10 days after savings to spouses too.
get as much as an addi- purchase. At Kohl’s,
tional 10 percent off the Old Navy, and Target,

9
Free Shipping
list price. Just show it’s 14 days. At Sears, Tricks
proof of the competitor’s it’s a generous 30 days. At macys.com,
deal, such as a sales cir- Just hold on to your beauty products
cular or a web page. receipts. ship gratis, so if you

rd.com 41
Reader ’s Digest 13 Things
haven’t met the $99
free-shipping mini-
mum for other prod-
ucts, add a cheap
cosmetics item (some-
thing you actually want
that costs less than the
$10.95 shipping fee)
and you’ll get free
shipping on your entire
order. Another trick:
joining a retailer’s free
loyalty program. This
works at Blooming-
dale’s, Nike, and other
retailers.
10
The Hidden
Clearance Stash
At Walmart,
ask to see clearance
electronics. “Most re-
duced items are not
displayed and rarely
have price tags. At the
change of major sea-
sons, many older model
items will be switched
out for newer ones,”
an employee posted
on reddit.com.
In Belgium’s St. Symphorien Military Cemetery, the grave belonging
to the first British soldier killed in World War I directly faces the grave of the last
British soldier killed in World War I. The placement was completely accidental.
42 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
11
Haggling
No, it’s not just
a yard sale tactic.
If you ask (nicely) in a
store for a discount, you
just might get it. It can
work online, too, via
live chat. According to
Consumer Reports
surveys, shoppers who
haggle succeed more of-
ten than they strike out.
12
Coupons
If you’ve left a
really juicy cou-
pon at home, you might
still be able to use it the
next time you’re in the
store. This works at Bed
Bath & Beyond (within
14 days) and might also
work at other stores if
you ask (again, nicely,
of course!). But clipping
coupons isn’t for every-
one. Instead, see if you
can pull them up on
your phone. (Also a
good idea if you forget
your stash of paper
What Are the Chances?
the mirror
coupons at home.) Just
search for the name of
the retailer plus “cou-
pon,” or check Coupon
Sherpa or RetailMeNot
(apps or websites). Or
ask the cashier whether
there’s a store coupon
you can use.
13
Joining the Club
Membership
programs such
as Beyond+ at Bed
Bath & Beyond, RH at
Restoration Hardware,
and Sephora Flash
follow the example of
Amazon Prime: You
pay an annual fee and
get exclusive perks
such as free shipping
or a percentage off
your purchases. (At
Barnes & Noble, you
even get a discount at
the in-store Starbucks.)
If you’re a frequent
shopper, these pro-
grams can quickly pay
for themselves.
 No contracts
No cancellation fees

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BRING A NEW STORY HOME WITH YOU TODAY
Rhyme Rhythm Reason
More Than Some of the Sum
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Paul Drakeford
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Here we have a few giggles and chuckles for those
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Operation Wappen
A War That Never Was
Robert Maddock
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A Story about CIA / MI6 Middle East 1957
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Learning to Trust the
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Allowing Communication with
the Holy Trinity and the Saints
Billy Patty
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This poetry book is dedicated to my darling wife
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inspiration and my comfort in life in my old age.
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Sunnie D. Kidd coined the term “Inbetweenness”.
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When Writing Morphs
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A Novel
Myrna Lou Jastra
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This book comes from a rarified atmosphere. It
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undertaken by Lor and Ermin created through
writing, morphed into life. It will be told and
retold by the generations after them.
 Reader ’s Digest

T’S COMPLETE DARKNESS, through

I Am the

FOOD
I day and night, where I am. In the
silence of the cool, loosely packed
earth, I’m reproducing. My eyes shoot
forth stems, millimeter by millimeter,
ON YOUR into the dirt around me. Aboveground,
my green leaves bask in the sunlight,
PLATE photosynthesizing sugars, which ease
downward to nourish nodes along
those stems. The nodes then swell
with flesh—new potatoes in the mak-
ing, each one a perfect clone of me.
Cloning myself in the dark isn’t
the only way I reproduce. My second
means of reproduction is fertilization
of my flowers by another potato plant,
and any variety will do. This insurance
policy has given me maximum flexi-
bility as a multiplier over the ages. To-
day, 8,000 years since humans began
cultivating my ilk near Lake Titicaca in
the Peruvian Andes, taxonomists have
no idea how many cultivated and wild
versions of me exist.
Potatoes I am the Solanum tuberosum, a
member of the nightshade family and
All Eyes on a close cousin of tomatoes, eggplant,
peppers, and tobacco. Don’t let our
Me: The shared moniker fool you: I am no re-
lation to the sweet potato. She’s cor-
World’s Dream rectly described as a root vegetable,
whereas my edible part is the stem,

Starch swollen into a starchy, filling snack.

Thousands of years ago, I was but
a knobby knot in the ground, hardly
By Kate Lowenstein edible, at times even poisonous. In
and Daniel Gritzer the dirt-caked hands of generations
of farmers, I’ve been bred so that my
bitter glycoalkaloids—the compounds

Photographs by Matthew Cohen rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 45

Reader ’s Digest
that to this day make me go green
after one too many days on your
windowsill—are at safe-to-eat levels,
and my edible insides have expanded
to accommodate the human appetite.
As a result of this happy coexistence
with my cultivators, I’ve hitched my
way all over the world and adapted to
life on continents outside my home
turf in the Americas. I can live at
12,000 feet in the dry, chilly moun-
tains and at sea level in the tropics.
My appearance is as varied as the
places I live. I can be white, yellow,
red, purple, pink, or blue; speckled,
spotted, coiled, or mottled; knobby,
smooth, thin, or stumpy; covered in
skin that’s thick and leathery or as
thin as tissue paper.
Despite this dazzling diversity, a
North American shopper will encoun-
ter only a few varieties: russets, which
are very starchy and thus good for
baked potatoes and fries; Yukon Golds,
which are moist and waxy and great
for producing a silky mash; fingerlings
and new potatoes, delightful when
boiled; and red potatoes, perfectly
tender and sweet in a
potato salad.
PERFECT BOILED FINGERLINGS
Put whole fingerlings in a pot and cover
with cold water. Now add salt, starting
with 1.5 tablespoons per 4 cups of water,
and then sprinkle in more until the water
tastes as salty as the sea. (Don’t worry:
Most will go down the drain, and the little
that’s absorbed will make all the differ-
ence.) Add aromatics: garlic, a halved
onion, carrots, celery, a bay leaf, and fresh
herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and sage.
Bring water to a gentle simmer and cook
anywhere from 25 minutes to two hours,
until you can slide a fork into a potato
without resistance. (The larger the pota-
toes and batch, the longer they’ll take.)
Turn the heat off; leave the potatoes until
the water is warm. Discard the aromatics
and herbs, drain the potatoes, and toss
with melted butter or olive oil and minced
parsley, chives, and/or tarragon. Add
black pepper and salt to taste.
Around the world, I take many more
forms, from soft purees to shatteringly
crisp potato chips. I’m rolled into
cloudlike dumplings in Italy, bulk up
Guinness stews in Ireland, and grace
the tables of France’s haute temples
of gastronomy, usually laden with
butter and cream.
Yet I didn’t become the fifth-
most-abundant crop across
the globe in 2016 as an in-
dulgence. I am a true staple,
highly storable, surprisingly
nutritious. Civilizations have
depended on me. The Incan Em-
pire grew on my back, its soldiers
 I Am the Food on Your Plate

subsisting on me as they marched chlorogenic acid, which is associated

through harsh mountain terrain. Eu-
ropeans relied on me through lean
times, sometimes too heavily. My
nemesis, the fungus that produces
late blight, attacked me in the mid-
1800s in western Europe and nearly
collapsed Ireland, where about one
million people died.
More recently, I’ve been identified
by NASA as a food seemingly made
for astronauts on missions, as I offer
all nine essential amino acids, the
building blocks of proteins neces-
sary for humans to maintain them-
selves. (That subplot of The Martian
in which the Matt Damon charac-
ter lives on potatoes alone may not
be too off base.) Even the whitest
and blandest of my brethren con-
tain potassium, fiber, and an array of
potentially cancer- and heart disease–
fighting polyphenols in their flesh and
skin. My most abundant polyphenol,
with lowering blood sugar, is impor-
tant for diabetics.
Today, scientists on Earth are
breeding biofortified versions of me
with double the normal iron con-
tent to feed parts of the world where
anemia is pervasive. They are using
genetic modification to develop a po-
tato fully resistant to the fast-moving
late blight, which is still the most ag-
gressive threat to me. There is also a
significant effort to develop variet-
ies of me that tolerate the stresses
of drought, soil salinity, and heat as
climate change presses in on staple
crops like me. Dare I say, that’s prog-
ress for a tuber that got its start under-
foot, in the silent darkness.
Kate Lowenstein is the editor-in-chief
of Vice’s health website, Tonic; Daniel
Gritzer is the culinary director of the
cooking site Serious Eats.

The All-American Christmas Tree-dition

Pagans and Romans used evergreen trees in winter festivities long before the
birth of Christianity, but it took American ingenuity to light up the idea and
bring it home for the holidays. The Germans lit the earliest Christmas trees
with candles, which had the dual disadvantage of being messy (the dripping wax)
and dangerous (the flames dancing near those pine needles). In 1882,
Edward H. Johnson, a vice president and inventor at Thomas Edison’s Electric
Light Company, hand-wired strings of the company’s new electric bulbs—80 red,
white, and blue bulbs in total—and layered them on the tree in his Manhattan
home. By 1903, General Electric was selling sets of prestrung Christmas lights
to the masses for $12. That’s more than $300 in current dollars.

rd.com 47
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 Reader ’s Digest

WE
FOUND
A FIX
9 tricks to
Improve Your Life*

1
Get Your Water Past
Airport Security
travel It’s impossible to get
water through airport
security, right? While it’s true
that you are allowed only up
to 3.4 ounces of any fluid,
Transportation Security
Administration regulations do
let full water bottles through
in one case—if they are
“frozen solid when presented
for screening.” The catch is
serious, however: “If frozen
liquid items are partially
shutterstock (stickers)

melted, slushy, or have any

liquid at the bottom of the
container,” you’ll likely have
to toss the whole thing.
* From RD.com reporting

Photographs by Matthew Cohen rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 49

Reader ’s Digest

2
Brighten Up Your Christmas Tree
4
Clean Your Teeth
decorating Most people spiral their Christmas tree with Food
lights from the bottom to the top, but you lose some beauty There’s a reason
sparkle that way. “If you go around in a circle longways, apples are known as
the lights tend to go in,” says designer Francesco Bilotto. nature’s toothbrush—
To keep the bulbs closer to the tips of the branches, foods that are firm or crisp
Bilotto says to hang the lights vertically. Start by tucking help clean teeth as they’re
the part of the string that doesn’t have a plug on the top eaten. If you know you
of the tree, and then weave your way down the branches won’t be able to brush
in a bit of an S formation for visual pizzazz. your teeth right after
eating, you might want
to save a cleaning food

3
for the end of your meal.
Other choices include
raw carrots, celery, and
Keep Your Bananas Fresh unbuttered popcorn.
food Can’t use the whole bunch yet?
Wait until they have started to soften, and
then toss them in the refrigerator. The
cold will help them stay at their peak for
5
Freshen Your
Coffee Grinder
another week. That said, avoid refrigerat- cleaning If you notice a
ing bananas that aren’t quite ripe, as it weird odor coming from
your blade grinder, or if
will stop the natural ripening process. your coffee tastes muddy,
pour a quarter cup of rice
into the container, and
then run it until the grains
turn into fine particles.
Dump out the rice pow-
der, and you’ll notice
some stuck to the blades—
that’s because the powder
is sticking to the oil gunk-
ing up your grinder. Wipe
away the ground rice with
a damp cloth, and the oils
should come away with it.

50 dec 2018 ) jan 2019

 We Found a Fix

6
Help Your Laptop
Survive a Bath
technology First thing:
Power it off completely.
Wipe it dry with a towel,
and then open it as far as
you can, turn it upside
down, and let the liquid
drip out. The longer you
can leave it that way (up
to 24 hours), the better.
And that thing about
burying a device in rice to
suck out the moisture?
8
9
With computers, “it really Save Time Cleaning
doesn’t work, and it could the Tank
harm the system,” Joe pets Cleaning the fish
Silverman, owner of tank is not a pleasant job. Deodorize Your
New York Computer Help, Luckily, you need to Bathroom Naturally
told the New York Times. change only 10 percent of home Looking for a way
“You have to clean out the water each week— to eliminate icky bath-
the rice, which could pop and you don’t have to room smells that doesn’t
some of the components.” move the fish. But you require a daily spray?
should clean the sides of Place five or so drops of

7
the bowl or tank with a
sponge or toothbrush—
never soap—every few
Get a Free Gym weeks, placing the fish in
Membership a cup or separate bowl
money If you’re a senior while you tidy the place
mirko rosenau/shutterstock
any essential oil on the
inside of the cardboard
toilet paper roll, and voilà!
Every time someone
grabs some paper, the
movement will reactivate

citizen and you have
health insurance, check
out SilverSneakers
(silversneakers.com).
This national network
gives you complimentary
access to gyms, classes,
and on-demand fitness
videos.
up. If you have a power
filter, change the filter
container every month,
and clean the gravel
regularly.
the pleasant but not over-
the-top scent. Just be
careful that the oil doesn’t
get on the paper itself,
which comes in contact
with some, um, sensitive
areas.

rd.com 51
Reader ’s Digest

A farmer was helping

one of his cows give
LAUGHTER
The best Medicine
birth when he noticed
his four-year-old son
standing at the fence,
watching. Thinking
it might be the perfect
Miriam goes to the post “Give me 6 Orthodox, time to broach the
office to buy stamps for 12 Conservative, and whole birds-and-the-
her Hanukkah cards 32 Reform.” bees topic, he asked,
and says to the cashier, —jewishmag.com “Well, son, do you have
“May I have 50 Hanuk- any questions?”
kah stamps?” My “Don’t make love “Just one,” gasped
“What denomina- to Victoria’s Secret the wide-eyed boy.
tion?” asks the cashier. models” resolution is “How fast was that calf
Miriam thinks for a going great so far! going when he hit the
second, then says, — @elibraden cow?” —ranchers.net

52 dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019 Cartoon by Harley Schwadron

 According to a new report, adverse side
effects occurred in over 3,000 women
who used Botox last year—none of whom
seemed surprised.
—Crystal Lowery McKinney, Texas
AN ENGLISH MAJOR
Car commercials Knowing that the pas- WALKS INTO A BAR …
grossly overestimate tor enjoyed his drink, a
how much time I hotel owner offered ✦ Two quotation marks
spend driving around him a case of cherry walk into a “bar.”
in the desert. brandy for Christmas ✦ A malapropism walks
— @tastefactory in exchange for a free into a bar, looking for all
ad in the church news- intensive purposes like
An Englishman, a letter. The pastor a wolf in cheap clothing,
Frenchman, a Spaniard, agreed and ran this in muttering epitaphs.
and a German are the next issue: “The ✦ Hyperbole totally
watching a street pastor would like to rips into this insane bar
performer. thank Patrick Smith for and absolutely destroys
The performer his kind gift of a crate of everything.
suddenly realizes that fruit and for the spirit ✦ A non sequitur walks
these men have a poor in which it was given.” into a bar. In a strong
view, so he gets on a —hotsermons.com wind, even turkeys
small platform. “Can can fly.
you all see me now?” Whoever coined the ✦ A mixed metaphor
he asks them. phrase “the pitter- walks into a bar, seeing
They respond: “Yes.” patter of little feet” the handwriting on the
“Oui.” “Sí.” “Ja.” clearly never heard a wall but hoping to nip it
billion photos/shutterstock

—justsomething.co four-year-old walk. in the bud.

— @MYMOMOLOGUE ✦ A cliché walks into a
It’s a good thing snakes bar—fresh as a daisy, cute
and dogs don’t inter- as a button, and sharp
breed. Nobody wants Got a funny joke? as a tack.
a loyal snake. It could be worth $$$. ✦ A synonym strolls into
—Roy Blount, humorist For details, go to a tavern.
from garden & gun rd.com/submit. —bluebirdofbitterness.com

rd.com 53
bladder (OAB) treatment in its class.
In clinical trials, those taking Myrbetriq made fewer trips to the bathroom and had
fewer leaks than those not taking Myrbetriq. Your results may vary.
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR OAB SYMPTOMS BY TALKING
TO YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT MYRBETRIQ TODAY.
USE OF MYRBETRIQ (meer-BEH-trick)
Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) is a prescription medicine for adults used to treat overactive
bladder (OAB) with symptoms of urgency, frequency and leakage.
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION
Myrbetriq is not for everyone. Do not take Myrbetriq if you have an allergy to mirabegron or
any ingredients in Myrbetriq. Myrbetriq may cause your blood pressure to increase or make
your blood pressure worse if you have a history of high blood pressure. It is recommended
that your doctor check your blood pressure while you are taking Myrbetriq. Myrbetriq may
increase your chances of not being able to empty your bladder. Tell your doctor right
away if you have trouble emptying your bladder or you have a weak urine stream.

Myrbetriq® is a registered trademark of Astellas Pharma Inc.

All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
©2018 Astellas Pharma US, Inc. All rights reserved. 057-2708-PM
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION (CONTINUED)
Myrbetriq may cause allergic reactions that may be serious. If you experience swelling
of the face, lips, throat or tongue, with or without difficulty breathing, stop taking Myrbetriq
and tell your doctor right away.
Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take including medications for overactive
bladder or other medicines such as thioridazine (Mellaril™ and Mellaril-S™), flecainide
(Tambocor®), propafenone (Rythmol®), digoxin (Lanoxin®) or solifenacin succinate
(VESIcare®). Myrbetriq may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines
may affect how Myrbetriq works.
Before taking Myrbetriq, tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. The most
common side effects of Myrbetriq include increased blood pressure, common cold
symptoms (nasopharyngitis), dry mouth, flu symptoms, urinary tract infection, back pain,
dizziness, joint pain, headache, constipation, sinus irritation, and inflammation of the
bladder (cystitis).
For further information, please talk to your healthcare professional and see Brief
Summary of Prescribing Information for Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) on the following pages.
Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) extended-release tablets 25 mg, 50 mg
Brief Summary based on FDA-approved patient labeling
Read the Patient Information that comes with Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) before you start taking
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30
Reader ’s Digest
 COVER STORY

This holiday season, we’d like to

share these stories—these gifts—of
wonder, faith, and eternal life

The he church shouldn’t be there, but ev-

Church
That
T ery Sunday, parishioner John Mayernick
goes anyway.
He opens the door that shouldn’t
be standing, walks past the pews that
should have burned, and mounts the stairs to the
balcony that should have been razed. As sunlight
Wouldn’t pours through the stained glass windows and
gleams off the gilt-trimmed icons, he grabs three
Burn ropes and rings the bells as Mass begins and the
congregation sings the hymns no one thought
By Bill Hangley Jr. they’d hear again.

Photographs by Yasu+Junko rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 59


The last church standing in Centralia
This is the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary church in Cen-
tralia, Pennsylvania. In 1962, an
underground mine caught fire, its
fumes and heat slowly choking the
town. Over the next twenty-some
years, all but five of its citizens up and
left. The government flattened most of
the homes and storefronts before the
fire could. Today, where generations
of miners once raised families, there
are only a few stretches of sidewalks to
nowhere. More than 56 years later, the
fire is still smoldering belowground.
But thanks to an accident of geol-
ogy, the church was spared from the
flames and the bulldozers. Its sky-blue
dome still pokes up above the trees,
and its pews fill with parishioners on
Sundays.
“There are many different kinds
60 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
of miracles,” says the church’s priest,
Father Michael Hutsko. “The flash-of-
lightning kind, the sick person who’s
suddenly healed after praying are easy
to identify. But there’s the other, not-
so-evident miracles that take place,
that perhaps you don’t even realize
until you arrive at a certain place and
say, ‘I was praying for this,’ and you
realize that God’s hand is in it.”
hen Centralia was settled,
W in the 1840s, the miracle of
this rugged stretch of Appa-
lachia was the coal itself. Back then,
anthracite coal—jet-black, rock hard,
and clean burning—was the most
powerful fuel known. Its discovery in
northeast Pennsylvania triggered a
gold rush of sorts. Immigrant work-
ers poured in, and Poles, Hungarians,
Czechs, and Ukrainians filled boom-
ing mining towns such as Centralia.
Built in 1911, Assumption was one
of many Ukrainian Catholic churches
founded in the region. Centralia’s
immigrants could worship within its
simple wood frame and hand-laid
stone walls just as they had for cen-
turies back home. They sang in their
courtesy father john m. fields
native tongue. They celebrated the
distinctive Ukrainian Catholic Mass.
They prayed beneath its three-bar
crosses.
Evelyn Mushalko, an Assump-
tion parishioner born in Centralia
in 1944, remembers a town of soda
fountains and penny candy stores;
a town where fathers worked hard
 Cover Story Reader ’s Digest

and didn’t talk much about it; a town

where you went sledding in winter
and huckleberry picking in summer
and ran home after school to catch
Roy Rogers or Dick Clark’s Ameri-
can Bandstand on your family’s new
black-and-white TV.
“It was a good time to grow up,” she
says. “It was a nice town. People were
friendly.”
And then the town caught fire.
o one knows for sure how or
Rockin’ Around
reader miracle My stepfather,
Marlin, bought a dancing
Christmas tree in the mid-
2000s as a gimmick decoration.
Marlin passed away in 2014,
and my sister, Stacy, took
possession of the tree. Stacy

N even when in 1962 it started,

but the best guess is that it was
after town workers burned some trash
at the local dump.
The next day, something was still
burning—an exposed seam of coal.
There was little worry at first; such
fires are common in coal country.
But Centralia’s blaze proved relent-
less as it fed on other coal seams and
long-sealed tunnels full of broken
timbers.
Slowly, the earth began to heat up
and hollow out. Smoke belched from
cracks in the ground. A long stretch
of Route 61 buckled and crumbled,
glowing red at night. Residents re-
ported hot basement walls and
noxious fumes; one got knocked un-
courtesy norman powers
got engaged to her longtime
boyfriend on Thanksgiving
night. The tree was unpacked,
but it had no batteries. Later
that evening, with all the ladies
sitting around talking, the
tree lit up and started to dance.
The empty battery pack was
in hand, and the only
conclusion we could reach
was that Marlin was sending
his blessing and dancing a jig.
—Norman Powers
sheffield, alabama
Marlin’s spirit lit up his

conscious while watching TV. Local

and state government spent millions
trying to douse the fire, without
success.
Finally, on Valentine’s Day 1981,
the earth buckled in Todd Dombos-
ki’s grandmother’s backyard, almost

61
Reader ’s Digest Cover Story
swallowing the 12-year-old whole.
The fire had exposed a mineshaft
hundreds of feet down. He survived
by grabbing a tree root before being
pulled to safety.
That was the beginning of the end
for Centralia. In 1984, citing the dan-
ger to its citizens, state and federal of-
ficials began buying up properties and
ordered the town evacuated. Streets
were emptied. Homes were leveled. A
bulldozer knocked down the Roman
Catholic church, then went after the
Methodists’.
But Assumption stayed. The entire
property, it turned out, sat on one of
the massive slabs of sandstone that
forms the backbone of the region’s
mountains. The stone protected the
church from the burning anthracite
that sat below the rest of the town.
hen Father Hutsko took
W over Assumption in 2010, he
found a building in rough
shape and a small congregation badly
in need of assurance. Now scattered
around the region, the parishioners
would drive back to Centralia every
Sunday wondering, “Who keeps a
church in a town that
doesn’t exist anymore?”
Father Hutsko does.
A Pennsylvania native,
he knew the value of the
church in coal-country
towns. The priest and his
flock dug in for the long
haul. They tore down
62 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
the abandoned and crumbling rec-
tory. They fixed the roof and its blue
dome. They added new siding to keep
vandals out of the basement. They
scrubbed their jewel until it shone.
In late 2015, the archbishop of
the Ukrainian Catholic Church—its
patriarch—visited America and re-
quested to see the church in the now-
famous burning town. The archbishop
had been entranced by the way its
survival story echoed the Gospel of
Matthew: “On this rock I will build
my church, and the gates of Hades will
not prevail against it.”
When he entered the tiny jewel
box—with its gilt-framed paintings,
its cozy pews and ornate sanctu-
ary, its thick, soft carpet and scent of
incense—the archbishop was moved
to establish Assumption as the site of
an annual pilgrimage.
“As soon as we went in, he was just
in awe,” Hutsko remembers. “He said,
‘This is a holy place ... It has to be a
place to call people to prayer.’”
At last, Assumption’s mission was
clear. The church wasn’t to be just a fi-
nal refuge for the scattered residents of
a lost town. It was to be a symbol of
hope for people of faith
everywhere.
courtesy bill hangley jr.
“ The church had
found its purpose,”
Hutsko says.
Father Hutsko refused
to abandon his flock.

The Christmas Cassette
reader miracle In June 2003,
I buried my 26-year-old son. The
following Christmas was the worst
of my life. I was consumed with grief
to my very core. As I awoke early
Christmas morning, I decided to
write a few Christmas cards, belated
or not. I went to the drawer where
I stored the boxed cards. The drawer
would open only slightly;
something was jamming it.
The cause of the jam was an
unlabeled cassette. I had
no idea what was on it or how
it had gotten there. I popped
the cassette in the player and
waited to hear whatever mystery
it held. Soon I heard my own voice.
hree years ago, at Assump-
T tion’s first annual pilgrimage,
courtesy connie owen
hundreds gathered on the
church’s neatly tended lawn, the larg-
est event in Centralia in years.
“As long as the church stands here,
as long as the bells ring, that will be
the voice of God calling you into his
Kyle (center) with his brother,
Trevor (left), and mother, Connie
In a whisper, I say, “It’s Christmas
morning, and Kyle is still sleeping.”
Kyle awakens and sleepily comes to
the realization that he gets to check the
tree. His childish voice goes on to name
his toys from Santa. The last words on
the tape are both heartfelt and heart-
breaking. They are three-year-old
Kyle saying “Merry Christmas, Mom!”
I know my son made this Christmas
miracle happen so I could have a smile
in my heart that morning.
—Connie Owen
south milwaukee, wisconsin
presence,” the archbishop told the pil-
grims, “reminding you that he has not
abandoned you, any more than he has
abandoned the people of this town.”
But the pilgrimage comes only once
a year. On the other Sundays, things
go back to the way they’ve been for
the past 107 years. The bells ring. The
rd.com 63
Reader ’s Digest Cover Story

people of Centralia gather with their

children and grandchildren, singing
and praying, and, when Mass is over,
A
sitting in the pews with coffee and
doughnuts and talking.
Message
“Comforting is a good word for it.
It’s like your old couch,” said Mayer-
from a
nick. “Everything’s peaceful.”
And for those few hours, as Mayer-
Mermaid
nick and Mushalko and Father Hutsko By Margo Pfeiff
and the others worship and chat, it
won’t just be the Gospel that lives.
It will be Gert’s candy store that lives.
And Bill’s pizza shop. And the sledding
hill known as Rae’s, the swimming hole
known as the Townie, and the music
joint called the Hop where the Jordan

R
Brothers used to play.
The fire that killed the town is still
burning, but as long as the church
stands, Centralia will continue to rise
above the ashes.

With no more traffic in town, artists

have reclaimed the main road.
Rhonda Gill froze as she heard her
four-year-old daughter, Desiree, sob-
bing quietly in the family room that
morning in October 1993. Rhonda
tiptoed through the doorway. The tiny
child was hugging a photograph of her
father, who had died nine months ear-
courtesy bill hangley jr.

lier. Rhonda, 24, watched as Desiree

gently ran her fingers around her fa-
ther’s face. “Daddy,” she said softly,
“why won’t you come back?”
The petite brunette college student
felt a surge of despair. It had been hard
enough coping with the death of her

64 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

Reader ’s Digest Cover Story
husband, Ken Gill, but her daughter’s
grief was more than she could bear.
Ken and Rhonda, of Yuba City, Cali-
fornia, had met when Rhonda was 18,
and they married after a whirlwind
courtship. Their daughter, Desiree,
was born on January 9, 1989. Ken was
a gentle man whom everyone loved.
His big passion was his daughter.
“She’s a real daddy’s girl,” Rhonda
would often say as Ken’s eyes twinkled
with pride. Father and daughter went
everywhere together: hiking, dune
buggy riding, and fishing for bass and
salmon on the Feather River.
Instead of gradually adjusting to
her father’s death, Desiree refused to
accept it. “Daddy will be home soon,”
she’d tell her mother. “He’s at work.”
When she played with her toy tele-
phone, she pretended she was chatting
Desiree and her grandmother, Trish, on a
Christmas Day in the ’90s
with him. “I miss you, Daddy,” she’d
say. “When will you come back?”
Immediately after Ken’s death,
Rhonda moved from her apartment
in Yuba City to her mother’s home in
nearby Live Oak. Seven weeks after
the funeral, Desiree was still inconsol-
able. “I just don’t know what to do,”
Rhonda told her mother, Trish Moore,
a 47-year-old medical assistant.
As a last resort, Trish took Desiree
to Ken’s grave, hoping it would help
her come to terms with his death. The
child laid her head against his grave-
stone and said, “Maybe if I listen hard
enough I can hear Daddy talk to me.”
Then one evening, as Rhonda tucked
her child in, Desiree announced, “I
want to die, Mommy, so I can be with
Daddy.” God help me, Rhonda prayed.
What more can I do?
ovember 8, 1993, would have
N
been Ken’s 29th birthday.
“How will I send him a card?”
Desiree asked her grandmother.
“How about if we tie a letter to a
balloon,” Trish said, “and send it up
to heaven?” Desiree’s eyes immedi-
ately lit up.
On their way to the cemetery, the
back seat of the car full of flowers
for their planned grave-site visit, the
courtesy desiree stutz
three stopped at a store. “Help Mom
pick out a balloon,” Trish instructed.
At a rack where dozens of silver he-
lium-filled Mylar balloons bobbed,
Desiree made an instant decision:
“That one!” HAPPY BIRTHDAY was
 emblazoned above a drawing of Ariel
from the Disney film The Little Mer-
maid. Desiree and her father had of-
ten watched it.
The child’s eyes shone as they ar-
ranged flowers on Ken’s grave. It was a
beautiful day, with a slight breeze rip-
pling the eucalyptus trees. Then De-
siree dictated a letter to her dad. “Tell
him, ‘Happy birthday, I love you and
miss you,’” she rattled off. “‘I hope
you get this and can write to me on
my birthday in January.’”
Trish wrote the message and their
address on a small piece of paper,
which was then wrapped in plas-
tic and tied to the end of the string
on the balloon. Finally, Desiree re-
leased the balloon.
For almost an hour, they watched
the shining spot of silver grow
smaller. “OK,” Trish said at last.
“Time to go home.” Rhonda and Trish
were beginning to walk slowly from
the grave when they heard Desiree
shout excitedly, “Did you see that?
I saw Daddy reach down and take it!”
The balloon, visible just moments
earlier, had disappeared. “Now
Dad’s going to write back to me,”
Desiree declared as she walked
past them toward the car.
courtesy gloria arroyo
Gloria and her husband, Sonny
Sonny in the Sky
reader miracle It was my first
time flying alone since my
husband, Sonny, had passed
away. In spite of my fears,
I decided to go. I asked
God for guidance.
When we flew
together, Sonny
and I would each
buy a drink with our
meal. In exchange
for my drink, my
husband would give me
his dessert. In the middle
of this solo trip, I realized
I had not eaten my dessert.
When I looked down at it,
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
Printed in bold letters on the
little round tinfoil cover were
the words “Sonny’s Ice Cream.”

n a cold November morn- —Gloria Arroyo

O ing on Prince Edward Island

in eastern Canada, 32-year-
old Wade MacKinnon pulled on his
phoenix, arizona

waterproof duck-hunting gear and

jumped into his pickup. Wade, a forest

rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 67

 The Magic Key The driver stopped when he saw
me crying and waving my hands.
reader miracle The year The man on the passenger side of
was 1956. My first husband the truck got out and said, “I have
and I and our nine-month-old a car just like this one; let me
baby, Pam, moved from St. see if my key will open the door.”
Louis to Fort Worth, Texas. He It did! I have told so many people
had a job there, and his family that God was the passenger in a red
lived close by as well. We found Ford pickup in October 1956.
a lovely apartment and settled —Evelyn Paine
in quickly. One chilly morning, kennebunkport, maine
I headed for the Laundromat.
I turned on the engine of our
1953 Chevy to warm up the car
and put Pam in her car seat, which
back then was in the front seat. I
locked the car door. Then I put the
basket of laundry in the back seat
and locked the other door. Suddenly,
I realized I had locked the keys and my
baby in the car and locked myself out.
I immediately went into panic mode.
My neighbors had both gone to work,
and there were no cell phones back
then. As I looked up the street, I saw
a red Ford pickup driving toward me.

Evelyn and her daughter, Pam

ranger, lived with his wife and three
children in Mermaid, a rural commu-
nity a few miles east of Charlottetown.
He drove to Mermaid Lake, two
miles away, and hiked past drip-
thigh-high bayberry bush. Printed
on one side was a picture of a mer-
maid. When he untangled the string,
he found a soggy piece of paper at the
end of it, wrapped in plastic.
courtesy evelyn paine

ping spruce and pine and soon en-
tered a cranberry bog. In the bushes
on the shoreline, something flut-
tered and caught his eye. Curious,
he approached to find a silver bal-
loon snagged in the branches of a
At home, Wade carefully removed
the wet note, allowing it to dry. When
his wife, Donna MacKinnon, came
home later, he said, “Look at this,” and
showed her the balloon and note. In-
trigued, she read: “November 8, 1993.

68 dec 2018 ) jan 2019


Happy birthday, Daddy ...” It finished
with a mailing address in Live Oak,
California.
“It’s only November 12,” Wade
exclaimed. “This balloon traveled
3,000 miles in four days!”
“And look,” said Donna, “this is a
Little Mermaid balloon, and it landed
at Mermaid Lake.”
“We have to write to Desiree,” Wade
said. “Maybe we were chosen to help
this little girl.” But he could see that
his wife didn’t feel the same way.
With tears in her eyes, Donna
stepped away from the balloon.
“Such a young girl having to deal with
death—it’s awful,” she said.
Wade placed the note in a drawer
and tied the balloon, still buoyant, to
the railing of the balcony in their liv-
ing room. But the sight of the balloon
made Donna uncomfortable. A few
days later, she stuffed it in a closet.
As the weeks went by, Donna found
herself thinking more and more about
the balloon. It had flown over the
Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes.
Just a few more miles and it would
have landed in the ocean. Instead, it
had stopped there, in Mermaid.
Our three children are so lucky, she
thought. They have two healthy par-
ents. She imagined how their daugh-
ter, Hailey, almost two years old, would
feel if Wade were to die. The next
morning, Donna said to Wade, “You’re
right. We have to try to help Desiree.”
In a Charlottetown bookstore,
Donna bought an adaptation of The
Cover Story Reader ’s Digest
Little Mermaid. A few days later, just
after Christmas, Wade brought home
a birthday card that read “For a Dear
Daughter, Loving Birthday Wishes.”
Donna sat down one morning to
write a letter to Desiree. When she
finished, she tucked it into the birth-
day card, wrapped it up with the book,
and mailed the gift on January 3, 1994.
esiree’s fifth birthday came
D and went quietly with a small
party on January 9. Every day
since they’d released the balloon,
Desiree had asked Rhonda, “Do you
think Daddy has my balloon yet?” Af-
ter her party, she stopped asking.
Late on the afternoon of January
19, the MacKinnons’ package arrived.
Busy cooking dinner, Trish looked
at the unfamiliar return address and
assumed it was a birthday gift for
Desiree from someone in Ken’s fam-
ily. Rhonda and Desiree had moved
back to Yuba City, so Trish decided to
deliver it to Rhonda the next day.
As Trish watched television that
evening, a thought nagged at her.
Why would someone send a parcel for
Desiree to this address? She opened
the package and found the card. “For
a Dear Daughter ...” Her heart raced.
Dear God! she thought, and she
reached for the telephone. It was after
midnight, but she had to call Rhonda.
When Trish, eyes red from weep-
ing, pulled into Rhonda’s driveway
the next morning at 6:45, her daugh-
ter and granddaughter were already
rd.com 69
Reader ’s Digest Cover Story
up. Rhonda and Trish sat Desiree be-
tween them on the couch. Trish said,
“Desiree, this is for you,” and handed
her the parcel. “It’s from your daddy.”
“I know,” said Desiree matter-of-
factly. “Here, Grandma, read it to me.”
“‘Happy birthday from your daddy,’”
Trish began. “‘I guess you must be
wondering who we are. Well, it all
started in November when my hus-
band, Wade, went duck hunting. Guess
what he found? A mermaid balloon
that you sent your daddy ...’” Trish
paused. A tear began to trickle down
Desiree’s cheek. “‘There are no stores
in heaven, so your daddy wanted
someone to do his shopping for him.
I think he picked us because we live
in a town called Mermaid.’” Trish con-
tinued reading: “‘I know your daddy
would want you to be happy and not
sad. I know he loves you very much
and will always be watching over you.
Lots of love, the MacKinnons.’”
When Trish finished, she looked at
Desiree. “I knew Daddy would find a
way not to forget me,” the child said.
Wiping the tears from her eyes,
Trish began to read the Little Mermaid
book that the MacKinnons had sent.
The story was different from the one
Ken had so often read to the child. In
that version, the mermaid lives hap-
pily ever after with the handsome
prince. But in this one, she dies be-
cause a wicked witch has taken her
tail. Three angels carry her away.
As Trish finished reading, she wor-
ried that the ending would upset her
70 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
granddaughter. But Desiree put her
hands on her cheeks with delight.
“She goes to heaven!” she cried.
“That’s why Daddy sent me this book.
Because the mermaid goes to heaven
just like him!”
n mid-February, the MacKinnons
I received a letter from Rhonda: “On
January 19 my little girl’s dream
came true when your parcel arrived.”
During the next few weeks, the
MacKinnons and the Gills often tele-
phoned. Then, in March, Rhonda,
Trish, and Desiree flew the 2,900
miles to Prince Edward Island to meet
the MacKinnons. As the two families
walked through the forest to see the
spot beside the lake where Wade had
found the balloon, Rhonda and De-
siree fell silent. It seemed as though
Ken was there with them.
In the months after, whenever De-
siree wanted to talk about her dad,
she called the MacKinnons. A few
minutes on the phone soothed her as
nothing else could.
“People tell me, ‘What a coinci-
dence that your mermaid balloon
landed so far away at a place called
Mermaid Lake,’” says Rhonda. “But
we know Ken picked the MacKinnons
as a way to send his love to Desiree.
She understands now that her father
is with her always.”
This story originally appeared
in the September 1995 issue of
Reader’s Digest.
 Life-Giving
Touch
By Juliana LaBianca
O
On March 25, 2010, Kate and David
Ogg heard the words every parent
dreads: Their newborn wasn’t going
to make it. Their twins—a girl and a
boy—were born two minutes apart and
14 weeks premature, weighing just over
two pounds each. Doctors had tried to
save the boy for 20 minutes but saw
no improvement. His heartbeat was
nearly gone, and he’d stopped breath-
ing. The baby had just moments to live.
“I saw him gasp, but the doctor said
it was no use,” Kate told the Daily Mail
five years later. “I know it sounds stu-
pid, but if he was still gasping, that
was a sign of life. I wasn’t going to give
up easily.”
Still, the Sydney couple knew this
was likely goodbye. In an effort to
cherish her last minutes with the tiny
boy, Kate asked to hold him.
“I wanted to meet him, and for him
to know us,” Kate told Today. “We’d
resigned ourselves to the fact that we
were going to lose him, and we were
rd.com 71
Reader ’s Digest Cover Story

Photo from Heaven

reader miracle My daughter and only child,
Talena, was killed by a drugged driver in 1994.
It nearly destroyed me, but I kept going somehow.
I had a favorite picture of Talena from when she
was about three—Christmas Day, me sitting on the
floor and her sitting on my lap. The bond between
us was so beautiful. Somehow, I lost that picture
after she died. A few years later, on Christmas Day,
I opened a book and found the photo inside.
I know she sent it to me as a present from heaven. Dayle found this photo of
—Dayle Vickery her and her daughter from
orange park, florida Christmas Day 1987.

his condition. They also talked to him.

“We were trying to entice him to
stay,” Kate told the Daily Mail. “We
explained his name and that he had
a twin that he had to look out for and
how hard we had tried to have him.”

from top: courtesy dayle vickery. courtesy kate ogg

Emily (left), Kate, (center), and Jamie
just trying to make the most of those
last, precious moments.”
Kate unwrapped the boy, whom
the couple had already named Jamie,
from his hospital blanket and or-
dered David to take his shirt off and
join them in bed. The first-time
parents wanted their son to be as
warm as possible and hoped the
skin-to-skin contact would improve
Then something miraculous hap-
pened. Jamie gasped again—and
then he started breathing. Finally, he
reached for his father’s finger.
The couple’s lost boy had made it.
“We’re the luckiest people in the
world,” David told Today.
Eight years later, Jamie and his sis-
ter, Emily, are happy and healthy. The
Oggs only recently told the kids the
story of their birth. “Emily burst into
tears,” Kate said. “She was really up-
set, and she kept hugging Jamie. This
whole experience makes you cherish
them more.”

72 dec 2018 ) jan 2019

 Reader ’s Digest

LAUGH LINES
I hate freeloaders who join in
the New Year’s Eve count-
Call me crazy, but “drop-
ping the ball” does not
sound like a good way to
start off a new year.

The Hanukkah
miracle is that
the menorah oil

days. I re-create
this miracle with
every tube of
toothpaste.
shutterstock (3)

— @daemonic3
Reader ’s Digest

YOUNIVERSE
('yoo-nuh-vers) n.—The
immediate environment of
the terminal narcissist.

74 dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019 | rd.com

 DEPARTMENT OF WIT

By Bill Bouldin
from the del rio news-herald

EST
HE B
D E -UP T

A
M RDS
O
W EVER
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather
a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—
neither more nor less.” —Through the Looking Glass
I agree with Mr. Dumpty: Words have meaning. But surely we can
seize upon a meaning and then create a word to match it. The fol-
lowing words—some culled from the crowdsourced online dictionary
urbandictionary.com and others I’ve concocted myself—don’t exist
according to Merriam-Webster … but should. I call them “worderfuls.”

Illustrations by Jean-Michel Tixier

AFTERCLAPPER
('af-ter-kla-per) n.—The last
person to clap after everyone
else has stopped clapping.
 Department of Wit Reader ’s Digest

dudevorce
A
a crapella
asleep as soon as the
car starts moving. ('dood-vohrs) n.—
When two bros end
(ah kra-'peh-luh) adj.— caroma their friendship.
Sung (badly) while lis- (kah-'roh-muh) n.—
tening to music using The smell of that dullema
headphones. month-old bean burrito (duh-'leh-muh) n.—
under the front seat The choice between
athlethargy that keeps you out of two equally boring
(ath-'leh-ther-jee) n.— the carpool. outcomes.
The triumph of the La-Z-
Boy over the StairMaster. cellfish E
epiphinot
B
basebull
('sel-fish) n.—Someone
who talks on the phone
to the exclusion of
(ih-'pih-fuh-not) n.—
An idea that seems like
('bays-bull) n.—The those he or she is with. an amazing insight to
endless litany of RBIs, the conceiver but is in
ERAs, OPS, WHIP, and chairdrobe fact pointless, mundane,
hits at the fingertips ('chair-drohb) n.— stupid, or incorrect.
of every major-league A chair on which one
basebore. piles clothes that be- errorist
long in the closet. ('air-er-ist) n.—Some-
beerboard Not to be confused one who is repeatedly
('beer-bohrd) v.—To with a floordrobe. or invariably wrong.
extract secret informa-
tion from colleagues by
getting them drunk.
chiptease
('chip-teez) n.—A
F
fauxpology
bag of potato chips (foh-'pah-luh-jee) n.—
blamestorming that seems full but is An insincere expression
('blaym-stohr-ming) mostly air. of regret.
n.—The act of attempt-
ing to identify the per-
son who is most at fault
D
destinesia
I
illiteration
for a plan’s failure. (des-tuh-'nee-zhuh) (il-lih-tuh-'ray-shuhn)

C
carcolepsy
n.—When you get to
where you intended
to go but forget why
n.—The mistaken im-
pression that you know
more about rhetorical
('kahr-kuh-lep-see) n.— you wanted to go devices than you
The tendency to fall there. really do.

rd.com | dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019 77

Reader ’s Digest Department of Wit

internest nonversation two bad acts feel as

('in-ter-nest) n.—The (non-ver-'say-shuhn) good as three.
cocoon of blankets and n.—A completely
pillows you gather meaningless or useless suckrifice
around yourself for conversation. ('suh-krih-fys) n.—
extended periods on Doing what you
the Internet. P absolutely must do,
even though you
M
metox
pregret
(pree-'gret) v.—To know
what you’re about to do
really, really hate it.

('mee-toks) v.—
To take a break from
self-absorption.
N
narcisexual
(nahr-suh-'sek-shoo-
uhl) n.—Someone
attracted only to him-
or herself.
nerdjacking
('nurd-jak-ing) n.—
Filling a conversation
with unnecessary detail
about one’s passion to
an obviously uninter-
ested bystander.
del rio news-herald (june 29, 2018), copyright © bill bouldin, delrionewsherald.com.
is wrong, wrong, wrong
while also knowing you
T
textpectation
will do it anyway. (tekst-pek-'tay-shuhn)
n.—The anticipation
presstitute
('preh-stih-toot) n.—
felt when awaiting a
response to a text.
A biased or one-sided
journalist. typerventilate
(ty-per-'ven-tih-layt)
preteentious v.—To send messages
(prih-'teen-shuhs) in rapid sequence.
adj.—A level of drama
achievable only by a
12-year-old.
U
unlighten
(uhn-'ly-ten) v.—
S
sinergy
To learn something
that makes you
('sih-ner-jee) n.—When dumber.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Fasten Your Hula-Hoops

To help launch their new product in 1958, executives from
the Wham-O company started carrying early versions of the Hula-Hoop on
airplane trips with them, hoping that passengers would ask about the odd toy.
It worked. Americans bought more than 20 million Hula-Hoops in six months.
smithsonian

78 dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019

 Reader ’s Digest

Humor in

UNIFORM

“Three wise men radioed in to say the enemy can now see us.”

At the outpatient sur- “I suppose,” she re- [phone number]?

gery center where I plied. “I’m still cook- Me: Close, but we’re
work, the anesthesiolo- ing it.” —gcfl.net hundreds of miles
gist chats with patients away from the airport.
before their operations Our home number is Caller: (after a pause)
to help them relax. very close to one at So you don’t know
One day, he thought Fort Leonard Wood in who’s going to pick
he recognized a Missouri, and we often me up?
woman as a coworker get calls meant for —notalwaysright.com
from the VA hospital them. Like this one …
where he had trained. Caller: This is [mili-
When the patient tary rank and name]. Got a funny story
confirmed that his I’m at the St. Louis air- about the military or
hunch was correct, the port. When is someone your military family?
anesthesiologist said, going to pick me up? It could be worth
“So tell me, is the food Me: I’m sorry, you have $$$. For details, see
there still as bad as it the wrong number. page 124 or go to
used to be?” Caller: Isn’t this rd.com/submit.

Cartoon by Bill Thomas rd.com 79

Reader ’s Digest
 FIRST PERSON

THE
MAGIC
TRICK
THAT CHANGED
MY LIFE
matthew cohen (cards). courtesy nate staniforth (portrait)

By Nate Staniforth
from the book here is real magic

I
became a magician by accident. When I was nine years old,
I learned how to make a coin disappear. I’d read The Lord
of the Rings and ventured into the adult section of the library
to search for a book of spells—nine being that curious age at
which you’re old enough to work through more than 1,200
pages of arcane fantasy literature but young enough to still hold
out hope that you might find a book of real, actual magic in the
library. The book I found instead taught basic sleight-of-hand
technique, and I dedicated the next months to practice.

Staniforth’s early shows were painful, but from the beginning, he was hooked.

rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 81

Reader ’s Digest
At first the magic wasn’t any good.
At first it wasn’t even magic; it was just
a trick—a bad trick. I spent hours each
day in the bathroom running through
the secret moves in front of the mir-
ror. I dropped the coin over and over,
a thousand times in a day, and after
two weeks of this my mom got a car-
pet sample from the hardware store
and placed it under the mirror to
muffle the sound of the coin falling
again and again.
I had heard my dad work through
passages of new music on the piano,
so I knew how to practice—slowly, de-
liberately, going for precision rather
than speed. One day I tried the illu-
sion in the mirror and the coin van-
ished. It did not look like a magic
trick. It looked like a miracle.
One of the lessons you learn very
early on as a magician is that the most
amazing part of a trick has nothing to
As a kid, Staniforth
practiced for hours.
82 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
do with the secret. The secret is sim-
ple and often dull: a hidden piece of
tape, a small mirror, a duplicate play-
ing card. In this case, the secret was
a series of covert maneuvers to hide
the coin behind my hand in the act of
opening it, a dance of the fingers that
I learned so completely I didn’t even
have to think. I would close my hand,
then open it, and the coin would van-
ish not by skill but by real magic.
One day I made the coin vanish on
the playground. We had been play-
ing football and were standing by
the backstop in the field behind the
school. A dozen people were watch-
ing. I showed the coin to everyone.
Then it disappeared.
The kids screamed. They yelled,
laughed, scrambled away. Everyone
went crazy. This was great. This was
Bilbo Baggins from The Lord of the
Rings terrifying the guests at his birth-
day party by putting the One Ring on
his finger and vanishing.
The teacher on duty crossed the
playground to investigate. Mrs. Tan-
ner was a wiry, vengeful woman who
dominated her classroom with an
appetite for humiliation and an over-
size plastic golf club she wielded like
a weapon, slamming it down on the
courtesy nate staniforth
desks of the unruly and uncommitted.
She marched toward me and de-
manded to know what was going on.
The coin vanished for her too.
“Do it again,” she said, and I did.
I’m sure my hands were shaking,
but when I looked up, everything had

changed. I will remember the look
on her face—the look of wide-eyed,
openmouthed wonder—forever.
Two certainties. First, this was
clearly the greatest thing in the world.
I kept seeing my teacher’s face—the
stern, authoritarian facade melting
into shock, fear, elation, and joy, all
at once. The kids’ too. My classmates
had been transformed for a moment
from a vaguely indifferent, vaguely
hostile pack of scavengers and carni-
vores into real people.
If you could make people feel like
this, why wouldn’t you do it all the
time? Why didn’t everyone do this?
For anyone—but especially for a
nine-year-old boy at a new school—
this transformation is almost indistin-
guishable from real magic.
The second certainty was harder to
reconcile. The more I thought about it,
the stranger it became, and even now
it intrigues me as much as it did that
day on the playground. Here it is: All of
it—the chaos, the shouting, the wide-
eyed wonder—came from a coin trick.
I knew that it was just a trick and
I was just a kid. But the reactions of
the students and the teacher were so
much greater than the sum of these
modest parts that I didn’t know how
to explain them. Something incredible
had happened. I might have caused it,
but it had not come from me. I had
inadvertently tapped into something
visceral and wild: the teacher’s face,
the shouts of fear, astonishment—
and joy. The joy was the hardest to
First Person
explain. Surprise comes easy, but
joy never does. I was an alchemist
who had somehow—unknowingly,
unintentionally—discovered how to
turn lead into gold. Even a nine-year-
old knows this is impossible. You
could only do that with real magic.
he gulf between want-
T ing to become a great ma-
gician and actually doing
it is enormous, however,
and the career of a young
magician is marked as much by hu-
miliation and public failure as it is by
the occasional success. In high school,
I staged a show in the auditorium and
my entire world came out to watch—
600 friends, family members, girls from
school, everyone I wanted to defy or
impress. They all looked on in hor-
ror, fascination, and pity as I twirled
about the stage, frantically trying to
remember every bit of choreography
from every David Copperfield special I
had ever seen. The audience sat mute,
aghast, enduring the spectacle and
waiting for the catastrophe to end.
A few years later, I staged a Harry
Houdini–style underwater escape in
the river that flowed through the mid-
dle of the campus of the University of
Iowa, where I went to school. I stood
on a boat in the middle of the river
wearing nothing but biking shorts and
a thick snarl of chains, padlocks, and
weights around my wrists and ankles.
The sky was dead and gray, and the
water was dead and gray, and a frigid
rd.com 83
Reader ’s Digest
breeze blew across its surface. I had
delayed this stunt by two weeks be-
cause the river was frozen. Now the
ice had cleared and spring had come,
reluctantly, but the water was still
only 52  degrees at the surface, and
colder in the depths below.
Technically, I succeeded. I jumped
into the water, sank to the bottom,
and escaped from the locks and the
chains before swimming to the sur-
face. But it didn’t feel like a success.
When Houdini did it, thousands of
people turned up to watch. I had
about a dozen who stopped on their
way to class, and the police showed
up because someone thought it was a
suicide attempt.
I am living proof, though, that if you
throw enough time and effort at some-
thing—maybe even anything—you
can become good at it. I found inspira-
tion in a quote attributed to Houdini:
“The real secret to my success is sim-
ple: I work from seven in the morning
IF YOU COULD MAKE
PEOPLE FEEL LIKE THIS,
WHY WOULDN’T YOU
DO IT ALL THE TIME?
to midnight and I like it.” This quote
lived on a scrap of paper stuck to the
wall by my bed for ten years. I had hit
Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of
dedicated practice by the time I turned
22, and he’s right—I got pretty good.
The week after I finished school, I
drove to Los Angeles to begin my ca-
reer as a professional magician. I have
never held another job.
or years I have traveled the
F country performing. Every
crowd is different. Some-
times you have to charm
them or cajole them, some-
times you have to entice or fascinate,
and sometimes you have to roll up
your sleeves and fight, winning the
room with a careful blend of intensity
and goodwill, convincing the audi-
ence that you’re either a genius or a
madman and that, either way, they
should probably stop and listen.
Tonight my arrival onstage at a
college in Chicago was met with
a mixture of applause and disdain,
the audience being equal parts
people who came to see a
magic show and people
who came to drink. One
six-foot, 250-pound
bruiser with a crew
cut started booing
even before they
matthew cohen
finished my
introduction.
Now I am
standing

on a table—his table—in the base-
ment of the student union.
“Listen,” I say, scanning the room.
“In a minute, you are going to see
something impossible. Some of you
are going to scream. Some of you are
going to yell. This gentleman right
here is going to soil himself.”
Crew Cut is looking at me like he
wants to fight, but I have him pinned
in his seat with the gaze of 300 people
who are finally paying attention. For
the moment, he can only glower.
“I’m not doing this for the money.
I’m not doing this for the glory. If I
were, I sure wouldn’t be here. I’m
here because I’ve spent my entire life
learning to do something incredible,
and tonight I’m going to share it with
you. When I’m done, you can clap,
you can boo, you can stay, you can
leave—I don’t care.”
This succeeds in shocking them.
Now the entire room has turned to
watch.
“I’m going to give this gentleman
my wallet,” I say. “I’m choosing him
because he’s the biggest guy here and I
need someone to keep the wallet safe.”
I look down at Crew Cut. “What’s
your name?”
He looks at me like he wishes he’d
gone somewhere else this evening.
“Marcus.”
I hand him my wallet. “Marcus, I
want you to put this on the table and
put both hands on top of it. Don’t
open it yet. But make sure that no one
else opens it either. Got it?”
First Person
Marcus nods. I know that if this works,
he will remember this experience for the
rest of his life. He will tell his children
about this moment. I’ve spent six years
developing this illusion, and it has been
worth the effort. If I had five minutes to
justify my entire existence as a magician,
this is what I would perform.
I turn to the rest of the room. “I’m going
to need six random people to help. If
I just asked for volunteers, you might
think that I had confederates in the audi-
ence, so I’m going to take this gentle-
man’s hat”—and here I reach down and
snatch a baseball cap from someone’s
head—“and throw it out into the room. If
you catch it, stand up.”
Thirty seconds later, six people are
standing and the man has his hat back.
“I need each of you to think of a num-
ber between one and fifty. When I point
to you, call your number out loud so
everyone can hear.”
“Sixteen.”
“Thirty-two.”
“Nine.”
“Forty-three.”
“Eleven.”
I pause before the last person, a girl
standing in the back of the room. When
the hat flew toward her a minute ago, she
jumped up to catch it.
“What’s your name?”
“Jessica.”
“Jessica, before you tell me your num-
ber, I just want to say this: When you go
home tonight, you are going to be unable
to sleep. You’re going to lie in bed, star-
ing at the ceiling, driving yourself crazy
rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 85
Reader ’s Digest First Person
wondering what would have hap-
pened if you had named a number
other than the number you are about
to name.”
The audience laughs. Jessica just
listens.
“Before you give me your number,
I want you to know in your heart of
hearts that it was a free choice, that
there is no way I could have gotten
inside your head to make you give me
the number I wanted. Right?”
She nods slowly.
“What number are you thinking of?”
“Fourteen.”
Every great illusion has a moment
of calm before the build to the end,
and right now the room is completely
quiet. At some point the bartender
had started watching and turned off
the music. Everyone is still.
“I want to point out that the odds
of this working by chance alone are
in the trillions. What are the numbers
again? Sixteen, thirty-two, nine, forty-
three, eleven, and fourteen, right?”
Marcus has been sitting at the table
the entire time, holding the wallet and
watching the performance. I point to
the wallet.
“Marcus, could you stand up for a
second?”
He stands. I ask him to hold the
wallet up above his head so everyone
can see, and he does.
“You have been holding my wallet
the entire time. Open it and look in-
side. You should find a lottery ticket.
Take it out.”
86 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com
Marcus opens the wallet and re-
moves the lottery ticket.
“This isn’t a winning ticket. I’m not
a millionaire. But I want you to look at
the numbers. I’m going to hand you
the microphone. Read them out loud.”
I am watching his face now, waiting
for him to see it.
“Oh,” he says quietly. “Oh no.” He
looks at me. His eyes are very wide.
He looks back at the lottery ticket.
“Read the numbers, Marcus.”
Marcus raises the microphone.
“Sixteen, thirty-two, nine, forty-three,
eleven, and fourteen.”
The room explodes. People are on
their feet, screaming and jumping
and turning to one another. Some-
one runs for the exit, knocking over
a table. Jessica has her hands on her
face, her mouth open. Marcus has
dropped the microphone. He is read-
ing the ticket over and over again,
shaking his head and laughing.
I want you to see his face. I want
you to see the joy, the open, un-
affected joy. It’s the kind of joy that
reminds you for a moment that when
the weight of worry, of pain, of anxi-
ety, of the world, has gone, the face
that shines without it is extraordinary.
Magicians get to see people at their
very best, and in this transformation
you can see through the illusion what
can only be described as real, actual
magic.
from the book here is real magic by nate staniforth,
copyright © 2018 by nate staniforth. reprinted with
permission from bloomsbury usa. all rights reserved.
 I have terrible plantar fasciitis.
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foot either doesn't hurt or barely
hurts when wearing them.

Nicole S.

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Reader ’s Digest
 HEALTH & MEDICINE

The

LIFE
SAVER
on Dad’s Computer Screen
A daughter caring for her aging father
finds help—and peace of mind—from
a virtual companion named Pony

By Lauren Smiley
from wired

Photographs by Grant Cornett rd.com 89

Reader ’s Digest

Arlyn Anderson grasped her father’s hand.

“A nursing home would be safer, Dad,” she told him. “No way,” Jim
Anderson interjected. At 91, he wanted to remain in the woodsy
Minnesota cottage he and his wife had built on the shore of Lake
Minnetonka, where she had died in his arms just a year before.
Arlyn had moved from California back to Minnesota two decades
earlier to be near her parents. Now, in 2013, she was fiftysomething
and finding that her father’s decline was all-consuming.

Her father—an inven- (controlled remotely by a

tor, pilot, sailor, and human caregiver) would
general Mr. Fix-It— watch over a home-
started experiencing bound person 24 hours
bouts of paranoia, a sign a day; Arlyn paid that
of Alzheimer’s, in his much for just nine hours
mid-eighties. of in-home help. She
Arlyn’s house was a signed up immediately.
40-minute drive from A Google tablet ar-
the cottage, and she had Jim and his seven-year-old rived a week later. Fol-
been relying on a patch- daughter Arlyn, at home lowing the instructions,
work of technology to in 1968 Arlyn uploaded dozens
keep tabs on her dad. of pictures to the ser-
She set an open laptop on the counter vice’s online portal, including images
so she could chat with him on Skype. of family members and Jim’s boat.
She installed a camera in his kitchen Then, she and her sister Layney Ander-
and another in his bedroom so she son presented the tablet to Jim. “Here,
could check whether he had fallen. Dad. We got you this.”
When she read about a new eldercare An animated German shepherd ap-
service called Care.coach a few weeks peared and started to talk in the same
after broaching the subject of a nursing female voice you hear when using
home, it piqued her interest. For about Google Maps or other Google apps.
$200 a month, a computerized avatar Before Alzheimer’s had taken hold,

90 dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019

 Health & Medicine

Jim would have wanted

Jim, an avid sailor before his
to know exactly how the illness, at Lake Superior
service worked. Now he
simply chatted back.
Within a week, Jim
and his dog, whom he
named Pony, had settled
into a routine. Every
15  minutes or so, Pony
would look for Jim, call-
ing his name if he was
out of view. Sometimes
Jim would “pet” the
sleeping dog onscreen
to rustle her awake. His
touch sent an alert to the
Care.coach worker behind the avatar, Care.coach dashboard to make his
who would launch the tablet’s audio rounds. He talks baseball with a New
and video stream. Pony reminded Jim Jersey man and chats with a woman in
which caretaker would be visiting to North Carolina, who places a cookie
do the tasks that a virtual dog couldn’t: in front of her tablet for him to “eat.”
preparing meals, changing sheets, driv- And he greets Jim, one of his regulars.
ing him to a senior center. Pony would Rochin is 35 years old, a fan of the
read poetry aloud or discuss the news. Spurs and the Cowboys, and a bit of
Sometimes she’d hold up a photo of an introvert, happy to retreat into
Jim’s daughters or his inventions be- his home office each morning. He
tween her paws, prompting him to talk grew up crossing the border to attend
about his past. The dog complimented school in McAllen, Texas, honing the
Jim’s sweater. He reciprocated by pet- English that he now uses to chat with
ting the screen with his finger, send- elderly people in the United States.
ing hearts floating up from the dog’s Rochin was hired in December 2012
courtesy arlyn anderson (2)

head. “I love you, Jim!” Pony told him. as one of Care.coach’s earliest con-
Jim turned to Arlyn and gloated, “She tractors, role-playing 36 hours a week
thinks I’m real good!” as one of the service’s avatars.
In person, Rochin is soft-spoken,
bout 1,500 miles south of with wire spectacles and a beard.

A Lake Minnetonka, in Monter- He lives with his wife and two basset
rey, Mexico, Rodrigo Rochin hounds. But the people on the other
opens his laptop and logs in to the side of the screen don’t know that.

rd.com 91
Reader ’s Digest Health & Medicine
They don’t know his name—or, in
the case of those who have dementia,
such as Jim—that he even exists. It’s
his job to be invisible.
Rochin is one of a dozen Care.coach
employees in Latin America and the
Philippines. Like all the company’s
workers, Rochin keeps meticulous
notes on the people he watches over
so he can coordinate their care with
family members and other workers.
Arlyn started checking Pony’s log and
watching her dad interact with Pony.
Any reservations Arlyn had had about
outsourcing her father’s companion-
ship vanished. Pony eased her anxiety
about leaving Jim alone, and the virtual
dog’s small talk lightened the mood.
ictor Wang, care.coach’s
V CEO , was studying human-
machine interaction at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
when his grandmother in Taiwan was
diagnosed with Lewy body dementia,
a disease that affects memory and
movement. On Skype calls, Wang
watched her grow increasingly debili-
tated. After one such call, a thought
struck him: Could he tap remote labor
to comfort her and others like her?
“I LOVE YOU, JIM!” PONY
TOLD HIM. JIM TURNED TO
ARLYN AND GLOATED,
“SHE THINKS I’M REAL GOOD!”
92 dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019 | rd.com
In 2012, he launched Care.coach
with a fellow MIT student. The compa-
ny’s tablets are now used by hospitals
and health plans across the country. In
a study conducted by Pace University,
Care.coach’s avatars were found to
reduce subjects’ loneliness, delirium,
and falls. A health provider in Massa-
chusetts was able to replace a man’s
11 weekly in-home nurse visits with a
Care.coach tablet. (The man said the
pet’s nagging was like having his wife
back in the house—in a good way.)
Some critics, such as Sherry Turkle,
PhD, a professor of social studies, sci-
ence, and technology at MIT , view
roboticized eldercare as a cop-out.
“This kind of app is making us forget
what we really know about what makes
older people feel sustained,” she says—
caring interpersonal relationships.
For many families, though, provid-
ing long-term, in-person care is sim-
ply unsustainable. Between 2010 and
2030, the population of those older
than 80 is projected to rise 79 percent,
but the number of family caregivers
available is expected to increase
just 1 percent. Among eldercare ex-
perts, there’s a resignation that the
demographics of an aging America

will make technological solutions
unavoidable. Joseph Coughlin, PhD,
director of MIT’s AgeLab, is pragmatic.
“I would always prefer the human
touch over a robot,” he says. “But if
there’s no human available, I would
take high tech in lieu of high touch.”
are.Coach is an amalgam of
C both. The service conveys the
perceptiveness and emotional
intelligence of the humans powering
it but masquerades as an animated
app. One concern is how cognizant
seniors are of being watched over by
strangers. By default, the app explains
to patients that someone is surveilling
them when it’s first introduced. But if
a person is incapable of consenting to
Care.coach’s monitoring, then some-
one must do so on his or her behalf.
Arlyn didn’t worry about deceiving
her dad. Telling Jim about the human
on the other side of the screen “would
have blown the whole charm of it,” she
94 dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019
Jim at Flying Cloud
Airport in Minnesota
(left), and with
his wife, Dorothy
(below)
says. Even Care.coach users who are
completely aware of the person on
the other end of the dashboard tend
to experience the avatar as something
between human, pet, and machine.
When Arlyn first signed up for the
service, she hadn’t anticipated that
she would end up loving—yes, loving,
she says—the avatar as well. She
taught Pony to say “yeah, sure, you
betcha” and “don’t-cha know” like a
courtesy arlyn anderson (2)
Minnesotan, which made her laugh
even more than it did her dad. When
Arlyn collapsed onto the couch after a
long day of caretaking, Pony piped up:
“Arnie, how are you?” (“Arnie” is the
family’s nickname for Arlyn.)
Alone, Arlyn petted the screen—
the way Pony nuzzled her finger was

ARLYN TAUGHT PONY TO SAY
“YEAH, SURE, YOU BETCHA”
LIKE A MINNESOTAN,
WHICH MADE HER LAUGH.
weirdly therapeutic—and told the pet
how hard it was to watch her dad lose
his identity. “I’m here for you,” Pony
said. “I love you, Arnie.”
s time went on, the father,
A daughter, and family “pet” grew
closer. In the summer, Arlyn car-
ried the tablet to the picnic table on the
patio so they could eat lunch overlook-
ing the lake. When Arlyn took her dad
sailing, Jim brought Pony along. (“I
saw mostly sky,” Rochin recalls.) One
day, Pony held up a photo of Jim’s
wife, Dorothy Anderson, between her
paws. It had been more than a year
since his wife’s death, and Jim hardly
mentioned her anymore. That day,
though, he gazed at the photo fondly.
“I still love her,” he declared. Arlyn
rubbed his shoulder, clasping her hand
over her mouth to stifle her crying. “I
am getting emotional, too,” Pony said.
Then Jim leaned toward the picture of
his deceased wife and petted her face
with his finger, the same way he would
to awaken a sleeping Pony.
In early March 2014, Jim fell on his
way to the bathroom. He was checked
into a hospital, then into the nursing
home he’d so wanted to avoid. The
Health & Medicine Reader ’s Digest
Wi-Fi there was spotty, which made it
difficult for Jim and Pony to connect.
That July, in an e-mail from Wang,
Rochin learned that Jim had died in
his sleep. Sitting before his laptop,
Rochin bowed his head and recited a
silent Lord’s Prayer for Jim. Even now,
when a senior will do something that
reminds him of Jim, Rochin feels a
pang. “I still care about them,” he says.
On July 29, 2014, Arlyn carried Pony
to Jim’s funeral, placing the tablet fac-
ing forward on the pew beside her.
She invited any workers behind Pony
who wanted to attend to log in.
A year later, Arlyn finally deleted the
Care.coach service from the tablet—it
felt like a kind of second burial. She
still sighs, “Pony!” when the voice of
her old friend gives her directions as
she drives around Minneapolis, re-
incarnated in Google Maps.
After saying his prayer for Jim,
Rochin logged in to the Care.coach
dashboard to make his rounds. He
ducked into living rooms, kitchens,
and hospital rooms around the United
States—seeing if all was well, seeing if
anybody needed to talk.
wired (december 2017), copyright © 2017
by lauren smiley, wired.com.
rd.com 95
Reader ’s Digest

All
in a Day’s

WORK

I’m a nurse in a hospi-

tal’s children’s ward.
One night, I was at
the nurses’ station
when I heard a little
boy in his room talk-
ing. He kept the patter
up for some time.
Finally, I got on the
intercom and said
softly but firmly, “All
right, Johnny, it’s time
to go to sleep now.”
There was quiet
in the room, and “I have to hang up now. I have an hour
then he said, “OK, to get these reports done.”
God, I will.”
I didn’t hear a
peep from him until a teenage staffer on The process of inter-
morning. her way out and asked, viewing for a new job
—J.C. via e-mail “What are your hours?” is an important step.
Her reply: “Right Don’t screw it up like
I was in a small store now, six to nine be- these job candidates
in a nearby town cause I’m in school. did:
one evening. Wanting But next month it will ✦ Interviewer: What’s
to find out when it be full-time.” your greatest weakness?
opened the next —Darlene Query Candidate: Women.
morning, I stopped Edmonton, Alberta That’s kind of why I’m

96 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 cartoon by Dave Carpenter

 looking for a new job. We asked prospective job applicants
I had an affair with my at our company to fill out a questionnaire.
boss’s wife.
✦ Interviewer: For the line “Choose one word to
Did you bring your summarize your strongest professional
references with you? attribute,” one woman wrote, “I’m good
Candidate: I tried; at following instructions.”
they couldn’t get the —theclever.com
time off work.
✦ Interviewer:
What makes you think
you’re right for a job
working at a fast-food
TAILS FROM THE OFFICE
restaurant?
Candidate: I’m great
with animals.
✦ Interviewer: Where
do you see yourself in
five years?
Candidate: Probably
some sort of exotic
beach somewhere.
—coburgbanks.co.uk

Everyone hates millen-

nials until it’s time to
convert a PDF into a
Word document.
charles mackinnon/solent news

— @saramvalentine

Anything funny
happen to you at work?
It could be worth $$$. When you lied on your CV about having previous
For details, go to sheepdog experience.
rd.com/submit. — @BoringEnormous

rd.com 97
 MILITARY LIFE

You Own
Every Bullet

98 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

 Reader ’s Digest

In the midst of
a tense ambush in Iraq,
a soldier recalls his
father’s valuable lesson

By Matt Susko
from reddit.com

Illustration by Francesco Bongiorni

Reader ’s Digest Military Life

I
remember the first time I ever pointed a weapon at someone
with the intent to kill them. The experience was very different
from how I had imagined it would be—far more ambiguous, con-
fusing, and subjective. The training scenarios and exercises had
never really covered situations like the one I found myself in.
I hadn’t been in Iraq that long, These guys had been here longer than
maybe 60 days. My assignment: gun- I had and clearly knew what was up,
ner for a troop transport vehicle known but they seemed strangely uncon-
as an MRAP. There were 30 or so troops cerned by it. “Getting hit” was spoken
in the platoon, and our mission this of in the same tones as “It’s gonna
evening was a reconnaissance patrol rain” or “We’re gonna be late.” An
taking us to the edge of our battle inconvenience, but not the end of
space, the dividing line between the ar- the world. For a green kid on my first
eas of responsibility for military units. deployment, “getting hit” was a pretty
That was where the bad guys tended to big deal! I hopped into my turret,
collect, much in the same manner that checked my machine gun, secured all
the space between tiles in a bathroom my other gear, and settled in.
collects mold and grime. It turns out the grunts were only
For this assignment, we were the half right. About one mile out of the
Mr. Clean. The plan: look around, talk village, our lead vehicle slammed
to the locals, try to winkle out some to a stop. It missed running over a
actionable intelligence, and then start pressure-detonated IED (think of a
kicking the hornets’ nest. Depending mousetrap wired with three artil-
on where we went, this was either su- lery shells) by mere feet. The pla-
per successful (quite a few of the lo- toon sergeant prepared to call for
cals actually hated the insurgency) or the explosive ordnance disposal
a total bust. unit to come remove the bomb, but
The village had only one road in. the platoon leader cut him off. The
Just like so many other stories in Iraq, leader had had enough. Too many
bad things happen when you are at IED s, too many broken vehicles,
the far end of your leash, late at night, too many broken men. He issued a
on the only ingress/egress route. As new order: Dismount a squad, to be
we mounted up to head back to camp, led by the leader, to take cover and
I heard some of my buddies mutter- watch the site. He then ordered the
ing, “Ugh, we are getting hit tonight.” I vehicles pushed back half a mile and
tried (and failed) to play it cool. We’re hidden in a ditch beside the road
getting hit? I was excited and nervous. with the engines and lights off. We

100 dec 2018 ) jan 2019

were to wait and see whether anyone
came to collect the IED.
After we pulled back, my vehicle
was positioned in a depression with
just the turret peeking out at ground
level. We shut everything down and
settled in for a long night. After about
three hours, through my night vision
goggles I saw a pickup truck exiting
the village. This wasn’t all that unusual
in itself, but the vehicle was traveling
across the field, not on the road, with
no lights on. Naturally, this twitched
my mental antennae. The vehicle was
a little over a mile away and heading
in our direction. Over the intercom,
I let the vehicle commander know
that we had company incoming. He
passed the word to the platoon ser-
geant, who passed it to the platoon
leader, who was on the ground near
the IED. At about 1,500 meters, the or-
der was given to me: “If they get within
300 meters, engage at your discretion.”
It was that simple. No warning shots,
no flares, no second chances.
Waiting for the vehicle to approach
the 300-meter mark was the longest
15 minutes of my life. “At your discre-
tion” wasn’t something I heard very
often as a 21-year-old specialist. I
was being given the power of life and
death over the occupants of that truck,
and they didn’t even know it.
My brain raced. Are these insur-
gents? What if they are doing farm-
work in the middle of the night? (Not
that uncommon in a desert country.)
What if they are driving off-road to
I HEARD SOME
OF MY BUDDIES
MUTTERING,
“UGH, WE
ARE GETTING HIT
TONIGHT.”
avoid the insurgents and IED s they
fear may be on the road? What if it’s
some guy taking a family member to
the hospital? What if they are insur-
gents and the truck explodes when I
shoot it? Hopefully 300 meters is far
enough away …
But what played through my mind,
over and over, was a lesson my father
had taught me ten years before: When
you pull the trigger, the consequences
are yours—forever.
When I was a boy in Sandwich, Mas-
sachusetts, I became interested in fire-
arms and hunting and asked my father
to take me shooting. After some hag-
gling with Mom, he agreed. I remem-
ber sitting down at the dining room
table prior to heading to the range. He
had removed some rifles from the safe
in the basement and instructed me on
rd.com 101

“I’M GOING TO TELL
YOU SOMETHING
IMPORTANT. YOU
CAN’T TAKE A BULLET
BACK ONCE YOU PULL
THE TRIGGER.”
their proper handling. After I gained
his confidence, he fixed me with his
loving, firm gaze and said, “I’m going
to tell you something very simple but
very important. You can’t take a bullet
back once you pull the trigger.”
I smiled and said, “Yeah, Dad, I
know.”
He didn’t even blink. “No, you don’t.
I mean this. You can’t take a bullet
back. Once you pull the trigger, it’s for-
ever. It’s not a movie; it’s not a video
game. No matter how many times you
say ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘It was an accident,’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ that bullet Never.
Comes. Back. Do you understand?” He
reached out and squeezed my shoul-
der. “I’m not trying to scare you, but
rifles are for men, not boys. If you take
this, and we go shooting, you need to
accept responsibility every time you
102 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
pull the trigger. Every bullet. Forever.”
I nodded my head. I remember
tearing up because the enormity
of what he’d said had finally gotten
through. I’d have the power of life and
death over other people. It’s an awe-
some and terrifying responsibility,
and the person I loved and wanted
to impress most in the world had en-
trusted me with this responsibility.
That night in Iraq, I performed
mundane little tasks as the last five
minutes of the lives of those strang-
ers in the truck ticked down. Check-
ing the safety, straightening the
ammo belt so the rounds would feed
correctly and not jam, securing my
earplugs, spitting out my gum. Over
the radio, I checked my clearance to
fire. The platoon leader broke in with
a yelling whisper: “Check fire, repeat,
check fire. DO NOT SHOOT.” That was
weird, I thought. I popped back up to
check the truck. Still coming.
Suddenly, a loud burst of machine
gun fire erupted from the squad sit-
uated near the IED . Tracers arced
across the night sky toward the truck,
low, fast, and deadly. A few scat-
tered rifle shots barked out. Then
silence. The truck cut a sharp turn
back to town and roared off. Our
MRAP raced to where the truck had
turned around, spotlights piercing
the darkness, guns up and out. Two
men—dumped from the truck—lay
on the ground, one twitching and
bleeding. The platoon medic kept
them alive until a medevac helicopter
 Military Life Reader ’s Digest

arrived and ferried them to a hospital.
Though I never learned who they
were or what they were doing, I was
90 percent sure that night, as I am
now, that they were coming out to
pick up the IED and use it later. The
other 10 percent of me sometimes
wonders. If I had shot, regardless of
who was in the vehicle, under the
rules of engagement I would have
been cleared legally. Ethically I be-
lieve I would have been cleared, too,
given the circumstances. Morally, I’m
not so sure. Morally, I believe we an-
swer to a higher power than rules of
engagement, or even the letter of the
law. Morally, I believe someday I’ll be
called to account for the things I’ve
done or neglected to do. Some days,
I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to do
that.
What I am sure of today in my early
30s—the same way I was sure of it on
that moonless March night when I was
21 and when I was a wide-eyed child
at my family dinner table taking in one
of life’s most important lessons—is
that once you pull the trigger, you own
it forever. Because the bullet never,
ever, comes back.
reddit.com (march 2018), copyright © 2018
by matt susko.

Inspirational Quotes (Updated for Modern Life)

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step
costs way too much gas money.”
lao-tzu

“If not us, who? If not now, when maybe after this next episode?”
john f. kennedy

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as

in what direction you are moving where we lie down to take a nap.”
oliver wendell holmes

“It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as
somebody loves you delivers pizza to you.”
roald dahl

“Education costs money. But then so does ignorance boxed wine.

I know which one I’d prefer.”
sir claus moser

rk pendergrass for mcsweeneys.net

rd.com 103
 INSPIRATION

FOUR-LEAF
CL VER One woman’s knack for finding
good fortune

By Teva Harrison
from the walrus

W
hen I was in the third grade, we had a scavenger
hunt at school. We gathered up chalk, pencils,
stones, and poorly hidden tchotchkes, rapidly
filling our checklists. It was a very close race. I
was out of breath when I reached the clover patch in search
of the last, most hard-to-find item: a four-leaf clover.
I was pretty sure that I was going to win. I had a trump card.
The thing is, I have always been able to find four-leaf clovers.
I just see them.
I spent my childhood collecting and pressing four-leaf clovers
into books at my mother’s house. I started with big cloth- and
leather-bound books. Joyce’s Ulysses, the complete works of
 Re ad er ’s Di ge st

Photograph by Matthew Cohen rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan 2019 105

Reader ’s Digest
Shakespeare, my great-grandmother’s
copy of Les Misérables. When I ran out
of romantically bound volumes, I be-
gan to slip my treasures into anything
I could find: well-thumbed fiction
paperbacks, cookbooks. The same is
true in my house today. Shake a book,
and a papery treasure just might fall
into your hand.
I BELIEVE THERE
IS CASUAL MAGIC IN
EVERYDAY ACTS.
A few years ago, in Nova Scotia,
my husband and I pulled off the road
for a picnic. The ground was thick
with clover. Some shoots had four,
five, even six leaves. I lined them up
on the picnic table to admire as my
husband, never yet having found one
four-leaf clover, looked on with awe.
To me, it was simple. The differences
in their shapes popped out, breaking
the pretty pattern of the conventional
clovers with their three perfect leaves.
Two summers back, while wait-
ing for an airport shuttle in Munich, I
found a tiny four-leaf clover in a traf-
fic circle and tucked it into my pass-
port. On the way home, my husband
and I were upgraded to business class.
Friends attributed our good luck to the
clover. I think it’s more likely that we
were upgraded because a flight can-
cellation left us stranded in two cities
on as many continents on subsequent
106 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
nights and a kind customer service rep
took pity on us.
People disagree about whether the
luck lies in the finding or in the pos-
session of a clover. Some believe that
the luck is lost if the four-leaf clover is
even shown to somebody else, while
others think the luck doubles if it is
given away. I believe that positiv-
ity is compounded by sharing. I feel
lucky to find the clovers so often, but I
don’t think they influence my life any
more than it does to share anything a
little special—that momentary close-
ness between you and a friend or a
stranger, as you all lean in to wonder
at a rare find.
hat is luck, anyway? Does
W it mean you can’t take credit
for the things that happen to
you? Should I have kept all the clovers
I found instead of giving them away?
I believe that there is casual magic
in everyday acts. It’s lucky simply to
know what it is to seek out and love a
genetically deformed clover—to know
how to treasure difference. Every time
I see a patch of clover, I feel a compul-
sion to search that cannot be satisfied
until I hold a four-leaf clover in my
hands. It’s a sort of mania.
I had always thought that, being
a simple genetic anomaly, four-leaf
clovers would be fairly common. I
have since learned that one in 10,000
clovers has four leaves. It could be
the result of a recessive gene, a so-
matic mutation, the influence of the

The author lets her eyes relax, and the
distinct shapes of four-leaf clovers pop out.
environment, or any combination of
the three. But isn’t this where science
meets magic?
hough I find clovers all the
T time, I’m not exceptional in this
skill. The Guinness World Re-
cords holder, Edward Martin Sr. from
Cooper Landing, Alaska, had found
111,060 four-leaf clovers when he took
the record in 2007.
david p. leonard/courtesy teva harrison
It’s the finding I love, not the collect-
ing. I’m happiest to give my “lucky”
clovers away. I pass them on to moth-
ers in parks, who show them to their
wide-eyed kids. I delivered one to
the man at my corner store, where it
hangs above the register. Friends slip
them between the business cards in
their wallets for safekeeping.
People ask how I do it. Well, I love
clover: the sweet smell, the common
variant with its cute trio of leaves. I
Inspiration
look at it more than most people do. I
expect that’s the first reason I find so
many. I have a habit of dragging my
fingers or toes across a patch, mo-
mentarily separating the individuals,
which brings irregularities into fo-
cus. That’s part of finding them: not
a hardening of focus, but a softening.
The other reason is artful. Do you re-
member those posters from the 1980s
made up of thick dots? If you looked
too hard, all you’d see was the pattern.
But if you let your eyes slip out of focus,
scenes would appear: dinosaurs, land-
scapes, butterflies—a trick of the eye.
It’s the same with four-leaf clovers.
If you try too hard, you will only ever
see the patch. Instead, slip into a lazy,
soft-focus, summer state of mind.
Drift your hand across a thick patch,
letting the clovers reveal themselves.
Appreciate the ones that have only
three leaves. Common things are
beautiful too. And a four-leaf clover
may show itself to you. Just like that.
That day in third grade, I dived into
the clover patch, skimming the sur-
face with my hands, softening my eyes
to look for irregularities. It took only
moments for a four-leaf clover to fall
into my fingers. Just like that.
Whatever little toy I won that day,
my real prize was the gateway that
the simple act of looking for clovers
opened for me into a lifetime of joy de-
rived from looking closely. The magic
of nature coming up as it pleases.
the walrus (august 10, 2017), copyright © 2017
by teva harrison, thewalrus.ca.
rd.com 107
 TRUE CRIME

The Man Who

RIGGED
the Lottery
He got hold of the winning
numbers—five times. But how?

By Reid Forgrave
from the new york times magazine

illustrations by Francesco Francavilla

 Reader ’s Digest

rd.com | dec 2018 ) jan

rd.com
2019 109
Reader ’s Digest

he video was grainy, but it showed enough to possi-

bly crack open the biggest lottery scam in American

T history. A heavyset man walks into a QuikTrip con-

venience store just off Interstate 80 in Des Moines,
Iowa, two days before Christmas 2010. The hood of
his sweatshirt is pulled over his head, obscuring his
face. He grabs a fountain drink and two hot dogs.
“Hello!” the cashier says brightly.
Head down, the man replies in a
low-pitched drawl: “Hell-ooooh.”
They exchange a few more words.
The man pulls two pieces of paper
from his pocket. The cashier runs
them through the lottery terminal and
then hands over some change. Once
outside, the man pulls off his hood,
gets into his SUV, and drives away.
The pieces of paper were play slips
for Hot Lotto, a lottery game that
was available in 14 states and Wash-
ington, DC. A player (or the game’s
computer) picked five numbers and
then a sixth, known as the Hot Ball.
Players who got all six numbers right
won a jackpot that varied accord-
ing to how many tickets were sold.
At the time of the video, the jack-
pot was approaching $10 million. After a month passed, the Iowa
The stated odds of winning it were Lottery held a news conference to
1 in 10,939,383. note that the money was still un-
Six days later, on December 29, the collected. The lottery issued another
Hot Lotto numbers were selected: public reminder three months af-
3, 12, 16, 26, 33, 11. The next day, the ter the winning numbers were an-
Iowa Lottery announced that a Quik- nounced, then another at six months
Trip in Des Moines had sold the win- and again at nine months, each time
ning ticket. But no one came forward warning that winners had one year to
to claim the now $16.5 million jackpot. claim their money.

110 dec 2018 ) jan 2019


In November 2011, a man named
Philip Johnston, a Canadian attorney,
called in with the correct serial num-
ber from the winning ticket. But when
asked what he’d been wearing when
he bought it, his description of a sports
coat and gray flannel dress pants did
not match the QuikTrip video. Then,
in a subsequent call, the man admit-
ted he had “fibbed”; he said he was
helping a client claim the ticket so the
client wouldn’t be identified.
This was against the Iowa Lottery
rules, which require identities of win-
ners to be public. Lottery officials
were suspicious: The winner’s ano-
nymity was worth $16.5 million?
“I was convinced it would never be
claimed,” says Mary Neubauer, the
Iowa Lottery’s vice president of exter-
nal relations, of the jackpot.
And it wasn’t, until exactly a year af-
ter the drawing—less than two hours
before the 4 p.m. deadline—when
representatives from a Des Moines
law firm showed up at lottery head-
quarters with the winning ticket. The
firm was claiming the prize on be-
half of a trust whose beneficiary was
a corporation in Belize. Its president
was Philip Johnston—the same man
who said he’d worn a sports coat to
buy the ticket.
“It just absolutely stank all over the
place,” says Terry Rich, chief executive
of the Iowa Lottery. So they held on
to the jackpot while the attorney gen-
eral’s office opened an investigation.
But it went nowhere.
True Crime
wo years later, a baby-faced
T district attorney named Rob
Sand inherited the languish-
ing lottery file. In college, Sand had
studied computer coding before go-
ing to law school, where his specialty
was white-collar crime. Still, this case
stumped him. His best evidence was
FRIENDS WONDERED
HOW HE COULD
AFFORD SUCH A BIG
HOUSE ON HIS SALARY.
that grainy video of a man in a hoodie,
so he decided to release the footage
to the media, hoping it might spark
leads—and it did.
The first came from an employee
of the Maine Lottery who recognized
the distinct voice in the video as that
of a man who had conducted a se-
curity audit in their offices. A web
developer at the Iowa Lottery also
recognized the voice: It belonged to
a man she had worked alongside for
years, Eddie Tipton. Eddie was the
information-security director for the
Multi-State Lottery Association, based
in Des Moines. Among the games the
association ran: the Hot Lotto.
ddie cut a big figure around the
E lottery office. He wrote software,
handled network firewalls, and
reviewed security for games in nearly
three dozen states. His life revolved
rd.com 111
Reader ’s Digest
around his job; he sometimes stayed
at his desk until 11 p.m. When a co-
worker was in a bad mood, one col-
league said, Eddie would pat him on
the shoulder and say, “I just want you
to know I’m your friend.”
But he was also a paranoid sort. He
rarely paid with credit cards, worried
about people tracing his identity. In
private moments, Eddie told friends
“DID Y’ALL KNOW?” THE
TIPSTER ASKED.
“EDDIE’S BROTHER WON
THE LOTTERY TOO.”
he was lonely and wanted a fam-
ily more than anything. He built a
4,800-square-foot, $540,000 house in
the cornfields south of Des Moines,
complete with five bedrooms and a
stadium-style home theater. Friends
wondered why a single man needed
such a big house and how he could af-
ford it on his salary. Eddie told them
he had poured his savings into the
house in hopes of filling it with a wife
and children. But the right partner
never came along.
Among Eddie’s friends was a col-
league named Jason Maher. They
spent hours playing the online game
World of Tanks. When Maher saw
the Hot Lotto video that DA Sand
released, Maher immediately recog-
nized that familiar, low-pitched voice,
but he didn’t want to believe it. “That
112 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
night I sat down—there’s no way
Eddie did this,” Maher says. “There’s
got to be something wrong.”
So he did what a computer whiz
does: He put the file into audio soft-
ware, removed the white noise, and
isolated the voice. Then he took
footage from security cameras in his
own house—Eddie had just visited
the night before—and compared the
voices. “It was a complete and utter
match,” Maher said. The next day, he
went to the QuikTrip and measured
the dimensions of the tiles on the
floor, the height of the shelving units,
the distance between the door and the
cash register. He used the results to
compare the hand size, foot size, and
height of the man in the video with his
friend’s. Maher wanted to be able to
tell law enforcement that it wasn’t his
pal Eddie. “Once I did this, it was like,
‘Well, [expletive]—it’s Eddie.’ ”
n January 2015, state investiga-
I tors showed up at Eddie’s office.
He was arrested and charged with
two felony counts of fraud. Half a
year later, on a hot, sticky July morn-
ing, Rob Sand stood before a jury at
the Polk County Courthouse. “This
is a classic story about an inside job,”
he began. “A man who by virtue of his
employment is not allowed to play
the lottery—nor allowed to win—buys
a lottery ticket, wins, and passes the
ticket along to be claimed by someone
unconnected to him.”
The prosecution knew Eddie had

bought the winning ticket—the video
made that pretty clear. So did cell
phone records, which showed Eddie
was in town that day, not out of town
for the holidays as he had claimed. In-
vestigators believed he’d fixed the lot-
tery. But if the numbers are supposed
to be generated randomly, how did he
do it?
Based on his research, Sand theo-
rized that before the Hot Lotto jack-
pot, Eddie had managed to gain
access to one of the two computers
that select the winning numbers and
True Crime
inserted a thumb drive containing a
string of coded instructions he’d writ-
ten. The clandestine software, called a
rootkit, allowed Eddie to restrict the pool
of numbers that could hit—and then it
deleted itself.
The prosecutor told the jury members
that they didn’t have to understand the
exact technology to convict Eddie. They
just had to realize the near-impossible
coincidence of the lottery security chief’s
buying the winning ticket. After deliber-
ating for only five hours, the jury found
Eddie guilty. He appealed.
Then the case took a very strange turn.
ne morning a few months after the
O original trial, Sand’s office phone
rang. The call came from area code
281, in Texas, where Eddie grew up. The
caller said he’d seen an article in the
newspaper about Eddie’s conviction.
“Did y’all know,” the tipster asked, “that
Eddie’s brother Tommy Tipton won the
lottery, maybe about ten years back?”
Sand contacted Richard Rennison, a
special agent at the FBI office in Texas
City, Texas. Rennison said he remem-
bered the case well: In 2006, a man
named Tom Bargas had contacted local
law enforcement with a suspicious story.
Bargas owned 44 fireworks stands. Twice
a year—after the Fourth of July and New
Year’s—he handled enormous amounts of
cash. A man he knew, a local justice of the
peace, called Bargas around New Year’s
and said, “I got half a million in cash that
I want to swap with your money.”
What’s a justice of the peace who
rd.com 113
Reader ’s Digest
makes around $35,000 a
year doing with that much
cash? Bargas thought.
Suspicious, he called the
police, who called the FBI.
Soon, agents listened in as
Bargas met with the jus-
tice of the peace, Tommy
Tipton. Tommy pulled
out a briefcase filled with
$450,000 in cash, still in
Federal Reserve wrappers,
and swapped $100,000
of it for Bargas’s worn, circulated
bills. The FBI then went to work in-
vestigating the serial numbers on the
new bills.
A few months later, Rennison went
to see Tommy. He said that he had hit
the lottery but was on the outs with
his wife and trying to keep the win-
nings from her. A friend had claimed
the $568,990 prize in exchange for
10 percent of the money. At the time, it
all seemed to add up, and the Tommy
Tipton case was closed.
Now Sand suspected that there
were even more illicitly claimed tick-
ets out there. He knew from experi-
ence that white-collar criminals aren’t
usually caught on their first attempt.
In fact, a $783,257.72 jackpot from
a Wisconsin Lottery drawing on De-
cember 29, 2007, had been claimed by
a Texas man named Robert Rhodes—
Eddie Tipton’s best friend. On Novem-
ber 23, 2011, Kyle Conn from Hemphill,
Texas, won $644,478 in the Oklahoma
Lottery. Sand saw that Tommy Tipton
114 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
had three Facebook friends named
Conn. He got a list of possible phone
numbers and cross-referenced them
with Tommy’s cell phone records. An-
other hit.
Two winning Kansas Lottery tickets
with $15,402 payouts were purchased
on December 23, 2010—the day Ed-
die bought the Iowa ticket. Cell phone
records indicated he was driving
through Kansas on the way to Texas
for the holidays. One of the winning
tickets was claimed by a Texan named
Christopher McCoulskey; the other,
by an Iowan named Amy Warrick.
Each was a friend of Eddie’s.
One morning, Sand and an investi-
gator knocked on Warrick’s door. She
told them Eddie had said he wasn’t
able to claim a winning lottery ticket
because of his job. If she could claim
it, he’d said, she could keep a portion
as a gift for her recent engagement.
“You have these honest dupes,”
Sand says. “All these people are being
offered thousands of dollars for doing

something that’s a little bit sneaky but
not illegal.” Investigators in Iowa now
had six tickets they figured were part
of a bigger scam. But the question re-
mained: How did it work?
ortunately, the computers
F used in the 2007 Wisconsin
Lottery jackpot were sitting in
storage. A computer expert, Sean
McLinden, unearthed some mali-
cious computer code. It hadn’t been
hidden; you just needed to know what
to look for.
“This,” says Wisconsin assistant at-
torney general David Maas, “was find-
ing the smoking gun.”
Eddie Tipton pleaded guilty, as did
his brother, Tommy. Now facing ten
years in prison, Eddie agreed to spill
his secrets, which lottery officials
hoped would help them safeguard the
games in the future. He explained that
the whole scheme had started fairly
innocently one day when he walked
past one of the accountants at the
Multi-State Lottery Association. “Hey,
did you put your secret numbers in
there?” the accountant teased Eddie.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, you can set num-
bers on any given day since you wrote
the software.”
“Just like a little seed that was
planted,” Eddie said. “And then dur-
ing one slow period, I tried it.”
To ensure that the winning num-
bers were generated randomly, the
computer took a reading from a
True Crime
Geiger counter that measured radia-
tion in the surrounding air. The ra-
diation reading was plugged into an
algorithm to come up with the win-
ning lottery numbers.
Eddie’s scheme was to limit the
random selection process as much
as possible. His code kicked in only if
the coming drawing fulfilled a narrow
set of circumstances. It had to be on
a Wednesday or a Saturday evening,
and one of three dates in a non–leap
year: the 147th day of the year, the
327th day, or the 363rd day. Investi-
gators noticed those dates generally
fell around holidays—Memorial Day,
Thanksgiving, and Christmas—when
Eddie was often on vacation.
“PLAY THESE NUMBERS,”
HE TOLD HIS BROTHER,
HANDING HIM A LIST.
“PLAY THEM ALL.”
If those criteria were satisfied,
the random-number generator was
diverted to a different track that didn’t
use the Geiger counter reading. In-
stead, the algorithm ran with a pre-
determined number, which restricted
the pool of potential winning num-
bers to a much smaller, predictable
set of options: Rather than millions of
possible winning combinations, there
would be only a few hundred.
The night before the first lottery
he rigged, a $4.8 million jackpot in
rd.com 115
Reader ’s Digest True Crime

Colorado, Eddie stayed late in his Robin Hood, stealing from the lot-
messy, computer-filled office. He set tery and helping people in need: his
a test computer to run the program brother, who had five daughters; his
over and over again and wrote down friend who’d just gotten engaged. “I
all the potential winning numbers on didn’t really need the money,” Eddie
a yellow legal pad. said. The judge noted
The next day, No- that Eddie seemed to
vember 23, 2005, he rationalize his actions—
handed the pad to that he didn’t think it
his brother, who was was necessarily illegal,
headed to Colorado on just taking advantage
a trip. “These numbers of a hole in the system,
have a good chance of sort of like counting
winning based on my cards at a casino.
analysis,” he said. “Play The judge sentenced
them. Play them all.” Eddie Tipton at his Eddie to a maximum of
sentencing hearing in a 25 years in prison. The
n a clear summer brothers’ restitution to

O
Des Moines courthouse
day in Des Moines the various state lotter-
last year, Eddie Tipton, who was ies came to $2.2 million, even though,
then 54, trudged up the stairs of the according to his attorney, Eddie him-
Polk County Courthouse. His hands self pocketed only around $350,000.
were shoved in his pockets, his head Sand expects Eddie to be released
down. He had accepted a plea deal on parole within seven years. Reflect-
for masterminding the massive lottery ing on the case, the prosecutor says he
scam—one count of ongoing criminal felt a deep intellectual satisfaction in
conduct, part of a package deal that solving the puzzle: “The justice sys-
gave his brother only 75 days. Eddie tem at its best is really about a search
was here for his sentencing. for truth.”
In statements to prosecutors, he
new york times magazine (may 3, 2018), copyright
painted himself as a kind of coding © 2018 by new york times co., nytimes.com.

The Luckiest Town Around

ap/shutterstock

Were the 31 oil-refinery employees who shared a $46 million

lottery jackpot this year destined to win? Maybe. After all, they work
in a Canadian town called Come By Chance.
cnn.com

116 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

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 THE
GENIUS
SECTION
10 Pages to sharpen
Your Mind

UNFREEZE
YOUR BRAIN
Can you use these items to attach
the candle to the wall and light
it? Step one is to jettison
tired thinking patterns,
which derail even
the most intelligent
among us.

By Leonard Mlodinow
from the book elastic

118 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 Photographs by Matthew Cohen


n life, once on a path, we tend
I to follow it, for better or worse.
What’s sad is that even if it’s the
latter, we often accept it anyway
because we are so accustomed to
the way things are that we don’t even
recognize that they could be different.
This is a phenomenon psychologists
call functional fixedness. This classic
experiment will give you an idea of
how it works—and a sense of whether
you may have fallen into the same
trap: People are given a box of tacks
and some matches and asked to find
a way to attach a candle to a wall so
that it burns properly.
Typically, the subjects try tacking
the candle to the wall or lighting it
to affix it with melted wax. The psy-
chologists had, of course, arranged it
so that neither of these obvious ap-
proaches would work. The tacks are
too short, and the paraffin doesn’t
bind to the wall. So how can you ac-
complish the task?
The successful technique is to use
the tack box as a candleholder. You
empty it, tack it to the wall, and stand
the candle inside it.
To think of that, you have to look
beyond the box’s usual role as a re-
ceptacle just for tacks and reimagine it
serving an entirely new purpose. That
is difficult because we all suffer—to
one degree or another—from func-
tional fixedness.
The inability to think in new ways af-
fects people in every corner of society.
The political theorist Hannah Arendt
Reader ’s Digest
coined the phrase frozen thoughts to
describe deeply held ideas that we
no longer question but should. In
Arendt’s eyes, the complacent reli-
ance on such accepted “truths” also
made people blind to ideas that didn’t
fit their worldview, even when there
was ample evidence for them. Frozen
thinking has nothing to do with intel-
ligence, she said. “It can be found in
highly intelligent people.”
Arendt was particularly interested
in the origins of evil, and she consid-
ered critical thinking to be a moral
THE INABILITY TO
THINK IN NEW WAYS
AFFECTS ALL
CORNERS OF SOCIETY.
imperative—in its absence, a society
could go the way of Nazi Germany.
Another context in which frozen
thinking can turn truly dangerous is
medicine. If you land in the hospital,
it’s natural to want to be treated by
the most experienced physicians on
staff. But according to a 2014 study in
the Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA), you’d be better off
being treated by the relative novices.
The study examined nearly ten years
of data involving tens of thousands
of hospital admissions and found
that the 30-day mortality rate among
high-risk patients with acute heart
conditions was a third lower when the
rd.com 119
Reader ’s Digest

top doctors were away at conferences.
The JAMA study didn’t pinpoint the
reasons for the decreased death rate,
but the authors explained that most
errors made by doctors are connected
to a tendency to form opinions quickly,
based on experience. In cases that are
not routine, the expert doctors may
miss important aspects of the prob-
lem that are not consistent with their
initial analysis. As a result, although
junior doctors may be slower and less
confident in treating run-of-the-mill
cases, they can be more open-minded
with unusual cases.
Fortunately, psychologists have
found that anyone can unfreeze his or
her thinking. One of the most effective
ways is to introduce a little discord to
one’s intellectual interactions.
Consider a study performed about

HOW TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

In addition to being open to dissenting opinions, here are
some techniques that could help broaden the way you think

1 Change
Environments
A disruption in your
“beginner’s mind” allows
you to remain open to
new experiences despite
life creates an atmosphere
in which people can bet-
ter respond to change.
everyday life may provide any expertise you may
the force needed to alter
the direction of your
thinking. For some
have. For instance, when
you brush your teeth, take
a moment to look at the
4 Shift into Positivity
Unlike negative
emotions that trigger
people, small changes toothbrush as if you’ve specific reactions (e.g.,
might help (reorganizing never laid eyes on such an fear propels us to flee),
your desk or taking a object and notice its color positive emotions prompt
new route to work), and shape. Think about us to broaden our atten-
whereas for others, more the flavor of the tooth- tion, explore our environ-
upheaval (a new job or paste and notice how your ment, and open ourselves
a divorce) is required. mouth feels as you move to absorbing information.
the brush back and forth. Take a few moments to

2 Look as if You’ve
Never Seen
A Zen Buddhist concept 3 Vive la Différence
The mere presence
think about the things
in your life that are going
well and for which you
for approaching even of individuals from are grateful; this will
routine situations as if different backgrounds automatically brighten
you were encountering with different points of your mood—and free
them for the first time, view in your everyday your brain.

120 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

 The Genius Section

half a century ago. The researcher

showed two groups of female vol-
unteers a sequence of blue slides. In
both groups, he asked each individual
to state the color of each slide. In the
experimental group, he had planted
some actors who called the color
green rather than blue. Whom were
they fooling? Nobody. The experi-
mental subjects ignored the deviant
responses. When their turns came, TALKING TO PEOPLE
most of them answered blue, just as
the control group had.
WHO DISAGREE
Then the subjects were asked to WITH YOU IS GOOD
classify a series of paint chips as ei- FOR YOUR BRAIN.
ther green or blue, even though their
color lay between those two pure col-
ors. Amazingly, the people who’d been in contexts unrelated to the original
in the experimental group identified discussion. What this all means is that,
many chips as green while those from as difficult as it can sometimes be, talk-
the control group called the same ones ing to people who disagree with you is
blue. Even though no one in the exper- good for your brain. So if you hate con-
imental group had been convinced by spiracy theories and run into someone
the actors before, their exposure to the who believes that we faked the moon
earlier misidentification had shifted landing, don’t walk away. Have tea
their judgment and made them more with him or her. It can broaden your
open to seeing a color as green. thinking in countless ways.
Other experiments have shown that
excerpted from elastic: flexible thinking in a time
dissent can not only sway us with re- of change by leonard mlodinow, copyright © 2018
gard to the issue at hand; it can also by leonard mlodinow. reprinted with permission
from pantheon books, an imprint of penguin
thaw frozen thinking in general, even random house llc.

Statement required by the Act of August 12, 1970, Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code, showing the ownership, management and circulation of READER’S
DIGEST, published 10 times a year at 44 South Broadway, Floor 7, White Plains, Westchester County, NY 10601, as filed on September 30, 2018.
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Reader ’s Digest

BRAIN GAMES

Win or Lose
difficult The Reds, the Grays, the Blues,
and the Blacks have a round-robin
tournament wherein each team plays
each other team once, for a total of six
games. The Blacks won more games
than the Blues, and the Grays lost more
games than the Blues. The Reds tied the
Blacks, the only tie in the tournament
(a tie counts as neither a win nor a loss).
Who won the game of the Reds versus
the Blues?

Word Sudoku
U D P B N L medium Complete the
grid so that each row, each
B E U D P column, and each three-
by-three frame contains
G D E U the nine letters from the
black box below. A hidden
nine-letter word is in the
G N U diagonal from top left
to bottom right (it may
N H B U G contain repeated letters).

U L H N G P E
win or lose: darren rigby

BDEGHLNPU
L B P
H P N U B For more Brain
Games, go to
P B N E U L D games.rd.com.

122 dec 2018 ) jan 2019

 The Genius Section

Quick Crossword
easy Place the words listed below in the crossword grid.

DUBLIN TOKYO DENVER CAIRO PARIS LILLE LYON NICE BOGOR

100-Word Mystery
medium Lois and Helen,
widowed sisters, lived together
out in the country. Their habits
never changed: up at dawn,
breakfast, some housework
and gardening until lunch. In the
afternoon, Helen napped while
Lois watched her shows—Helen
never watched TV. Then Helen Jake Loves Steak; Trish Loves Fish
would clean the vegetables medium Jacob enjoys steak so much that
for dinner and Lois would cook. the probability that he’ll have it for dinner
In the evening, they’d read be- on any given evening is one in three. The
fore bed. One night before they favorite dish of his wife, Patricia, is fresh
jake loves steak: samantha rideout

turned in, a storm knocked out
the power. Everything was pitch-
black, and Lois began to panic.
“What should we do?” she cried.
Helen just smiled and kept
reading. Why did Helen stay
calm while her sister did not?
fish. The probability that she’ll have it for
dinner on any given evening is one in two.
Because Jacob and Patricia always dine
together, they’ll never have steak and
fish on the same night. On average, how
many times in a 30-day month will they
be having either steak or fish?

For answers, turn to the next page.

rd.com 123
Reader ’s Digest

make
BRAIN GAMES us !
ANSWERS l ugh
a
See page 122.

Win or Lose
the reds. The Blacks tied
one game, so they won a
maximum of two games.
They won more than the
Blues, so the Blues won
a maximum of one game.
Since the Grays lost more
times than the Blues,
the Grays must have lost Caption Contest
all three matches. The What’s your clever description for this
match that the Blues
won must have been picture? Submit your funniest line at
against the Grays, so the rd.com/captioncontest. Winners will
Blues lost the match appear in a future Photo Finish (page 128).
against the Reds.

Word Sudoku Quick Crossword

U H D G P B E N L D U B L I N S C L
B N E U H L D G P S L L S O I I O P A R I S
L G P N D E B U H P Y U G G C O U P I E L L
G P B L E D N H U T O K Y O D E N V E R A L T
N E H B U P L D G N N S R G P O D E O
D U L H N G P B E
E L U D B H G P N 100-Word Mystery Jake Loves Steak;
H D G P L N U E B helen was blind. Trish Loves Fish
P B N E G U H L D 25 nights.

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emilia wilgosz-peter

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124 dec 2018 ) jan 2019

 The Genius Section

9. lambency n.
WORD POWER ('lam-ben-see)
a meekness.
b desperation.
c radiance.
You’re busy at this time of year, so we made
10. abdicate v.
this quiz as easy as a, b, c. All these words ('ab-dih-kayt)
include those letters—in order (ignoring a give up.
some repeats). You’ll find this aerobic mental b start.
c decline to vote.
exercise more fun if you don’t fabricate the
11. Malbec n.
answers, which are on the next page. (mal-'bek)
a coffee blend.
By Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon b French pirate.
c red wine.
1. ambience n. 5. swashbuckler n. 12. abeyance n.
('am-bee-ents) ('swahsh-buh-kler) (uh-'bay-ents)
a act of listening. a studded belt. a following orders.
b stroll. b daring adventurer. b barking.
c atmosphere. c threshing blade. c temporary inactivity.
2. diabolical adj. 6. abacus n. 13. shambolic adj.
(dy-uh-'bah-lih-kuhl) ('a-buh-kuss) (sham-'bah-lik)
a devilish. a sundial. a misleading.
b two-faced. b magic spell. b disorganized.
c acidic. c ancient counting tool. c widely shunned.
3. sabbatical n. 7. rambunctious adj. 14. abscond v.
(suh-'ba-tih-kuhl) (ram-'bunk-shuss) (ab-'skond)
a prayer shawl. a goatlike. a steal away.
b strict command. b unruly. b trip and fall.
c extended leave. c wide-awake. c fail to rhyme.
4. abject adj. 8. ambivalence n. 15. sawbuck n.
('ab-jekt) (am-'bih-vuh-lents) ('saw-buk)
a lofty. a medical aid. a horse trainer.
b lowly. b contradictory feelings. b ten-dollar bill.
c central. c left-handedness. c tree trimmer.

To play an interactive version of Word Power on your iPad,

download the Reader’s Digest app.

rd.com 125
Reader ’
By the Letters
identify what it is in each case?
1. facetious 4. almost
2. nonsupports
3. uncopyrightable
Word Power
ANSWERS
1. ambience (c)
atmosphere. “Randy’s
Slop House” isn’t much
of a name, but the place
actually has a nice
ambience.
2. diabolical (a) devilish.
Wile E. Coyote’s diabolical
schemes usually end as
spectacular failures.
3. sabbatical (c) extended
leave. Dr. Klein is taking
a sabbatical this semester
to finish her book.
4. abject (b) lowly.
The sight of a spider in the
bathtub made Big Joe act
like an abject coward.
5. swashbuckler (b)
daring adventurer.
Robin Hood and Zorro
are two famous fictional
swashbucklers.
126 dec 2018 ) jan 2019
(c) red wine.
(c)
6. abacus (c) ancient
counting tool. I couldn’t 13. shambolic (b)
do my homework, disorganized. Kyle’s
because my dog ate the bachelor pad is always in
beads off my abacus. a shambolic state, with
dirty socks on the floor
7. rambunctious (b) and dishes in the sink.
unruly. Is there anything
more exhausting than 14. abscond (a) steal
babysitting a group of ram- away. Where’s that knave
bunctious five-year-olds? who absconded with
the queen’s tarts?
8. ambivalence (b)
contradictory feelings. 15. sawbuck (b)
I do have some ambiva- ten-dollar bill. “In the old
lence about trapping the days, you could buy dinner
chipmunks in my attic. and a movie for just a saw-
buck,” Jean grumbled as
9. lambency (c) radiance. she pulled out her wallet.
By the moon’s lambency,
the lovers staged their
secret rendezvous.
Vocabulary Ratings
10. abdicate—(a) give up. 9 & below: able
Having failed her account- competitor
ing course, Paulina was 10–12: fabulous
forced to abdicate her role contender
as class treasurer. 13–15: absolute champ
matthew cohen
By the Letters Answers: 1. All five vowels are in alphabetical order.
2. All letters are from the second half of the alphabet. 3. No letter is repeated.
4. Letters are in alphabetical order. 5. Letters are in reverse alphabetical order.
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rd.com 127
Reader ’s Digest The Genius Section

PHOTO FINISH
Your Funniest captions

melissa brandts/national geographic my shot

Winner
Quick, take the picture before those cute humans move!
—John Beck Omaha, Nebraska

Runners-Up
Meet Happy, the Loch Ness squirrel.
—John Hunt Arcadia, Nebraska

And here we find the elusive humans in their natural habitat ...
—Darline Reynolds St. Johnsbury, Vermont

To enter an upcoming caption contest, see the photo on page 124.

128 dec 2018 ) jan 2019 | rd.com

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