OCTOBER 2021

I Speak
“DAD”
By RICHARD
mer ica’s Best
GLOVER
A

FURREVER
PET
PALS
FRIENDS
Patches
& Floyd

INAL
An RD ORIG

20
Most
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HOME
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Lost & Found:

A Miracle Love Story
From INDIANAPOLIS STAR

When (Adult-Onset)
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How to Be From THE HEALTHY.COM

FUNNIER These Farmers

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From THE SUNDAY TIMES From BLOOMBERG
 A Trusted Friend in a Complicated World

Features 70 88
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58
Cover Story
The New Truth
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The latest research
Golden Girl
My mom’s 80th-
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PET BESTIES will help you keep the latest example of
Meet the winners of your levels in check. her wild newfound
our first America’s Best By Bonnie Munday independence.
Pet Pals contest. Warm By Mark anGuS haMlin
fuzzies guaranteed! 78 froM the GloBe and Mail
Drama in real life
Run Over by 92
a Speedboat national intereSt
An accident nearly The Tractor War
killed Carter Viss. If you buy a machine,
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Rd.com | octobeR 2021 1

Reader ’s Digest Contents

Departments
6 Dear Reader
8 Letters
EvEryday HEroEs
10 Furnishing Hope
By ReBecca MeiseR
14 Breath of Life
By andy siMMons
dEpartmEnt of Wit
16 Speaking Fluent
Fatherlish
By RichaRd gloveR
WE found a fix
18 Filter Spam
Texters, and More
tHE food on
your platE
26 I Am Coconut
By Kate lowenstein
and daniel gRitzeR
HoW to
30 Be (Slightly)
Funnier
By eMMa BRooMfield
fRoM the sunday
10
tiMes

On the Cover
Photograph by Mike McGregor

America’s Best Pet Pals������������������������������������������ 58

20 Most Trusted Home Brands �������������������������� 102
angelo MeRendino

Lost & Found: A Miracle Love Story ��������������������� 40

When (Adult-Onset) Allergies Attack ����������������� 47
These Farmers Have a Beef ����������������������������������� 92
I Speak “Dad”����������������������������������������������������������� 16
How to Be Funnier (No Kidding!) ������������������������� 30

2 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm

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Reader ’s Digest Contents

13 Things
34 Keep Current
with Facts about Humor
51
Electric Cars 24
By Emily Goodman Life in These
EvEryday MiraclEs United States
40 The Reunion
of a Lifetime 38
By dana hunsinGEr Laughter, the Best
BEnBow from thE Medicine
indianapolis star
WhErE, Oh WhErE 56 The Healthy
44 Winding All in a Day’s Work 47 Something to
Waterways Sneeze At
77 By BEth wEinhousE
QuOTablE QuOTEs
Humor in 51 I Didn’t Start
54 Naomi Osaka Uniform Working Out

from top: JamEs stEinBErG. olya smolyak/GEtty imaGEs. JamiE ChunG/trunk arChivE
Al Roker
Vince Vaughn Until I Turned 70
By CharlottE hilton
yOur TruE sTOriEs andErsEn
87 Who’s the Boss? 52 News from the
and More World of Medicine

Brain Games
109 The Artist at
Work, and More
113 Word Power
116 Photo Finish

Send letters to letters@rd.com or Letters, Reader’s Digest, PO Box 6100,

Harlan, Iowa 51593-1600. Include your full name, address, e-mail, and
daytime phone number. We may edit letters and use them in all print and elec-
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items, visit rd.com/submit, or write to us at Jokes, 44 South Broadway,
7th Floor, White Plains, NY 10601. We’ll pay you $25 for any joke or gag and
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26
scriptions, renewals, gifts, address changes, payments, account information,
and other inquiries at rd.com/help, or write to us at customercare@rd.com
or Reader’s Digest, PO Box 6095, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1595.

4 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm

Reader ’s Digest
DEAR READER
A Long Road
Home
hen I was a little girl, grow-
W ing up in Anamosa, Iowa,
my favorite thing to do
was read—same as today. So when
I thought about what I wanted to
be when I grew up, I figured I’d be
a librarian. Our town librarian, Mrs.
Tonne, was really important to me
becoming me. The library had a two-
book limit, but she knew I’d blow
through those in just a few days, so
she always let me check out a big
stack. And when I was in fourth grade,
our school librarian, Mrs. Ketelsen,
sent some poems I’d written about
dinosaurs to Highlights magazine. My
first published writing!
At the University of Iowa, majoring
in journalism, I quickly learned that
I did not want to be a newspaper
reporter. I’m shy about interview-
ing people, which amuses almost
everyone who knows me and
thinks I’m outgoing. (I am,
but only with people
I know!) So I was thrilled
when I was selected for
a summer internship at
Reader’s Digest.
6 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm
Ten years after that, I came back to
RD to work as an editor. I’ve worked
at other magazines too, but I’ve spent
most of my career here, reading mag-
azines, newspapers, websites, and
books for stories we could condense;
writing articles; even choosing jokes.
This issue seems like the perfect
one to introduce myself to you all.
“The Tractor War” (page 92) takes me
home to the Midwest. “Something to
from top: Courtesy Jody l. rohlena. matthew Cohen
Sneeze At” (page 47) reminds me of
all the sneezing I did when I moved to
New York City and was suddenly aller-
gic to grasses and trees. “Pet Besties”
(page 58) makes me think about my
cats, brothers Reggie and Smokey,
who are sitting together at the
window as I write. I relate to lots
of our stories this month, and
I hope you do too. Enjoy!
Jody L. Rohlena,
Deputy Editor
Write to me at
letters@rd.com.
 made me laugh so hard
I couldn’t catch my
LETTERS
Notes on the
breath. I usually recycle
the issue or give it to
July/August issue someone else, but this
one I had to keep and
periodically read a few
tweets to put a smile
The Best Dessert in Every State on my face.
—Michelle
Oh boy, this story made my mouth water. Fitzpatrick
But, as a Marylander for 74 years, I’ve never Goose Creek,
had a German cookie. The best treat is a South Carolina
Smith Island Cake, which the state legisla-
Everyday Heroes
ture made Maryland’s official dessert. I enjoyed reading about
Get the Taste of Home crew to try one “The Street Vet” who
of those—they might never leave the state. treats homeless peo-
—Greg White Berlin, Maryland ple’s pets. Our animals
don’t care if we live
in a mansion or on the
The Snake Charmers and created this street. They only want
Great article on a group problem. to be loved and be
of women helping to —Robert Musial taken care of the best
curtail invasive Bur- Grosse Pointe Woods, we can. If we were
mese pythons in the Michigan more like our pets, the
Florida Everglades. world would be a much
What’s missing is how The 100 Funniest better place to live.
those snakes got there Tweets Ever —Michael Wilson
in the first place. My To keep my sense of Marshall, Illinois
guess is owners bought humor during the pan-
them for their “scary demic, I ordered every Quotable Quotes
cool” factor, then Reader’s Digest humor Yo-Yo Ma said, in part,
dumped them in the book I could find. I “The pandemic accen-
wild after the people read a few pages every tuated that part of me
rd photo studio

grew bored or the day until I made it that says why am I use-
snakes got too big. With through the collection. ful?” I have chronic mi-
no native predators, the Your article “The 100 graines, and when I feel
pythons reproduced Funniest Tweets Ever” one hitting, it’s a hot

8 OctOber 2021
 Reader ’s Digest

shower and Yo-Yo Ma’s 13 Things A HAPPY MEDIUM

renditions of the greats I think Idaho’s Bruneau
that help. I can almost Dunes State Park
see him in front of me, should be among your ✦✦ I had to respond to
bow in hand, sweating mentions of America’s your article about feeling
my pain out with every grandest and most happy even when you’re
slide across the strings. notable sand dunes, not. I have a mantra: out
Way before any pan- as it features the tallest of bed, out of your head.
Easier said than done,
demic, I knew his freestanding dune in
but once I give my time
value, and hope he North America.
and energy to others, I
does too. —Melva McKenzie feel happier.
—Amanda Lowery Mountain Home, Idaho
—Teri Miles
Savannah, Georgia StroudSburg,
A World of Good PennSylvania
We Found a Fix What the Conservation
You mention sprinkling Fund did for the resi- ✦✦ I listen to The Happi-
cornstarch on your legs dents of Browns Mill ness Hour radio show and
to more easily brush Park—creating a com- find its philosophy works:
sand off them at the munity farm where I smile a lot and never
beach. I carry a paint- anyone in need can answer “How are you?”
brush for the same use. pick up fruits and vege- with a litany of problems.
I give my chair, toys, tables for free—is a Think about how many
coolers, bag, and feet possibility for every people answer with “just
courteSy maria amador, rd Photo Studio (Photo border)

a good dusting before town. Let’s spread fine” when they’re not at
getting into the car. I the idea! all. Aha, you agree with
our philosophy!
get strange looks, but —Bharat Desai
hey, it works! East Longmeadow, —Toni Kellers
PerkaSie, PennSylvania
—D.s. via e-mail Massachusetts

Parenting Across Generations

Parents don’t just pass down genes, they pass down all
kinds of habits, traditions, and expectations of what it
means to be a good (or not so good) parent. What carry-
overs from your childhood have shaped how you raise
your own kids? Are you as Xbox-averse as your dad was
to Atari? Do you make sure your kids finish the season be-
fore giving up a sport, since your mama didn’t raise a quitter? Tell us (and see
terms) at rd.com/parenting, and we might use your story in an upcoming issue.

Rd.com 9
Reader ’s Digest

For Maria
Paparella’s
clients, new
furniture means
one less thing to
worry about.

10 OctOber 2021 Photograph by Angelo Merendino

 EVERYDAY HEROES
Furnishing
Hope
For ex-foster children to have a seat at the
table, first they need a seat and a table
By Rebecca Meiser
annah Leszyeski was weeks
H away from having a baby, and
the only furniture she had in
her Cleveland, Ohio, apartment was
a crib and an air mattress with a hole
in it. “I had to keep waking up in the
night and fill it,” she says.
One year before, at age 18, she had
aged out of foster care, having been in
the system since she was four when
her single mother was no longer able
to care for her. Leszyeski was now en-
rolled in college hoping to become a
detective. She received a stipend from
a state program that helps former fos-
ter care kids attending college. Still,
niceties such as furniture just weren’t
in her budget.
Then she learned about Chair-ity,
a nonprofit formed by 23-year-old
Maria Paparella. The Cleveland-based
organization provides furniture and
household goods to young adults who
have left foster care. When Leszyeski
reached out to Chair-ity, Paparella
asked what she needed. “Everything,”
she replied. She left it to Paparella to
figure out what “everything” was.
Leszyeski wasn’t home when the
furniture arrived—her brother let the
movers in. But when she walked into
her apartment with her two-day-old
baby boy, she gasped. In the once-
empty apartment stood a full kitchen
set, a bed, a dresser, two end tables, a
desk, and a burgundy armchair with a
footstool for nursing.
“I was like, ‘Wow, they gave me
all of this,’ ” Leszyeski recalls. “I was
already stressed out about being a
Rd.com 11
Reader ’s Digest Everyday Heroes
single mom. It relieved me of a lot.”
Leszyeski’s story isn’t unusual.
There are about 424,000 children in
foster care in the United States. Every
year, around 20,000 young adults (at
age 18 or 21, depending on the state)
age out of the system, often with-
out the support of a trusted adult to
turn to for life advice—or furniture
hand-me-downs.
Paparella first became aware of
foster care in elementary school
when her parents were considering
adopting a child. The plan didn’t
“THE IDEA OF NOT
HAVING A SOFA TO SIT
ON PULLED AT MY
HEARTSTRINGS.”
work out, but Paparella often found
herself thinking about that girl. “I’m
really close with my family, and I just
couldn’t imagine being completely on
my own at 18,” she says.
At 16, Paparella visited Summit
County Children Services in Akron,
Ohio, with a list of questions, try-
ing to understand what aging out
looked like. One of her questions was
“What’s not being met for these young
people?” Near the top of the list was
furniture. “That struck home,” says
Paparella. The idea of “moving into
an apartment and not having a bed
to sleep on or a sofa to sit on—that
pulled at my heartstrings.”
12 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm
Paparella contacted her parents’
friends, asking if they had spare furni-
ture to donate. A local furniture store,
Chez-Del Interiors, offered free ware-
house space and its delivery truck.
Social workers provided referrals.
In between lacrosse games and
college applications, Paparella—with
her dad’s help—added furniture deliv-
ery person to her résumé.
Watching the recipients’ faces when
they receive a bed, a couch—what-
ever—was transformational. Paparella
remembers delivering a gold lamp to
a woman and watching her polish
it lovingly, getting rid of smudges
and fingerprints.
“To think that this thing that hadn’t
been thought about in years now
brought so much happiness to some-
body was amazing,” Paparella says.
Today, Chair-ity has given furniture
to nearly 200 young adults in homes
across six Ohio counties. As word has
gotten out, Paparella has received
donations from people who have
bought new furniture and want to get
rid of their old pieces, people who are
moving, people who have heard of her
work on social networking sites. She’s
convinced these contributions give
the recipients hope and confidence.
Leszyeski agrees. Feeding her baby
on the nursing chair or changing him
at his dressing table gives her a sense
of security. “It makes me feel like I’m
no different than other parents. My
whole life, I’ve felt abnormal,” she
says. Now, “I feel normal.” RD
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Reader ’s Digest Everyday Heroes

Edition. She threw open the back door

Breath of and pulled her friend out, avoiding
the broken glass as best she could.
Life She dragged Simmons a few feet to
safety and laid her on the ground. “I
checked her pulse.” Nothing. “I put
By Andy Simmons my head against her chest.” No sign
of life. “That’s when I started CPR.”
s 17 -year-old Had the accident

A Torri’ell Nor-
wood drove
through St. Peters-
happened a few weeks
earlier, she might not
have known what to
burg, Flor ida, last d o. Bu t No r w o o d ,
February, the laugh- who wants to pursue
ter and chatter from a career in medicine,
the four teenage girls had earned her CPR
inside her car quickly certificate just the day
gave way to screams. before. Kneeling on
As they approached “She always has my back,” the lawn and look-
an intersection, an- Simmons, left, said of Norwood. ing down at her dy-
other car T-boned them, sending their ing friend, Norwood knew she had
black sedan sailing into the yard of a precious little time to practice what
nearby home, coming to a stop only she’d learned.
when it crashed into a tree. She started pumping Simmons’s
As smoke billowed from the other chest with her interlocked fingers and
car, a bystander shouted, “It’s about breathing into her friend’s mouth in
to blow up! Get out!” The impact had hopes of filling her lungs with the kiss
caved in Norwood’s driver’s side door, of life. No response. And then, after
jamming it shut. Shaken, but other- the 30th compression, Simmons be-
wise OK, she crawled out through the gan coughing and gasping for air. The
window. Along with two of her friends, CPR had worked!
Courtesy torri’ell Norwood

who’d also managed to free themselves, Soon, paramedics arrived and

she ran for her life. rushed Simmons to the hospital,
But halfway down the street, she where she received stitches for a gash
realized that her best friend, A’zarria in her forehead. And then she heard
Simmons, wasn’t with them. Norwood how her best friend had saved her
ran back to the wreck and found Sim- life. “I wasn’t shocked,” Simmons told
mons slumped in the back seat. “She CNN. “She will always help any way
wasn’t moving,” Norwood told Inside she can.” RD

14 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm

 DEPARTMENT OF WIT

Speaking Fluent
Fatherlish
Dads have a language all their own,
one that’s not difficult to decipher

By Richard Glover

16 OctOber 2021 illustration by Tim Bower


ave you checked the oil in the
“H car?” my father used to say to
me, his version of “Hello, hope
you are well.” Sometimes our phone
calls would begin with an inquiry
about the oil and end with an inquiry
about the oil, with not a lot in between.
Fathers have a lot of love to give, but
it’s often supplied through the medium
of practical advice. In my experience:
It’s mostly about your motor vehicle.
“How’s the car running?”
“Did you get it serviced?”
“How did you get that scrape on
the side?”
My bomb of a student car—a bat-
tered green Toyota Corona bought
for $500—was the parchment upon
which my father inscribed his pater-
nal affections.
I bet it’s always been so. Back in
ancient Rome, the father would quiz
the son on the state of his chariot.
“Are you keeping the oats up on the
horses?” “Have you checked the
spokes on the wheels?” “How did you
get that scrape on the side?”
The father might then offer some
helpful advice about choosing togas.
“The trick is to buy high-quality gear
and then look after it. That, my son,
is true of clothing, chisels, tridents …”
Why can’t we fathers just say “I love
you” or “It’s great to see you”?
The point is: That’s exactly what we
are saying. You just have to translate
from the language that is Fatherlish.
Listen closely enough and the
phrase “I love you” can be heard in
Reader ’s Digest
the slightly lengthier “I could come
around Saturday and replace the sili-
con seal around the base of your toilet
because I reckon that thing is getting
really stinky.”
The sentiment “You made my life
better from the moment you were
born” may be rarely heard, but the
gist is there in the more common
“I’ll hold the ladder while you get the
leaves out of the gutter.”
And “I admire you, I really do” is
mostly heard in the more idiomatic
“There’s no tread left in those tires;
you need to run down to the garage
first thing Monday.”
When I was 17, I went on my first
road trip—a friend and I in that bat-
tered car. My father stood on the
corner in the predawn of a cold morn-
ing to bid us farewell.
“Highways are dangerous,” he said,
“so don’t try overtaking anything
faster than a horse and buggy. And
take a break every two hours. And
every time you stop for gas, you really
should check the oil.”
At the time we thought his speech
was pretty funny and would chant
“horse-and-buggy, horse-and-buggy”
every time I floored the accelerator to
overtake some other speeding vehicle.
Dad’s long gone now. But after all
these years, I realize that had I owned
a copy of the Fatherlish-to-English
dictionary, I’d have understood that
the speech my friend and I so casu-
ally mocked was simply Dad’s attempt
at affection. RD
Rd.com 17
 WE 1
Rethink the Pumpkin
FOUND Decor You’ve probably carved your
A FIX
5 Tricks to
pumpkins the same way for decades,
cutting the top off and hollowing the
Improve Your Life* innards first, right? BOO! This year,
keep the top attached and wait until
you’re done carving your master-
piece before scooping the seeds.
You’ll have more control over
your design cutting into a
solid, intact pumpkin, and
you can even grab the stem
to use as leverage.

tetra images/getty images

*From RD.com and THEHEALTHY.COM

18 october 2021
 Reader ’s Digest

2
Liven Up
Your Bathroom
gardening Rooms with
limited windows, such
as bathrooms, are great
for privacy but bad for
plants. Or are they? Light
is scarce and moisture
ample on the forest floor
too. Try plants that thrive
there: cast-iron plants,
Chinese evergreens, and
snake plants. Wide leaves
trap even dim sunlight,
and pots can be as big
or small as needed to fill
your tiniest room. Plus,
unlike your mirror, they’ll
love the humidity from
steamy showers.
3
Filter Spam Texters
Tech To avoid annoying spam texts, iPhone users can
go to Settings and select Messages/Filter Unknown
Senders. Android users, open Messages and click on
the three dots in the upper right corner, then tap Set-
tings/Spam Protection/Enable Spam Protection. Texts
from unsaved numbers go to a separate, hidden inbox.
Just switch back if you expect to hear from a new friend.
4
Keep Pots from Boiling Over
cooKing Take your eye off the pasta pot for one second
and you might return to find water boiling over the
side. Avoid a messy stovetop by sticking a toothpick,
laid flat, between lid and pot. This small gap lets steam
escape, which prevents the pot from boiling over
so you don’t have to maintain constant vigilance.
Because, you know—a watched pot and all that.

5
Remove Deodorant Stains
home If you put on a fresh shirt only
to discover a telltale streak of white
deodorant residue, don’t despair. Just
rub another article of clothing (a shirt or
a sock, for instance) against it to transfer
the stain. If you’re already out when you
joleen zubek

notice a smudge, the sleeve or an inside

area of your shirt will do. RD

Rd.com 19
 IS YOUR
BLADDER
ALWAYS
TAKING
YOU ON A
TRIP OF
ITS OWN?

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.
* Based on 24-month TRx shares for all branded to increase or make your blood pressure worse
OAB medications, IMS Health National
Prescription Audit, January 2019–December
2020. THIS INFORMATION DOES NOT IMPLY pressure while you are taking MYRBETRIQ.
SAFETY OR EFFICACY OF ANY PRODUCT;
NO COMPARISONS SHOULD BE MADE.
USE OF MYRBETRIQ
MYRBETRIQ® (mirabegron extended-release
tablets) is a prescription medicine for adults
used to treat overactive bladder (OAB) with
symptoms of urgency, frequency and leakage.
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION
Do not take MYRBETRIQ if you are allergic to
mirabegron or any ingredients in MYRBETRIQ.
MYRBETRIQ may cause your blood pressure
if you have a history of high blood pressure.
You and your doctor should check your blood
Call your doctor if you have increased blood
pressure.
MYRBETRIQ may increase your chances of
not being able to empty your bladder. Tell your

Myrbetriq® is a registered trademark of Astellas Pharma Inc.

All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
©2021 Astellas Pharma US, Inc. All rights reserved. 057-4592-PM 4/21
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION (continued)
doctor right away if you have trouble emptying
your bladder or you have a weak urine stream.
MYRBETRIQ may cause an allergic reaction
with swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue
with or without difficulty breathing. Stop using
MYRBETRIQ and go to the nearest hospital
emergency room right away.
Tell your doctor about all the medicines you
take including medications for overactive
bladder or other medicines especially
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.
Find us on Facebook
and visit Myrbetriq.com
about all of your medical conditions, including if
you have liver or kidney problems.
The most common side effects of
MYRBETRIQ include high blood pressure,
pain or swelling of the nose or throat
(nasopharyngitis), urinary tract infection, and
headache.
For further information, please talk to your
healthcare professional and see Brief
Summary of Prescribing Information for
Myrbetriq® (mirabegron extended-release
tablets) on the following pages.
You are encouraged to report negative side
effects of prescription drugs to the FDA.
Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch
or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Important Facts About MYRBETRIQ®
(mirabegron extended-release tablets) Rx Only

Active Ingredient
Myrbetriq (mirabegron extended-release tablets) 25 mg, 50 mg
Purpose
Overactive Bladder (OAB) Symptoms Treatment

Uses
Myrbetriq (meer-BEH-trick) is a prescription medication used to treat adults with
the following symptoms due to a condition called overactive bladder: Urge urinary
incontinence: a strong need to urinate with leaking or wetting accidents Urgency: a strong
need to urinate right away Frequency: urinating often

Warnings
Do not take Myrbetriq if you are allergic to mirabegron or any of the ingredients in
Myrbetriq. See the end of this summary for a complete list of ingredients in Myrbetriq.

Serious Side Effects

increased blood pressure–You and your doctor should check your blood pressure
while you are taking Myrbetriq. Call your doctor if you have increased blood pressure
inability to empty your bladder (urinary retention)–Tell your doctor right away if
you are unable to empty your bladder angioedema–Myrbetriq may cause an allergic
reaction with swelling of the lips, face, tongue, or throat with or without difficulty breathing.
Stop using Myrbetriq and go to the nearest hospital emergency room right away.

Tell your doctor about all of your medical conditions, including:

liver problems or kidney problems very high uncontrolled blood pressure trouble
emptying your bladder or you have a weak urine stream if you are pregnant or plan to
become pregnant. It is not known if Myrbetriq will harm your unborn baby. Talk to your
doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. if you are breastfeeding or plan to
breastfeed. It is not known if Myrbetriq passes into your breast milk. Talk to your doctor about
the best way to feed your baby if you take Myrbetriq.
Myrbetriq may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may
affect how Myrbetriq works. Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take,
including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements.
Tell your doctor if you take: thioridazine (Mellaril™ or Mellaril-S™)
flecainide (Tambocor®) propafenone (Rythmol®) digoxin (Lanoxin®) solifenacin
succinate (VESIcare®)
 Most Common Side Effects
high blood pressure pain or swelling of the nose or throat (nasopharyngitis) urinary
tract infection headache
Tell your doctor if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away, or if
you have swelling of the face, lips, tongue or throat, hives, skin rash, or itching while taking
Myrbetriq.

These are not all the possible side effects of Myrbetriq. For more information, ask your
doctor or pharmacist. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088
or www.fda.gov/medwatch

Directions
Take Myrbetriq exactly as your doctor tells you to take it Take 1 Myrbetriq tablet 1 time
a day Take Myrbetriq with water and swallow the tablet whole Do not chew, break,
or crush the tablet You can take Myrbetriq with or without food If you miss a dose of
Myrbetriq, take it as soon as possible. If it has been more than 12 hours since taking the
last dose of Myrbetriq tablets, skip that dose and take the next dose at the usual time If
you take too much Myrbetriq, call your doctor or go to the nearest hospital emergency
room right away

Keep Myrbetriq and all medicines out of the reach of children.

Inactive Ingredients
Butylated hydroxytoluene, hydroxypropyl cellulose, hypromellose, magnesium stearate,
polyethylene glycol, polyethylene oxide, red ferric oxide (25 mg Myrbetriq tablet only), and
yellow ferric oxide.

For more information about Myrbetriq, talk to your health care provider.

Myrbetriq® and VESIcare® are registered

trademarks of Astellas Pharma Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of
their respective owners.
©2021 Astellas Pharma US, Inc.
057-4598-PM 4/21
 “I’ve got about 20 pages of questionable Internet comments here.”

“Oh, I’m so glad I suggested to my five-

LIFE
in these
you’re here,” she said.
“I was afraid to enter.
year-old that he go
dressed in his Spider-
I didn’t know if I was Man outfit. “Oh, I
United States
Drew Panckeri/cartoonstock.com
a steer or a heifer.” could never do that,”
—Christine Looney he said. “Then every-
Alger, Michigan one would know that
Outside the ladies’ and I’m Spider-Man.”
men’s rooms of a Texas During the month of —Marilyn Bradfield
steak house, I found a October, our local Massillon, Ohio
confused and anxious barbershop offers a
young woman who discount for children if My husband surprised
sighed with relief when they come in wearing me with a night out
she saw me. a Halloween costume. to celebrate the

24 OctOber 2021
 Reader ’s Digest

I say “I have money tied up in investments” the gravy. Lifting the

to describe returns I haven’t sent back yet. ladle, my husband
asked, “One lump
—twitter@Lucyj_ford or two?”
—Barbara Marshall
anniversary of our first to live with us, I really Chesterfield, Missouri
date. I was reminded put my best culinary
of the man I fell in love foot forward. One eve- My mom used to think
with. We arrived at the ning, he made me feel LGBT was Internet
theater and learned so good about the meal slang for “Let’s get
the movie was playing I’d prepared when he breakfast together.”
at a different location asked his father to pass — twitter@thot_piece
a full hour earlier. I
was reminded of the
man I married.
— twitter@GoodSheWrites WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS
A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
Me, in my teens: This
✦✦ I collect malaprop- ✦✦ Harry Potter is on and
radio station is playing isms. Some good ones: my dad thinks Voldemort’s
my jams. “Sitting back on one’s name is Baltimore.
Me, in my 20s: This bar hinges.” “Bull in a china —twitter@dubstep4dads
is playing my jams. closet.” “Nip it in the
Me, in my 30s: This ✦✦ Yes, I may have mis-
butt.” My favorite
grocery store is playing heard you, but this
came in response
doesn’t mean
my jams. to a first aid
I don’t want
— twitter@mommajessiec questionnaire
a night cat
handed out
any less.
I’m not a good cook. by my wom-
—twitter
There, I admit it. But en’s group. To @Royal_Stein
when my stepson came the question
Olya SMOlyak/gEtty iMagES

“If someone was ✦✦ My boyfriend

choking, what worked in a posh
would you do?” one hotel, and at breakfast
Got a funny story person wrote, “I would someone asked, “Is this
about friends or fam- perform the Hamlet crème fraîche?” He re-
ily? It could be worth Maneuver.” plied, “Yeah, we don’t
$$$. For details, go to —Virginia Cook serve out-of-date food.”
rd.com/submit. ElkridgE, Maryland —twitter@lilyannatrnr

Rd.com 25
 n 2010, Barack Obama was to pay a

FOOD
The
I visit to Mumbai’s Gandhi museum,
where palm trees full of me dotted
the grounds. The president knew me
well; coconuts are a part of life in In-
ON YOUR donesia, where he spent his boyhood.
A later video of him in Laos, coolly sip-
PLATE ping my sweet water straight from my
green shell as if he’d done it a thou-
sand times, became a popular meme.
Yet, before his visit, Indian authorities
methodically removed every last sign
of me from the premises. Why?
They were afraid the president
of the United States would be
taken out by one of me falling
on his head.
Let’s get this out of the
way: My rep as the “killer
fruit” of countless inno-
cents was then and still
is a myth. A repeatedly
misinterpreted 1984 study
greatly exaggerated the
number of deaths I cause by
beaning, and the vicious ru-
mor spread. Today, the only things
about me “to die for” are the some-
I Am Coconut … times too-delicious foods you humans

A Killer Nut? make with me, which include maca-

roons, piña coladas, rich curries, and

Not Even
jamie chung/trunk archive

custardy pies. A decade ago, health

nuts briefly gave me a halo because
some of my saturated fats, called
Close medium-chain triglycerides, may
raise beneficial HDL cholesterol. But
ask a heart doctor today and they’ll
By Kate Lowenstein tell you that coconut oil will raise your
and Daniel Gritzer bad LDL cholesterol as much as it’ll

26 OctOber 2021

raise HDL. Death by coconut, indeed!
You have other wrong ideas about
me. I never look brown and hairy on
the tree, despite what cartoons might
have you believe. In my whole form,
I’m smooth and green, yellow, orange,
pink, or even sometimes red. And you
may think I’m a nut, but I’m actually
a drupe (a fleshy fruit with a single
seed in the center), as is a cherry, an
apricot, or a peach. And even if you
already knew that botanical factoid,
you’re likely mistaken about what part
of me you’re eating.
Picture a young coconut—you
know, the green things that get hacked
open with a machete so that you (or
the president) can drink the water
within. That green part is my skin,
and the fibrous beige stuff hacked
through is my flesh, essentially an
inedible husk. Inside that is the shell
of my seed, within which you’ll find
the nutrients of my endosperm. When
I’m young, that endosperm is mostly
water—the sweet, vaguely nutty juice
that since 2004 has been bottled and
sold across the United States and is
now a $5 billion industry worldwide.
As I grow, solids start depositing on
my shell’s inside surface until little
water is left and there’s lots of firm
white jellylike flesh, ready to eat. So
rebecca simpson steele
the brown hairy “coconuts” you see at
the store aren’t me. They’re my seeds.
I am native to very warm, humid
coastal locations in India, Thailand,
Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Indo-
nesia, of course, but I likely go back
Reader ’s Digest
SOFT AND
TENDER
COCONUT
MACAROONS
Preheat oven to 350˚F and line a
rimmed baking sheet with parchment.
In a mixing bowl, stir together one
14-ounce bag sweetened flaked coco-
nut with one 5.4-ounce can coconut
cream, 5 fluid ounces evaporated milk,
½ teaspoon vanilla extract, and a pinch
of salt until thoroughly combined. Fold
in the stiffly beaten whites of two large
eggs. (It’s OK if the eggs mostly deflate
during folding.) Using clean hands, form
the coconut mixture into mounds the
size of your choice (about 20 golf-ball-
size mounds). Arrange on the prepared
baking sheet. Bake, rotating the sheet
front to back once halfway through,
until macaroons are deep golden brown
all over, about 35 minutes. Let cool on
the baking sheet, then transfer to an
airtight container and store at room
temperature.
further in America than previously
thought. For the longest time, anthro-
pologists and historians believed that
the only way early humans could have
made it to the Americas was via ice
bridges connecting Russia to Alaska,
Rd.com 27
Reader ’s Digest The Food on Your Plate

but recent theories propose that in-
trepid migrants from Polynesia got
here by sea—likely with a heavy re-
liance on me. And no wonder: I’m a
long-lasting source of food and water,
and my fibrous flesh is used to make
rope, mats, mattress stuffing, and fish-
ing nets. My shell can be turned into
charcoal for fire or used as a bowl or
musical instrument. My leaves are
used for thatching roofs and making
brooms and baskets, while my trunks
are used for building houses, boats,
and drums. My tree’s roots have an
array of folk medicinal uses and pro-
duce pigments that become dyes—
and their frayed ends have even been
repurposed as toothbrushes. With all
that, you can imagine how coconut-
rich cultures could thrive and spread
across vast ocean distances.
Let me leave you with a sweeter
presidential tale. A World War II naval
patrol boat commanded by one John
F. Kennedy was destroyed in 1943 by a
Japanese warship. JFK and his surviv-
ing crew were stranded on an island
and quickly running out of options.
They were hungry, thirsty, and nurs-
ing injuries when they encountered
two friendly native coast-watchers.
JFK scratched a message into a coco-
nut shell: “NAURO ISL ... COMMANDER
... NATIVE KNOWS POS’IT ... HE CAN PI-
LOT ... 11 ALIVE ... NEED SMALL BOAT
... KENNEDY.”
The coast-watchers delivered this to
Allied forces, who managed to stage
a rescue and get the crew back. Years
later, Judge Ernest W. Gibson Jr., a
colonel in the South Pacific during
the war, gave the coconut shell to the
newly elected president, who had it
turned into a paperweight. It sat on
his desk in the Oval Office throughout
his presidency and now is a center-
piece of the John F. Kennedy Library
in Boston—as proof that we coconuts
don’t take lives, we save them. RD
Kate Lowenstein is a health journalist
and the editor-in-chief at Vice; Daniel
Gritzer is the culinary director of the
cooking site Serious Eats.

A New Ocean Just Dropped

The National Geographic Society has been mapping
the world’s oceans since 1915, but this year the cartographers
produced a surprise: a fifth ocean! It’s the body of water
surrounding Antarctica that’s been carved from the nearby
Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans by the fast-moving
Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The society is calling
this new fifth sea-ster the Southern Ocean,
which is certainly accurate, if a little boring.

28 october 2021 | rd.com

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30 OctOber 2021

ow would you feel if a col-
H league suggested you take a
comedy class to improve your
sense of humor? I felt crushed.
At home that evening, I asked my
other half whether he thinks I’m
funny. Then I texted my best friend.
Then my brother. And his wife. “Of
course you are,” they all reassured me.
What else could they say? And any-
way, I’d already made up my mind.
Some people just aren’t funny, and
I’m one of them.
Yet, according to Jennifer Aaker
and Naomi Bagdonas—authors
of the book Humor, Seriously, and
experts on the subject—humor is
not something you are born with
or without. Rather, it’s a muscle
you can strengthen. What’s more,
finding our funny sides makes us
appear more competent and con-
fident, strengthens relationships,
unlocks creativity, boosts resilience,
and makes us more likable. It helps in
any life situation.
This undoubtedly explains why
future masters of the universe are
eagerly signing up for the humor
course Aaker and Bagdonas teach at
Stanford’s Graduate School of Busi-
ness. They agreed to teach me how to
find my funny bones, too.
My first interaction with the pair is
over e-mail and, as you would hope,
they are very amusing— not gag-a-
Joleen zubek
minute, try-hard funny, but witty and
warm. They begin by sending me a
lengthy questionnaire about what I
Reader ’s Digest
find funny, what I don’t, and how I
attempt to make others laugh. The
results will apparently reveal my
humor type.
In our first call, Aaker, a social psy-
chologist, explains that many of us
leave humor behind when we arrive
at adulthood: A four-year-old laughs
up to 300 times a day. A 40-year-old
takes ten weeks to laugh as much.
Next, we discuss the common
misconceptions that stop many of us
in our comedy tracks. The first, Aaker
says, is the belief that humor has no
place in certain situations, especially
at work. We worry about harming our
PEOPLE LAUGH AT
WHAT’S REAL. MINE
YOUR LIFE FOR TRUTH
AND INCONGRUITY.
credibility and about not being taken
seriously, but 98 percent of top execu-
tives say they prefer employees with
a sense of humor and 84 percent of
bosses believe those employees do
better work.
Then there is the idea that it is
too risky to unleash your humor—
that your big line will be greeted by
silence or, worse, by someone taking
offense. But just because your one-
liner doesn’t make everyone fall over
in hysterics doesn’t make it a failure,
Bagdonas argues. The key is to show
that you’re having a go. If you feel
Rd.com 31
Reader ’s Digest

uncomfortable making the jokes, Every joke follows the fundamental

leave them to someone else. It’s far structure of setup and punch line. The
more important simply to show you setup is the observation or truth, and
have a sense of humor. the punch line is what surprises and
There are, Aaker and Bagdonas amuses. The most obvious techniques
explain, four primary styles of humor: are exaggerating or applying the rule
the Stand-Up (ruffles feathers, loves of three, where you list two normal el-
an audience), the Sweetheart (gentle, ements and then add an unexpected
uplifting humor), the Magnet (an ani-
mated crowd-pleaser), and the Sniper
(sarcastic, edgy, and more interested THE GOAL ISN’T
in one-liners than in having friends). RAUCOUS LAUGHTER.
Which one am I? I’m hoping for
Sweetheart or Magnet. Alas, my
YOU’RE JUST TRYING
survey results come back Sniper. My TO CONNECT.
humor is “an acquired taste,” “leaning
toward dry and sarcastic” with “a be-
lief that there are no off-limit topics.”
“You just have to be conscientious
in picking your shots,” Bagdonas says.
“Or activate some other humor styles
when the situation calls for it.”
If I’m going to broaden my range,
I’ll need some tips—and the lecturers
have these in abundance. In research-
ing their course, they have quizzed
conventional comedians (such as
Saturday Night Live writers) as well as third one. Amy Schumer, for instance,
distinguished dignitaries (former Sec- opened a show in Denver in 2017 by
retary of State Madeleine Albright). At saying, “This past year I’ve gotten very
all levels, the same basic rules apply. rich, famous, and humble.”
“The lowest bar for humor is just Bagdonas has her own favorite
naming what is true,” Bagdonas says. technique. “I use callbacks all the
“People will laugh at something that’s time at conferences,” she says. “I’ll lis-
real, so mine your life for truth and ten to the person who speaks before
incongruity.” Maybe you’re the CEO me and whatever caused a laugh is
at work but the intern to your teen- the first thing I’ll make reference to.
dale may

agers at home. Or maybe the vending It warms people up because we now

machine at the gym sells only candy. have an inside joke together.”

32 OctOber 2021
 How To ...

And remember: The goal isn’t to
elicit raucous laughter. You’re just
trying to create a connection beyond
generic platitudes.
Speaking of which, hands up if
you’ve ever started an e-mail with “I
hope this note finds you well.” I admit
to Aaker and Bagdonas that I have,
and they wince. Hoping a note finds
a person well is robotic. Talk like a
human instead. They also suggest a
creative e-mail sign-off to break the
monotony. They see my “With very
best wishes” and raise it with “Yours,
heavily caffeinated.”
So convinced are they of the power
of humor that Aaker and Bag donas
also advocate its ability to help peo-
ple avoid—and get out of—sticky
situations. Humor has been proved to
enhance creativity. Research shows
that people who watch a funny video
before trying to solve a puzzle are
twice as likely to be successful. And
when we do make mistakes, learning
to laugh at them can have a positive
impact on our psychology. It takes
off the pressure. And if you show
colleagues, or even an angry spouse,
that you aren’t afraid to laugh at your
own screwups, they’ll feel safer own-
ing up to theirs.
But we can’t laugh our way out of
everything. “What we find funny—or
appropriate—is far from universal,”
Aaker admits. “If you’re not sure
where the line is, try out your humor
with a safe circle of trusted testers.”
If you do miss the mark, then own
it. Recovering from a humor fail is a
three-step process. The first is sim-
ply to recognize that it happened.
Second, you need to diagnose what
went wrong. Finally, you need to rec-
tify it. Apologize and learn from it.
In the days following my master
class, I tried to gauge whether my
humor had changed. I like to think
my e-mail game has improved—less
dull and with the occasional LOL.
Callbacks to previous conversations
have certainly warmed up frosty
phone calls. And I’ve quieted my in-
ner critic over worries about not be-
ing funny. I’m not an entertainer, but
I can share a joke and that’s enough. I
laugh loudly, for example, when I get
an e-mail congratulating me on my
honorary MBA from Stanford. I have
a master’s in comedy. Now all I need
to do is add it to my LinkedIn profile.
And I’m only half joking. RD
The Sunday TimeS (SepTember 27, 2020), CopyrighT ©
2020 by newS uK & ireland limiTed, TheTimeS.Co.uK

The Power of (Star)Bucks

Elon Musk is now worth $208 billion.
You want to know how he did it? He skipped 34.67 billion lattes. It’s that easy.
@STephenpunwaSi

Rd.com 33
 13 THINGS
Keep Current with Facts
About Electric Cars
By Emily Goodman
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs)
1 grew 40 percent last year world-
wide. Stateside, nearly a third
of drivers want their next car to
be electric. They’ll have options:
Almost 100 pure-electric vehicles
are set to debut by the end of 2024.
Many manufacturers, including GM,
Jeep, and Volvo, have pledged to
offer fully electric lineups before
this decade is done.
34 OctOber 2021
But electric cars are nothing
2 new. Scottish inventor Robert
Anderson developed the first
electric carriage around 1832, then
William Morrison of Iowa perfected
the model decades later. By the turn
of the century, nearly a third of all
road vehicles in the United States
were electric. (Ford’s mass-produced
Model T then swung the pendulum
toward gas-powered engines.) One
Illustration by Serge Bloch
 Reader ’s Digest

of the earliest EV en- buying incentives if more damage. The

thusiasts was the father you’re switching to an upcoming electric
of electricity himself, electric vehicle. Some GMC Hummer will
Thomas Edison. models will even qual- top 9,000 pounds—
ify you for a federal tax 900 more than its gas-
Edison foresaw credit of up to $7,500. powered counterpart.

3 that electric cars

would need to de- Then there are Electric pickup
pend on rechargeable
batteries, though he
was unsuccessful in de-
5 the long-term
savings. A typical
EV owner spends
7 trucks can haul
about as much
as conventional ones.
veloping one himself. between $6,000 and While Ford showed a
Perhaps ironically, one $10,000 less than a con- prototype of its electric
of today’s best-known ventional car owner on F-150 pulling a million-
electric car companies vehicle maintenance. pound freight train in
bears the name of his One reason: EVs don’t 2019, the vehicle’s offi-
rival, Nikola Tesla. But have transmissions or cial maximum capacity
while Tesla wanted clutches, two of the is 10,000 pounds. (The
energy to be free, Tesla costliest parts to repair. 2021 Ford F-150 has an
Inc. released its original And without much of upper limit of 11,300.)
Roadster in 2008 for a the usual machinery But if it’s your EV that
cool $109,000. under the hood, that needs towing, don’t use
space becomes a front a rope or lift. Doing so
Some EVs are still trunk—often called could damage the mo-

4 eye-wateringly
expensive. Tesla’s
upcoming reimagined
a frunk.

So, where does

tors that generate the
car’s electricity. Best to
have a flatbed take it to
Roadster will start at
$200,000, while Tesla’s
current cheapest model
6 the battery go? It’s
usually the entire
floor of the vehicle.
the nearest mechanic,
or to a charging station
if it just needs juice.
is $41,000. Plenty of Having such a large
other EVs are even and low-to-the-ground There are about
more affordable. Chevy,
Nissan, and Hyundai
all offer models for
power train helps when
hugging corners. But
it could spell disaster
8 22,000 public
charging ports
nationwide, a number
around $30,000. When during collisions, in that is expected to
assessing the cost of which lighter vehicles— more than triple by
an EV, keep in mind and the people in 2023. But for most EV
that many states offer them—usually sustain owners, charging at

Rd.com 35
Reader ’s Digest 13 Things

home is the way to go. but without the classic not damage any of the
It takes longer (about vroom vroom we expect electrical components
ten hours compared to to hear when we floor or the battery because
less than one at public it. That quietness can these systems are spe-
ports), but you can catch pedestrians off cially sealed to prevent
do it overnight when guard and strikes some water intrusion. What
electricity is cheapest. drivers as eerie. That’s you do need to watch
Standard household why several electric au- out for, however, is
outlets have sufficient tomakers have turned extreme cold or heat.
juice to charge EVs. to sound designers to Both will affect the
Faster wall-mounted replicate these coveted battery and reduce
units can cost $500 to engine noises. an EV’s range.
$700 plus installation.
The manufac- While EVs

9
The average
EV gets about
250 miles from a
11 turing process
can be musical.
At a Xpeng Motors
13 produce far
fewer emis-
sions than conventional
full charge, which is far factory in Zhaoqing, cars do, they aren’t
less than the distance China, EV-building ro- without environmental
most gas-powered cars bots play Celine Dion’s implications. Coal is
can go on a full tank. “My Heart Will Go On” still burned to create
But EVs are catching as they work. China is the electricity that
up. Tesla comes the building EV factories charges them. And EV
closest. Its 2020 Model almost as fast as the production is emission-
S gets about 400 miles rest of the world’s intensive because of
on a single charge, and countries combined. the need to extract
the newer 2021 version China is also home to cobalt and lithium for
gets closer to 500. 800,000 public charging the batteries. Power
Charging technology is stations. That’s nearly grids need to become
also improving. BMW twice as many as those carbon-free and EV
makes a fast-charging in the rest of the world. batteries fully recycla-
system that adds about ble before EVs can be
60 miles of drive time Electronics truly emission-free. RDR
in about six minutes.

EVs go from
12 and water
typically don’t
mix, but you can run
SourceS: Afdc.energy.gov,
AutonewS.com, BritAnnicA.com,

10
cArAnddriver.com, cArS.uSnewS
zero to 60 mph an electric car through .com, cnn.com, conSumerreportS
.org, drivingelectric.com,
faster than a car wash without ediSon.rutgerS.edu, energy.gov,
inSideevS.com, npr.org,
conventional cars do, worry. The water will nytimeS.com, time.com

36 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm

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 LAUGHTER
The best Medicine

“If there’s a way in, they’ll find it.”

A farmer has a problem Sister Mary donned her look for a container.
with foxes eating his habit and got into her All she could find was
hens. He asks the vintage auto. About a bedpan. She walked
smartest person he a mile down the road, back to the station and Drew Panckeri/cartoonstock.com
knows, a physicist, to she ran out of gas. filled the bedpan as
help him. The physicist Fortunately, there best she could. Then
spends all day thinking was a gas station on she walked back to her
and calculating. Then, the next block, so she auto and began pour-
finally, he says, “I’ve walked over. But when ing the gas from the
found a solution! But she got there, it was bedpan into the tank.
it will work only for out of gas cans. From across the
spherical chickens Sister Mary walked street, two Baptist min-
inside a vacuum.” back to her car and isters were watching
—Factinator.com opened the trunk to all of this. One minister

38 OctOber 2021
 Reader ’s Digest

I think that being an astronaut on the during his lecture.

way to the moon would be the worst time “Hey,” the teacher
yells to the girl sitting
to find out you’re a werewolf. next to the sleeping
—Leonard Chan, comedian student, “wake that
kid up!”
turned to the other A teacher is droning “You’re the one
and said, “If that car on and on when he who put him to sleep,”
starts, I’m converting notices that a student she calls back to the
to Catholicism.” sitting all the way at teacher with a shrug.
—Submitted by the back of the class- “You wake him up!”
John Mendonca room has fallen asleep —learnenglish.de
Stockton, California

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Rd.com 39
 EVERYDAY MIRACLES

The Reunion of a Lifetime

By Dana Hunsinger Benbow
from the IndIanapolIs star

n a spring day in 1968, the will keep it secret. If you want Donna

O Cougill and Horn families sat

down to talk. Donna Horn, a
beautiful high school cheerleader,
was pregnant. Joe Cougill, a star high
school athlete, was the father.
“Joe will do whatever you want him
to,” Joe’s dad said to Donna’s dad,
according to Joe. “If you want Joe to
marry Donna, he will marry Donna. If
you want Joe to keep this secret, Joe
to have the baby, Joe will support her.
If you don’t want him to be part of her
life, Joe won’t.”
Donna’s father wanted Joe to never
speak to his daughter again.
Amid tears and heartbreak, the
mandate was issued by the parents,
the promise was made by the teens,
and an abrupt end was brought to a
two-year love story. Joe and Donna

40 OctOber 2021 Illustration by Gel Jamlang


would never call each other again.
For five decades, they made good
on that promise. Then one day
51 years later, the baby that tore them
apart brought them together, and they
fell in love all over again.
Joe was waiting to have lunch with
his son. It was June 29, 2019, and
across Joe’s phone came a text from a
woman named Laura Mabry.
Hi Joe, I got your name from Donna.
I don’t know how to lob this to you but
I think you’re my biological father. I
don’t want anything from you. I just
want to find out where I came from.
“My head just dropped onto the
desk, going, ‘What?’ ” says Joe. “Obvi-
ously, Donna and I spent two years
together in high school. Obviously,
we knew she got pregnant.”
But Joe never knew what had hap-
pened after that. Did Donna have the
baby? Did she keep the baby?
Over the years, Joe would think
about Donna. “And I thought, ‘Do I
have a son? Do I have a daughter?’ ”
he says. “I can’t tell you how many
times I had wondered.”
Laura had wondered too. What
were her biological parents like? She
had grown up with a wonderful mom
and dad, a great life in Indianapolis.
“But as an adopted person, you
grow up thinking, ‘I don’t really look
like my family,’ ” says Laura, who now
lives in Arkansas. “I did always have a
general curiosity. It wasn’t nagging at
me, but it was always there.”
Reader ’s Digest
Then in 1995, Laura had her son.
And in 1998, she had her daughter.
“It was the first time in my life that
a person really looked like me,” she
says. “And it made me think, There is
someone else that looks like me.”
Her curiosity about where she came
from grew more intense. But it was
the 1990s, and using the Internet to
search and connect wasn’t as easy as
it is today.
Then life got in the way. Laura
pushed the idea to the back of her
mind, but it never left.
They had met in the fall as the leaves
turned and classes began. Joe was a
freshman at Franklin Central High
School in Indianapolis and Donna a
sophomore.
Except for school, they didn’t see
each other much in the beginning. A
sweet smile in the hallway, a wink at
lunch, a note passed after class. During
the week, they weren’t allowed to date.
At home each evening, though,
their parents let them have a ten-
minute phone call. Joe and Donna
would try to find spots in their houses
to talk so they could whisper their
feelings and no one else could hear.
“She was all I wanted, and I was
all she wanted,” Joe says.
At school, Joe was a superstar. He
was the starting varsity quarterback
as a freshman, then started on the
varsity basketball team. He was the
second-fastest runner on the track
squad. The next year, he became
Rd.com 41
Reader ’s Digest
Franklin Central’s star baseball pitcher.
Donna went to as many of Joe’s
events as she could. The weekends
were what they longed for. Sometimes
they were allowed to hang out on a
lazy Saturday at one of their houses.
“We never had an argument. We
just got along tremendously,” Joe
says. “It was obvious first love.”
Joe got his driver’s license in De-
cember 1967. His mom had a 1962
Chevy station wagon. “The seat folded
right down,” Joe says.
Donna found out she was pregnant
at the beginning of April 1968. The
families had that talk. The two were
told their relationship was over.
The Horns had already planned
to move in the fall of Donna’s senior
year. She had planned to finish high
school at Franklin Central, but after
the pregnancy, the move was a per-
fect explanation for why she was gone.
“People just assumed I moved
away,” she says. But losing Joe, “it was
devastating to me.”
Donna remembers going to Com-
munity East hospital on November 5,
1968, as if it were yesterday. She was
in labor, and she was devastated. This
was not the day she wanted to have
the baby. November 5 was Joe’s 17th
birthday. It was another brutal re-
minder that they weren’t together.
Then at the hospital, Joe’s mother,
who worked as a patient representa-
tive, was the first person Donna and
her mother saw. Another reminder.
42 OctOber 2021
Joe and Donna Cougill with their
daughter, Laura Mabry, who reunited
them after 50 years apart.
Donna gave birth to the baby she
planned to never see again. She and
her mother had talked about it at
length. After the baby was born, Donna
wouldn’t hold or look at the baby. But
a nurse walked in and placed Laura in
Donna’s arms. For 30 minutes, she held
her baby girl.
“That has haunted me,” Donna says.
Joe knows how much easier he had
it. He had a hard time getting past the
heartache, though. He didn’t go on a
single date his junior year. And he had
Courtesy Joe and donna Cougill
plenty of girls asking.
“Was there talk? Were there ru-
mors? Absolutely,” he says. “Every-
body wanted to know.”
Joe kept quiet. He thought about
Donna and what she was going
through, the emotional and physical
toll placed on her.
“Her feelings and the things

she went through,” Joe says, “were
100 times more magnified than mine.”
Joe went on to Indiana State Uni-
versity, where he played football.
In the five decades since he and
Donna parted, he married and di-
vorced twice, taught high school,
coached, and owned a sunglasses
company. In 2019, he was a single
man, working at Walmart, and the
father of two children.
After high school, Donna worked at
the Fort Benjamin Harrison finance
center. She married twice and had
three children; her second husband
passed away from cancer in 2011.
Donna herself survived breast cancer.
In 2019, she too was single.
Both were doing just fine in life.
Neither knew what was coming.
But 2019 was the year Laura’s hus-
band got her a 23andMe DNA and ge-
netic testing kit as a gift. He had seen
her sobbing as she watched people
reunited with their biological relatives
on TLC’s Long Lost Family. Laura was
sitting in bed when the results came in.
You have an uncle with the last name
Horn. She read it again. And again.
Oh my gosh, that’s got to be [Don-
na’s] brother, Laura said to herself.
Her mom had told her only Donna’s
maiden name and that she’d been
born at Community East. “I got this
rush of emotions,” she says.
Then Donna’s sister popped up as
a relative. Laura mailed her a letter,
thinking she might be her biological
Everyday Miracles
mother. She sent both of them her
contact information. Laura was sitting
in her office at the University of Ar-
kansas when the e-mail came across.
It was Donna reaching out. I am
your biological mother. I feel like I owe
you this. Whatever you want to know.
“I could not believe it,” Laura says.
“I had been waiting all these years.”
Donna offered Laura the name of
her biological father. In another twist
of fate, Laura already knew of Joe—
her best friend in high school (Frank-
lin Central, same as Donna and Joe)
had married his nephew.
When Laura talked to Joe on the
phone, the first words out of his
mouth were “If you look anything like
Donna, I bet you’re so pretty.”
Laura thought it was so sweet to
hear that love in his voice after all
those years. Laura helped Donna and
Joe get in touch. The two started talk-
ing and never stopped. When they
met, it felt as if 50 years melted away.
“We saw each other and we hugged
and we cried,” Joe says. “We knew. We
knew. You know what I mean?”
They married the following May.
Bringing her biological parents
back together is not what Laura had
intended when she went looking for
them. All she wanted was to find out
where she came from. To ask if she
was born out of love.
And yes. The answer is yes. She was
born out of love. RD
IndIanapolIs star (March 3, 2021), copyrIght © 2021
by Usa today nEtWorK.
Rd.com 43
WHERE,RD OH
An
WHERE?
Photo Quiz
 hesrivuletssthatsrunsthroughsthiss2,500-acres

T estuarysaresfamoussforstheirsharborsseals,soys-
ters,sandsshorebirds—andsseveralscourtsbattless
aimeds ats protectings them.s Ans Englishs explorers
landedsverysnearsthissverysspotsins1579,sthoughsbys
thensthesCoastsMiwokspeopleshadsbeenslivingsins
thesareasforsthousandssofsyears.sYouscansseesplentys
ofs theirs tools,s jewels,s ands others artifactss ifs yous
visitsthisspopularstouristsdestination.sWheresissit?ss
(Answer on pages115.)

A Point Reyes National Seashore, California

B Acadia National Park, Maine
C Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts
D Isle Royale National Park, Michigan
 Reader ’s Digest

Wellness from Thehealthy.com

Something
to Sneeze
At
Adult-onset allergies are
on the rise. It’s never
too late to get treated.

By Beth Weinhouse

atherine Sero was in her early

C 20s, living in Chicago and study-

ing to be a biochemist, when
she developed walking pneumonia
and mononucleosis. She moved back
with her parents in Michigan until she
recovered, then returned to school. “I
went to my favorite restaurant to have
chicken satay,” she says. “I’d probably
had it 100 times before. But this time
when I got home, my lips felt puffy, my
tongue felt puffy, my throat felt itchy.
I didn’t know what was happening.”
Each time her reactions—flushing

Illustrations by James Steinberg Rd.com | octobeR 2021 47

Reader ’s Digest

and sweating, heart racing—got more
severe. But when she went to the
emergency room, she was told she
was having an anxiety attack; it was
all in her head.
It wasn’t until she read a magazine
article describing symptoms like hers
that she made an appointment with a
specialist. After hours of testing, she
learned that not only did she have a
severe peanut allergy, but also she
was allergic to a long list of foods in-
cluding tree nuts, fish and shellfish,
alcohol, “even lettuce,” she says. No
one in Sero’s family had allergies, and
she’d never had any, either. Now 58,
her life hasn’t been the same since.
The world is full of allergens: food,
bugs, pollen, latex, drugs, mold, ani-
mals. Many of us assume that our
susceptibility develops during child-
hood, so if you’re allergy-free in your
20s, you’re in the clear. But researchers
are discovering that allergies can strike
adults of all ages.
In 2019, for the first systematic study
of allergies in adulthood, the Center
for Food Allergy and Asthma Research
( CFAAR) at Northwestern University
surveyed approximately 40,000 people
across the United States and found
that 1 in 10 were food-allergic. Nearly
half of those people had developed
at least one of their allergies after age
18. And 27 percent of that group had
never had an allergy before.
“We were very surprised by the
results,” says CFAAR’s director, Ruchi
Gupta, MD. Her team had long sus-
pected, based on anecdotal evidence,
that rates of adult-onset food allergies
were rising, but they didn’t expect the
number to be so high. In fact, CFAAR’s
research found that peanut allergy af-
fects even more American adults than
children. At least 4.5 million American

EvEryday bEttEr to do EvErything you lovE/gEtty imagEs

What Is...

Antimicrobial Fabric
After masking up for more than a year, we’re more
mindful than ever of how easily germs spread. One pop-
ular weapon: antimicrobial fabrics, which are turning up
in outerwear, gym socks, and towels. It’s not the fabric
itself that wards off microbes; the protection comes
from chemicals sprayed on cotton, polyester, and the
like, targeting odors and stains. “If something says it’s
antimicrobial or antibacterial, that doesn’t mean it’s killing all microbes and/or
bacteria,” says Jeff Strahan of Milliken & Company, a textile manufacturer. “It
works only on the isolated strains it was designed for.” So read the fine print
when you shop—and wash your hands when you come home.

48 OctOber 2021

adults have a peanut allergy, with
about 1 in 6 of them, like Catherine
Sero, developing it after age 18.
While CFAAR ’s study primarily
looked at food allergies, it also pro-
vides insight into environmental and
other types of allergies, since people
with one kind tend to have others.
That’s because our bodies react in a
similar way to them all: After exposure
to a benign substance that the immune
system mistakenly sees as harmful,
antibodies cause cells to release chem-
icals including histamine, which trig-
gers inflammation. This is the body’s
way of protecting itself from danger-
ous substances. But as a side effect,
histamine brings on swelling, itching,
The Healthy
redness, hives, watery eyes, nasal con-
gestion, and, in some severe cases,
anaphylactic shock—a system-wide
reaction that includes a drop in blood
pressure and difficulty breathing.
Scientists don’t know what causes
allergies in adults, but Dr. Gupta’s team
has identified some likely triggers. Ex-
posure to a new environment could
introduce new allergens to your sys-
tem, which is why someone who just
moved to Seattle, where alder trees are
common, might develop a new allergy
to alder pollen, for example. People
recovering from an illness or going
through hormonal changes such as in
puberty or menopause may also be at
higher risk for new allergies, since their
Rd.com 49
Reader ’s Digest
body’s defenses may be weakened.
Scientists think the body’s micro-
biome—the population of bacteria,
both good and bad, that reside in the
gut, on the skin, and elsewhere in the
body—may be involved with allergies
too. One theory, called the hygiene
hypothesis, posits that our modern
obsession with avoiding germs alters
the microbiome and prevents our im-
mune systems from developing toler-
ance to some substances. Similarly,
exposure to some chemicals, such as
disinfectants and pesticides, has been
linked to the development of allergies,
EXPOSURE TO A NEW
ENVIRONMENT, OR
TO A VIRUS, CAN
TRIGGER AN ALLERGY.
perhaps because the chemicals kill
both good and bad bacteria.
Likewise, treatment with antibiot-
ics may also influence the develop-
ment of allergies by killing off good
and bad bacteria. Genetics may play a
role, too, as people with a parent who
suffers from allergies are more likely
than the general population to de-
velop allergies themselves. In the end,
a combination of genetic and environ-
mental factors may be responsible.
There’s no one-size-fits-all treat-
ment for allergies, but antihistamine
medication serves as a helpful treat-
ment for mild symptoms. To address
50 OctOber 2021
environmental allergies, doctors can
prescribe a series of injections that
gradually habituate the immune sys-
tem to the allergen. New treatments,
such as oral immunotherapy or sub-
lingual immunotherapy (in which
small amounts of the allergen are in-
gested under medical supervision),
are an option for food allergies.
Sero says that it was probably a
combination of her longtime exposure
to toxic chemicals in the lab followed
by her viral illness that triggered her
immune system to overreact and de-
velop multiple allergies. She now car-
ries an EpiPen in case she has a severe
reaction and is careful to eat or pre-
pare all her meals at home.
“I can be in a restaurant with people
but I can’t order anything,” she says.
“If I go to a Chicago Cubs game, where
lots of people eat peanuts, I juice up on
antihistamines first, and then I have to
figure out where I’m going to sit, which
way the wind is blowing, and how to
get out if I need to leave quickly.”
There’s no foolproof way to prevent
allergies from developing, but there
are steps that may help. Christopher
Warren, a researcher at CFAAR, says
that to avoid developing allergies,
children and adults should be eating
a healthy, diverse diet that includes
the most-typical allergens, such as
shellfish, milk, and peanuts. As for
environmental allergies, as long as we
keep ourselves reasonably safe, one of
the best things we can do is to keep
playing in the dirt.

I Didn’t Start
Working Out Until
I Turned 70
By Charlotte Hilton Andersen
O
n James Owen’s 70 th birth-
day, he saw a video of himself
hunched over and shuffling up
to the podium where he was giving a
talk. “I looked like an old man,” says
Owen, who built a successful career
on Wall Street. Even worse, he felt like
an old man.
He was about 25 pounds overweight
and had chronic trouble with his back,
knees, and shoulders. But instead of
giving in to age, Owen decided to
set an ambitious five-year goal: He
wanted to be pain-free, and he de-
cided the way to get there was through
exercise—even though at the time he
couldn’t do a single push-up.
The Healthy
Owen began his new exercise regi-
men by walking, though he started
huffing and puffing after five min-
utes. But that didn’t discourage him.
He kept at the walks every day, along
with some stretching.
Once he had those basics down, he
started weight lifting and hired a per-
sonal trainer to teach him and to de-
sign a routine he could follow on his
own. The last piece was finding other
activities he enjoyed, which turned
out to be cycling and swimming.
In less than five years, Owen was
able to do three sets of 50 push-ups
each and walk for miles each day. And
yes, he was free of aches and pains.
“Aging well is only about 20 to 25 per-
cent genes, and the rest is lifestyle,”
he says. “As long as you’re still mobile,
it’s never too late to become more fit.”
Owen used his experience to write
a book called Just Move! A New Ap-
proach to Fitness After 50, in which
he details how older adults can safely
get off the couch and add more move-
ment to their lives. The key: getting
started, even if you walk just three
blocks, which was all he could man-
age at first.
“Think of it as movement, not ex-
ercise,” he says. “The key is slow and
steady progress.” Now 81 and retired,
Owen exercises an hour a day, six days
a week.
“It is the best investment I’ve ever
made in my life,” he says. RD
Rd.com 51
Reader ’s Digest

Waist Size
Is a Useful
Heart-Health Metric
Since the 1970s, body
mass index (BMI) has
News From the been widely used to
estimate health risks re-
WORLD OF lated to excess body fat.

MEDICINE However, many com-

mentators argue that
we’ve been overlooking
its limitations. A group
of worldwide experts
released a statement
FREQUENT INTERNET USE: in early 2020 suggesting
NOT ALWAYS BAD that doctors should
also measure patients’
Spending chunks of your day on the Inter- waists, since BMI alone
net can be helpful or detrimental for your isn’t always a good in-
dicator of cardiovascu-
mental health, depending upon what you lar risk. An athletic,
do there. A 2020 Canadian review linked muscular person could
social media use to mental distress among have a high BMI and
teens, in part because it can bring on a feel- a healthy heart. Con-
versely, many people
ing that others look or live better than you lose muscle with age,
do. On the other hand, in a 2021 British which could lower their
study, seniors who went online at least BMI despite high body-
once a day during the pandemic lockdown fat levels. So while BMI
can be useful, adding
tended to feel less depressed compared to waist circumference
those who accessed the Internet only once to the picture clarifies
a week or less. The benefits include com- your risk profile. For-
municating with family and friends, finding tunately, waist size
claire benoist

tends to go down
inspiration for fun offline activities, and with exercise and a
enjoying a quick, feel-good distraction on healthy diet—even if
a rough day. (Cat video, anyone?) your weight doesn’t.

52 OctOber 2021
 The Healthy

A New Treatment Pandemic

for Arthritic Handwashing
Knee Pain Still Matters
A knee replacement can COVID-19 inspired peo-
help greatly with severe ple to wash their hands
WHY YOU osteoarthritis, but not frequently with soap to
SHOULDN’T everyone is willing or reduce the risk of trans-
CRY OVER able to undergo major mitting the virus—at
SPILLED MILK surgery. There’s now least at first. Staff at
another option known a Chicago hospital
Scientists have proved as genicular artery reported washing their
that you’re better off embolization. For this hands on 75.5 percent
not sweating the small procedure, a specialist of the required occa-
stuff. To simulate the cuts a pinhole in the sions (for example, be-
emotional effects of patient’s thigh and uses fore entering a patient’s
daily setbacks—missing a thin tube to insert room) at the height
a bus, say, or knocking particles that diminish of the pandemic’s first
over your coffee— abnormal blood flow to wave in April 2020.
researchers showed the knee, thus reducing By August of the same
people unpleasant inflammation. The pro- year, they were back
images. Brain scans cedure takes one to to their pre-pandemic
revealed that some two hours and requires compliance levels of
participants’ negative neither general anes- around 55 percent.
from top: Dave Hill/gettyimages. DJeliCs/gettyimages

reactions lasted longer thesia nor an overnight Outside of hospitals,

in a region called the hospital stay. Most it’s likely that the rest
amygdala than those patients see at least a of us are sliding back
of others. The subjects 50 percent drop in pain into subpar habits as
whose brain activity for 12 months or more. well. Even as COVID
went back to normal cases subside, there are
more quickly were still reasons to main-
more likely to report tain high handwashing
that they were fre- standards. These in-
quently in a good clude preventing the
mood. These same spread of the common
people also rated their cold, diarrhea, and es-
psychological well- pecially the flu, which
being more highly remains a major cause
seven years later. of death. RD

Rd.com 53
Reader ’s Digest

QUOTABLE QUOTES
Life isn’t based on the tennis game I play.
It’s little things. Saying hello to everyone you meet.
That’s more validating than whether I win a match.
—Naomi Osaka, athlete

from left: noam Galai/Getty imaGes. tim clayton/Getty imaGes. steve Granitz/Getty imaGes
If you want something badly, keep at it until it’s yours.
Don’t stop because you think you tried hard enough or believe
it’s not going to happen. Don’t make those assumptions.
—Al Roker, journalist

Listen to your body. I listen to mine and

every day it tells me not to do Zumba.
—Amy Schumer, comedian

I was raised with the idea that you could have different beliefs and you
should defend that in other people, not shout it down. The people
you disagree with most, you should stand up for their right to do that.
—Vince Vaughn, actor

Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose

in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
—Samuel Butler, novelist

RokeR osaka Vaughn

 MERI N G LD RE ERVE
GENERATIONAL WEALTH
LEGAL TENDER MINTED BY THE U.S. MINT • AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS

ON Y


  

 “Oh, but it’s fine for you to grade papers?”

said. He’s an anesthe- the first four letters

All siologist named Bause. of ‘suggest.’ ”
in a Day’s “But,” he said, “spell- She smiled. “And

WORK check insists on calling

me Dr. Abuse.”
how do you spell that?”
—Deb Sugg
—Milton Loyer Midland, Michigan
Mechanicsburg,
Paul Noth/CartooNstoCk.Com

Name Dropping? More Pennsylvania ✦✦Upon retiring as

like Name Breaking a church secretary,
✦✦ I was bemoaning to ✦✦ Though my last I gave my replacement
a friend how my last name is not long, it can a Rolodex brimming
name, Loyer, is fre- be confusing. So when with all the contact info
quently changed to a receptionist asked for she would likely need.
Lawyer by spell-check. it, I tried simplifying One day, she texted me
“I can top that,” he matters by saying “It’s asking for a name to be

56 OctOber 2021
 Reader ’s Digest

included in the news­ Yes, autocorrect. I definitely meant to offer

letter. I responded sim­ a monkey-back guarantee.
ply: “Rolodex.” A week
later, the newsletter an­ —@rachelle_mandik
nounced the wedding
anniversary of Rolodex
and Kathy Thomas.
—Christine Morse
BALANCING WORK, LIFE, AND HIGH JINKS
Medina, Ohio A guard at a Wisconsin kidnappers who were
Bath and Body Works after his father’s money.
Client: I put these was so bored one morn- The story unraveled,
documents in the fax ing around 2 that he though, when surveil-
machine, but they began fiddling with his lance footage showed
didn’t come back out. handcuffs, eventually that the man had “kid-
slipping them on napped” himself be-
Me: That’s the paper
his wrists. He cause he didn’t
shredder. soon discov- want to go to
Client: Oh! Can you ered he’d left work that day.
set it to reverse? Those the keys to the sourCe: ABC15
papers are important. cuffs at home.
—From Clients From Hell Suddenly, his dull A Taiwanese couple
night became very got married and
During our geography interesting. After divorced four times
class, I asked my sixth calling the police, over a span of
graders if anyone could who freed him, a month in
spell Mississippi. One he hid the cuffs 2020. But they
student asked, “Do you from himself so he weren’t as fickle
want the river or the wouldn’t be tempted as it seems. The
state?” to pull the same groom, a bank
trick again. employee, took
—Wilson Frampton
sourCe: WreG.Com advantage of a
Lewes, Delaware
joe BelAnGer/GettY imAGes

Taiwan law that

In February, an Arizona mandates businesses
man was found on the give employees eight
Anything funny side of the road with his days off for their wed-
happen to you at work? hands bound. The vic- ding. The bank balked,
It could be worth $$$. tim, who worked for a but the groom got his
For details, go to tire retailer, told a har- 32 days of extra vacation.
rd.com/submit. rowing tale of masked sourCe: neW York times

Rd.com 57
 COVER STORY

Pet
Besties Meet the winners of our first
America’s Best Pet Pals contest.
Warm fuzzies guaranteed!

58 OctOber 2021
 Reader ’s Digest

Go to
p e t p a rd . c o m /
t h e f u l s t o re a d
our w ll stories o
in f
2 5 ad ners plus
dition
finalis al
ts!

Photograph by Mike McGregor Rd.com 59

Reader ’s Digest
RESCUED ANIMALS
Dakota and Indiana
or four months, puppy Indi-
F ana miraculously survived in the
woods with a shattered shoul-
der. She’d been mistaken for a wolf
and shot while running wild with her
mother, Dakota. An animal control of-
ficer said they were the most intensely
bonded pair he’d ever seen and re-
fused to leave each other’s side, even
while trying to evade capture.
60 OctOber 2021
As a result of the gunshot, Indi-
ana lost not only her leg but also her
mother, as the two were sent to differ-
ent adoption groups. While Indiana
was learning to walk on three legs
down south, Dakota was 1,000 miles
Mike McGreGor
north in New England. The first fam-
ily to adopt her returned her two days
later. They said she couldn’t bond
with humans, kept them up all night,

and wasn’t suitable to live in a home.
Dakota found her forever home
with me on Long Island. I have ex-
perience with Nordic breeds, and
Dakota, a husky-malamute mix, just
needed attention and someone who
understood how to approach her. I
always let her come up to me. I gave
her the time and space to explore and
feel comfortable. She soon let me put
a leash on her and would jump onto
my bed and lie on the sofa with me.
When I first read Dakota’s Petfinder
bio, it mentioned that the puppy
she’d been running with was shot,
and, I assumed, killed. I’m a broad-
cast news journalist, so I did some
sleuthing and came across a story
from a South Carolina TV news out-
let about a puppy that recently had
her front leg amputated because of
an old gunshot wound. There was no
mistaking it—she was a spitting image
of Dakota. Her puppy wasn’t killed
by the gunshot , just badly injured.
I vowed to bring the three-legged
puppy home.
As I learned throughout my jour-
ney to reunite mother and pup, they
both needed each other. Back home,
Dakota would let out these downright
mournful howls on the deck, as if she
was calling for her puppy to come
back. And potential adopters for In-
diana were required to have a six-foot
fence because she kept jumping the
one at her rescue in South Carolina.
When I finally adopted Indiana,
the reunion was magical. Dakota was
Cover Story
ecstatic. She couldn’t stop licking her
puppy’s face. The love between them
is as heart warming as their story
is heartbreaking. Dakota has since
stopped her mournful howls. Indiana
has never tried to jump my fence.
They play and run around nonstop.
The puppy cameras in my house turn
on in the middle of the night because
the two dogs are playing. They sleep
entwined, with each one’s nose rest-
ing on the other. If one rolls over for
a belly rub, the other rolls, too. They
romp around on the beach and love
HER PUPPY WASN’T
KILLED BY THE
GUNSHOT, JUST
BADLY INJURED.
to say hi to other dogs. When Indi-
ana is tired, Dakota lets her pup rest
her one front leg on her back. Every
day I play the same good-morning
song and they come running in and
dance with me, jumping on their hind
legs and giving me their front paws
(or paw).
These once-feral dogs now jump
onto my bed, lie on the sofa with me,
curl up in my lap, and lick me con-
stantly. Despite their having lived in
the wild, the dogs have no aggression
whatsoever. I am constantly amazed
by how sweet and gentle they are.
—Nonnie Gerber
The Hamptons, New York
Rd.com 61
 L I F E SAV E RS
Blue, the Big Yella Fella
y dog, Blue, came into my
M life because I have post-
traumatic stress disorder. For
me, the condition is a result of three
significant conflicts as a Marine and
20  years of humanitarian work in
Somalia, Rwanda, Darfur, Haiti, Iraq,
and Afghanistan.
A soul-crushing illness, PTSD drags
victims into nightmarish voids of
shame, fear, and chaos. Initially, the
62 OctOber 2021
clash between my ego and reality
made me hesitant to want a trained
companion. Walking around with
Courtesy robert MaCpherson
a large animal wearing a vest an-
nouncing “Service Dog” felt like pub-
lic admission of an illness I wanted
to hide. But the Southeastern Guide
Dogs motto hit home: “Serving those
who cannot see and those who have
seen too much.” Managing PTSD in-
volves learning to accept the past.

“Those who have seen too much” fit.
When asked during the interview
process what kind of dog I preferred,
I answered, “Imagine standing in the
exercise area for dogs. In the distance,
one dog is romping with his friends.
You’ve been concerned about placing
him. He’s huge! He’ll fill up a house,
apartment, or truck. That’s my dog!”
Then, on my first evening at the
Southeastern Guide Dogs campus,
our trainer told me, “Since the begin-
ning of this school in 1984, your dog is
the largest Lab ever born in this facil-
ity. You’ll meet him tomorrow.”
The next day, a 90-pound yellow
Labrador retriever with ears the size of
dinner plates closed the 25 feet sepa-
rating us in a flash. I dropped to the
floor, and my face was met by a wet
tongue moving in sync with an ever-
wagging tail. My worries vanished.
I fell in love with the “big yella fella.”
Blue was trained for 23 months
prior and knew his job. Over the next
12 days, the training focused on un-
derstanding his abilities and tempera-
ment, and bonding. We were together
24/7. When I move, he moved. If he
couldn’t follow, he strove to maintain
line of sight. If a closed door separated
us, he lay outside until I appeared.
On the fifth night of training,
Courtesy Caren ramon
I had a nightmare. They were becom-
ing more frequent and severe. While
still in the nightmare, I felt a sudden
pressure across my chest. I shot up in
bed, gasping for air and trying to ori-
ent myself. Blue had placed his legs
Cover Story Reader ’s Digest
Besties
Most Likely
to Go Viral
Minnie the
Moocher and
Mr. Fluffy
Minnie the Moocher was a stray cat
who lived on our property but
never let me touch her once in
11 years. Still, she became my con-
stant companion. Whenever I went
outside, she’d meow hello and fol-
low me around the property.
One day, a fluffy cat showed up,
staring at me and ignoring Minnie.
Minnie, however, walked right up
to headbutt him. He swatted at her,
and she tried to rub on him again.
This went on for days until he
finally accepted her affection.
We adopted Mr. Fluffy, who dis-
liked all cats except Minnie. They’d
become quite the twosome. He’d
come in the house at night, and
every morning Minnie was on the
porch waiting for him.
One morning, Minnie just wasn’t
there. Mr. Fluffy and I scoured the
property for days, but no Minnie.
It always hurts to lose an animal
you love. Feral as she was, Minnie
taught me that friendship and love
can be shared just by being present
and accepting. No touching or
words needed. Just be there.
—Caren ramon La Vernia, Texas
These pet pals went viral on rd.com!
Go to rd.com/viralpets.
rd.Com 63
Reader ’s Digest
across my torso to gently restrain me
and attempted to lick me awake. He
laid his head on my chest, and I began
to match his breathing. I could feel his
warmth and kindness replacing the
dark memories that invaded my sleep.
The cues Blue learned over his two
years of training are impressive. He in-
conspicuously blocks people from en-
tering my personal space. He guides
me through crowds and watches my
back if I stop for conversation. All are
examples of learned skills, but he has
natural abilities that cannot be taught.
Blue intercedes before I realize I
am falling into depression, anxiety, or
anger. His manner is never aggressive
or intrusive. He usually comes to me,
wagging his tail. If he thinks I’m push-
ing too hard at the gym, he moves
as close as he can to the weights or
machine and licks my leg. During a
stressful phone call or conversation,
he’ll lay his head on my lap. On the
now-rare occasion when I express
anger, he stares at me with a face that
says “I don’t know what to do, but
I love you,” which immediately stops
the emotion from escalating.
My life is not perfect. I still have bad
times, but it’s different. The journey is
now a quiet acceptance of the illness
and its source, without the anger, fear,
or resentment. And that’s because
my path is now guided by something
intangible seen only when I look into
Blue’s eyes.
—Robert Macpherson
Charlotte, North Carolina
64 OctOber 2021
PEOPLE TO ANIMALS
Sophie and
the Chicks
rom the moment my husband
F brought home a box of six chicks
from Tractor Supply Company at
the start of the pandemic, our nine-
year-old, Sophie, hasn’t let them out
of her sight. She named them Trixie,
Bearty, Sweet Pea, Speedie, Captain
Flint, and Adrian. (We were reading
Treasure Island and watching Rocky
at the time.) And she was very upset
when we wouldn’t let the chicks sleep
in her bed (though we did relent one
camping trip when they were allowed
to sleep in a box in her tent).
SHE WAS VERY UPSET
WHEN WE WOULDN’T
LET THE CHICKS
SLEEP IN HER BED.
Sophie takes at least one chicken
everywhere we let her and has had
incredible adventures with her flock:
camping, hiking, river tubing, bik-
ing, riding scooters, sledding, cross-
country skiing, and trick-or-treating.
The reactions from neighbors on Hal-
loween were hilarious. “Wait, is that
a real chicken you’re holding?” Trixie
cooed the whole time. On Christmas,

Sophie made each chicken a tiny
stocking filled with oats and clay or-
naments with their footprints pressed
into them. Sophie’s favorite gifts were
a Chicken Whisperer shirt and socks
Courtesy emily ChromCzak
that look like chicken feet.
The chickens were not allowed
in the house until one morning af-
ter virtual school when Sophie told
me, “There’s nothing to feel happy
about.” Since then, we’ve allowed
one inside at a time, provided Sophie
Cover Story
immediately cleans up after the visit.
One night, Bearty was snuggled
up in a towel on my lap as I cuddled
Sophie in my arms. We petted Bearty
as she cooed and slowly closed her
eyes. The chickens brought a glimmer
of joy back to our lives. In a few short
months, they’ve taught us to accept
situations we can’t change and find
joy where we can. I am so grateful.
—Emily Chromczak
Delmar, New York
Rd.com 65
 ANIMALS TO ANIMALS
Floyd and His Kittens
few winters ago, my dog,
A Floyd, found a tiny, sickly kit-
ten with her paws in a milk pail
in our dairy barn. She’d curl up in a
hutch and keep warm with a calf. She
wouldn’t let me touch her at first but
would rub against Floyd and let him
lick her face as a mama cat would.
A friend had given Floyd to us a
few months earlier; he was the runt
of the litter and the last puppy left.
He has such a nurturing personal-
ity and ended up being so perfect for
me. Eventually, I was able to befriend
his kitten. We needed a good mouser,
66 OctOber 2021
so I named her Mousetrap. She made
herself right at home, traipsing across
the computer keyboard in the barn
office and sending the computer into
fits. We learned to stand the keyboard
on its edge at night. Problem solved.
Mousetrap loved snuggling up with
Floyd while I milked the cows. She
follows him everywhere. Floyd loved
having a little buddy, and Mousetrap
grew from a scrawny, sickly kitten into
mike mcgregor
a beautiful tortoiseshell cat who did
indeed turn out to be a great hunter.
The next year, I found Floyd looking
delighted as he gazed under a broken

floorboard, and I discovered Mouse-
trap was a mama. Floyd didn’t want
to budge—he wanted to lie by the
hole all day. He was there to greet the
kittens as they began emerging from
their birthplace, lovingly licking them
head to toe as he had their mother.
As they grew up, canine and felines
shared bowls of warm milk and food.
Floyd even let Mousetrap share a
steak bone or scoop of ice cream. The
kittens saw Floyd as a second mother
and followed him around the farm
just like Mousetrap, and when the
mama left them on their own for a bit,
they had the world’s best babysitter.
The kittens are all grown up now.
It’s always a sight to see Floyd trot
by with several cats keeping step
alongside him. When one of the cats
catches a mouse, Floyd gets in on the
excitement, too, sometimes snatch-
ing it from right under their noses for
a good game of “catch me if you can.”
When I let Floyd out every morning, at
least three cats lying in the yard jump
up to trot after him. At night, they all
crowd the back door and try to come
inside with him.
Last summer, our farm welcomed
another litter of kittens, and of course
Courtesy eldon GrauberGer
Floyd fell in love with them, too. I had
to bring a few into the house for some
extra care, and Floyd was happy to let
them live in his crate. He was a won-
derful surrogate mom, letting them
snuggle and never complaining when
they ate from his bowl or climbed all
over him. Several of the folks who
Cover Story Reader ’s Digest
Oldest
Pet Pal
Bozo the
Desert
Tortoise
We first met
Bozo in the backyard of an elderly
neighbor in Las Vegas, Nevada, and
were told he was 60 years old. Our
children were around 10 years old.
In the 1980s, Bozo became my son
Sheldon’s pet, until 2008 when
Sheldon had to move to a colder
climate, at which point Bozo came
to us. Sheldon is now 54 and Bozo
around 105, but Sheldon is still
Bozo’s favorite. All Sheldon has to
do is start talking in the backyard
and Bozo comes crawling!
—Eldon GraubErGEr Las Vegas,
Nevada
adopted the kittens were thrilled that
their new pet was already more than
comfortable around dogs.
Witnessing the sweet relationship
that Floyd shares with these cats has
truly been a heartwarming experience
for everyone on the farm. They’ve
brought love, laughs, and so many
smiles into our lives. This is joy we
never would have known had that first
tiny kitten not found her way into our
calf hutches and met the gentle farm
dog who accepted her as family.
—Elizabeth Miller
Saratoga Springs, New York
rd.com 67
Reader ’s Digest

R A I N B OW B R I D G E

Grace and
Esther
woke up at 3 the night Es-

I ther came to live with us. I

stood at the top of the stairs
listening for her bleating com-
ing from the basement below.
Esther was a day-old orphaned
lamb. Bum lambs, as they’re
called, are less likely to live
through their first night. I grew
anxious from silence.
“Oh no,” I thought, “Grace
will be devastated.” Esther was
already very established in my
16-year-old daughter’s heart. open window if no one was gracious
I feared the worst, apprehensively enough to open the door. She was
approaching Esther’s enclosure. Grace’s shadow—and echo. When
There, nestled in the straw, sleep- Grace left (heaven forbid!), all she had
ing peacefully with baby Esther was to do was baa when she returned for
Grace. No wonder Esther wasn’t Esther to come running and bleating.
bleating. She had found her mama. Little Esther soon became Big Es-
Grace and Esther slept together ther, though she was forever Grace’s
every night for the next month. They baby. Once, Grace dressed her in a red
moved from straw in the basement to cloak and took her trick-or-treating as
sheets on Grace’s bed, which Grace Little Red Riding Hood. The neighbors
Courtesy teresa Noel Hislop

washed daily. Grace persuaded her
teacher to let Esther come to school
and her parents to let Esther come
along to Las Vegas on family vacation.
Esther, biologically a Merino sheep,
considered herself a human—Grace’s
human, to be exact. She’d enter the
house at will, jumping through an
invited them inside, where Esther pro-
ceeded to nibble on their geraniums
and headbutt their standard poodle.
Grace and Esther were a com-
mon sight on the streets of Roy,
Utah, where we live, and in the
halls of Roy High. Most young
ladies in the homecoming court chose

68 OctOber 2021
 Cover Story

boyfriends or brothers to escort them

across the stage. Grace chose Esther.
As if bringing a woolly companion
into the auditorium wasn’t risky
enough, Grace left Esther with a stu-
dent body officer on one side of the
stage, walked across to the other, then
instructed the officer to let her go.
A sheep loose onstage in front of
600 high school students! What could
go wrong? Nothing. Esther performed
like the queen she was. Grace baaed
and Esther baaed right back. The two
happily met at center stage.
Grace moved to attend the Uni-
versity of Utah. Grace would call me
and say, “I came to Roy last night but
didn’t go in the house. I just needed
an Esther fix, so I went to the pasture
and hung out with her for an hour.”
Indeed, theirs was a bond to re-
member. Sadly, in February 2021, it
became just that after Esther passed
away from birthing complications.
Family is forever, and Esther is fam-
ily. She is waiting for Grace on the
other side of the veil that separates
the living from the next life to come.
When Grace passes through, she’ll
baa, Esther will baa back, and they’ll
run to each other, happily reuniting.
—Teresa Noel Hislop Roy, Utah
Courtesy NaNCy radebaugh
Proudest
Protectors
Rue and Finn
Returning to the
parking lot after
a hike, I prayed
that a stranger who’d behaved
oddly on the trail would be gone.
I had to ask twice to pass by while
my normally friendly dogs, Rue and
Finn, growled. He said, “I’m look-
ing at your dogs,” as if considering
whether he could fight them off
to get to me. As I feared, he was
standing between our cars, the last
in the lot, clearly waiting for me.
Rue and Finn snapped into
protection mode. Anyone in his
right mind would’ve backed off.
The man didn’t. He walked slowly
toward me, so Finn lunged at the
leash. Startled, the man leaped
back. I quickly put Rue and Finn in
my truck and raced away. An hour
later, a police dispatcher informed
me they had picked up the man,
who was still waiting in the parking
lot—probably for someone who did
not have two German shepherds
protecting her.
—NaNcy Radebaugh Utica, Ohio

Thanks, Pet Lovers

1,030 dogs, 528 cats, 31 horses, 21 chickens, 16 bunnies, 11 cows,
8 lizards, 5 ferrets, 1 tarantula—and a zooful of other animals. Thanks
to your nominations and 31,651 votes (all human—we think!), our
judges were able to identify our menagerie of winners. To nominate
your favorite pet besties for a future issue, go to rd.com/petpals. RD

Rd.com 69
 HEALTH

THE NEW TR

70
CHOLES
OctOber 2021 Photographs by Joleen Zubek
 Reader ’s Digest

UTH ABOUT

The latest research

and information will
help you keep your
levels in check

By Bonnie Munday

TEROL Rd.com 71
Reader ’s Digest

For most of my adult life,

I mostly avoided eggs. I had read that since yolks are full of choles-
terol, eating them would raise my blood cholesterol and harm
my heart health. Then, around three years ago, with the goal of los-
ing a few pounds, I reduced simple carbs and added more protein—
including eggs—to my diet. I wondered what that would do to my
cholesterol levels, so at my next checkup, I asked for a blood test.
My doctor surprised me with this response: “We were wrong about
that all along. The best research says you don’t need to avoid eggs.”

To reassure me, she ordered the
blood test. The results? Same healthy
cholesterol levels as before. It got me
wondering how many other people
were unnecessarily avoiding eggs and
other foods based on old informa-
tion. And now that I was in my 50s,
what else should I be doing to make
sure my cholesterol stayed in the safe
zone? My research turned up some
surprising facts.
First, the basics: High cholesterol is
a major risk factor for cardiovascular
disease. According to the largest-ever
study of cholesterol levels, led by Im-
perial College London and published
in 2020, high cholesterol is respon-
sible for about 3.9 million deaths
annually worldwide.
Cholesterol is a waxy substance
produced by the liver and found in
every cell in the body. It helps the
body build hormones, vitamin D, and
healthy cells, digest fatty foods, and
more. There are two main lipoproteins
that carry cholesterol in the blood.
Low-density lipoprotein ( LDL ), the
main type of “bad” cholesterol, de-
livers fatty particles throughout the
body. The buildup of LDL on artery
walls can block blood flow and lead
to blood clots. This can cause a heart
attack or stroke. High-density lipo-
protein ( HDL ) is considered “good”
cholesterol because it picks up the
LDL particles and returns them to the
liver for excretion.
I also discovered some myths float-
ing around about the causes and
treatments of high cholesterol. It’s
time to set the record straight.
MYTH: Foods that contain
cholesterol are unhealthy.
TRUTH: Some are, but not all.
When a blood test shows a high level
of LDL or other “bad” cholesterol, re-
ferred to as non-HDL cholesterol, it’s
likely due to eating the wrong foods.
But just because a food contains

72 OctOber 2021
 Health

cholesterol doesn’t mean eating it linoleic acids and can actually lower
will raise yours. Research in the 1960s your LDL cholesterol. “As for dairy,”
linked the two, but several studies in Katan says, “go low fat—and consider
the decades since have put this mis- cheese a treat.”
taken belief to rest. It depends more He adds that optimal foods for
on the food’s saturated fat content. keeping cholesterol in check include
Cholesterol is found in animal legumes and beans, whole grains such
products—meats, seafood, egg yolks, as oatmeal, and vegetables.
and dairy products—and those high For eggs, recommendations vary for
in saturated fat raise blood choles- how many are safe to consume. The
terol. “The cholesterol and saturated American Heart Association says that
fats reinforce each other when eaten healthy adults can safely eat one per
simultaneously, making the effect on day and warns that it’s what often ac-
the body even worse,” says Martijn Ka- companies eggs—bacon and sausage,
tan, professor emeritus of nutrition at which are heavy in saturated fat—that
Free University Amsterdam. The worst leads to higher dietary cholesterol.
culprits are high-
fat dairy products,
fatty red meats,
and processed
m e a t s, w h e re a s
seafood such as
prawns and squid, AVOCADO
while high in cho- Rich in healthy
lesterol, are lower mono-unsaturated
in saturated fat. fatty acids, avocado
The best way to helps lower your
reduce LDL is to levels of LDL “bad”
replace saturated cholesterol. The
American Heart
fats with unsatu-
Association
rated fats; for ex- approves of
ample, says Katan, one a day.
“switching from
butter to soft mar-
garine and cooking
with vegetable oils
such as sunflower,
corn, canola, or ol-
ive.” These contain

Rd.com 73
Reader ’s Digest

BACON
These crispy
cholesterol bombs
are high in
unhealthy
saturated fat and
should be treated
as an occasional
indulgence, not
a daily staple.

MYTH: If my cholesterol is effort to incorporate more fitness into

high, I’ll feel it.
TRUTH: Only a test can tell you.
Five years ago, Fredrik Sundell was
active and at a healthy weight. But
a company health checkup showed
his cholesterol levels were borderline
high. “I was surprised, because I felt
fine,” says the now-49-year-old CFO of
a publishing company in Helsinki. “I
thought if I had a heart-health prob-
lem, I’d know it; maybe I’d have a
faster heartbeat or be short of breath.”
The doctor told Sundell he should
make lifestyle improvements to try to
keep it in check; otherwise, he’d have
to go on medication. So he made an
his day, by walking instead of driving
and by doing more cross-country ski-
ing in winter. He also took more care
to eat healthfully—though, he admits,
“I wasn’t always an angel.”
While exercise won’t lower LDL
cholesterol—diet is the biggest fac-
tor there—“it can increase HDL,” says
Professor Ian Graham, head of cardio-
vascular medicine at Trinity College
in Dublin. The only way to know if you
have high cholesterol is to get a test.
Some experts believe that testing
should start when people are in their
30s or even their 20s. “Testing cho-
lesterol levels in young people could

74 OctOber 2021

be lifesaving,” says Fabian Brunner, a
cardiologist at the University Medical
Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. In the
United States, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention recommends
that adults 21 and older with no risk
factors get their cholesterol checked
every four to six years and that kids
first get theirs checked between ages
9 and 11.
Dr. Brunner was lead author of an
international study published in 2019
that analyzed decades of population-
based data on cardiovascular patients.
The researchers estimated the long-
term risk of a cardiovascular event by
the time someone was 75 and calcu-
lated the potential benefit of lowering
non- HDL cholesterol earlier in life.
Their results showed that doing so
helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular
disease. (To calculate your risk, go to
nonhdlrisk.com.)
MYTH: Statins often have bad
side effects.
TRUTH: Side effects are rare.
When Ricardo Saénz, a 51-year-old
engineer in Madrid, had a checkup
around four years ago, his cholesterol
levels were within the healthy range.
But because he had high blood pres-
sure, a major risk for heart attack and
stroke, his doctor said he’d have to
reduce his cholesterol, and recom-
mended he begin taking a statin drug.
Statins lower the production of LDL
cholesterol by blocking an enzyme in
the liver that helps make it. “And they
Health
stabilize the plaque in your arteries to
keep it from breaking off and causing
a heart attack or stroke,” says Chris-
topher Allen, head of health care at
HEART UK—The Cholesterol Charity.
“They’re a proven, incredibly effective
drug. Statins reduce the chance of car-
diac events by 30 percent.”
When Saénz got home with the
prescription, his wife told him she
had heard that statin drugs had side
effects. “That did make me hesitate,
but I went ahead with my doctor’s
orders,” he says. “It’s been four years,
and I have had no side effects at all.”
Statins, which are widely used and
have been around since the 1980s,
“have fallen victim to the Age of Mis-
information,” according to a paper
published in 2019 by the European
Society of Cardiology (ESC). There are
rumors they cause type 2 diabetes,
cancer, and even dementia. In real-
ity, while the most common side ef-
fect reported by statin users is muscle
aches, according to the ESC, they occur
in less than 1 percent of patients and
are often alleviated by switching to an-
other brand of statin. As for claims that
statins cause cancer, a 2020 study by
Johns Hopkins Medicine shows statins
may actually starve cancer cells.
So what about statins and de-
mentia? A 2016 study looked at
400,000 Americans who regularly
used statins for at least two years. It
found that over a span of four years,
the men had a 12 percent lower risk
of getting Alzheimer’s disease and
Rd.com 75
Reader ’s Digest Health

the women a 15  percent lower risk.
“There is no hard evidence of cogni­
tive impairment,” Graham says, “and
indeed the risk of vascular dementia is
probably reduced.” That’s the second
most common form of dementia after
Alzheimer’s disease.
For people who can’t take statins,
new injectable medications called
PSK9 inhibitors work by blocking pro­
duction of a protein in the liver so that
the liver can better remove cholesterol
from the blood.
MYTH: I can prevent high
cholesterol with exercise
and diet.
TRUTH: If it’s genetic, you
can’t avoid it.
Renee Welling, 59, a former model
from Toronto, never worried about
her heart health. She worked out
“like an Olympic athlete,” regularly
doing aerobics and weight training,
and maintained a super healthy diet.
Then, when she was 54, she had her
first cholesterol test and was shocked
to discover it was dangerously high.
It turned out she has familial hyper­
cholesterolemia (FH), which means
her body was unable to rid her blood
of LDL cholesterol.
FH has no symptoms and occurs in
around 1 in 250 people. “It’s genetic,”
Graham explains. “If the condition
is inherited from one or, worse, both
parents, untreated high cholesterol
will often result in a heart attack when
you’re relatively young.”
But you won’t know you have FH
without a test. In almost all cases,
people with FH can’t lower their
cholesterol to a healthy level without
medication. Welling’s doctor put her
on statins, and they worked. Her cho­
lesterol levels are now well within the
healthy zone. “Thank goodness I was
tested,” she says. RD

Animal Opposites
Richcupine
Legadillo
Cantgaroo
Noneigator
Stoprilla
Goodger
Uncleeater
Tellthetruthon
@fro_vo

76 OctOber 2021

“Frankly, I’m starting to question the wisdom of a Trojan Piñata.”
an appropriate pun-
ishment. For the rest
Humor in
of that day, the cadet
UNIFORM had to stand on the
edge of the training
area and wave to every
plane that flew past,
Marching in basic shouting, “Bye-bye!
Bill aBBoTT/carToonsTock.com
training, an Air Force Have a safe flight!”
cadet was constantly —Taskandpurpose.com
getting reamed out for
watching the planes My six-year-old son
flying overhead in- and I were watching
stead of keeping his soldiers parading
eyes forward. Finally, through our small
the instructor had had town. Among the
enough and devised marchers were military
Reader ’s Digest
police officers wearing
armbands with the
letters M.P. embla-
zoned on them. I
asked Michael, “Do
you know what those
letters stand for?”
“Yes,” he said.
“M Portant.”
—Tony Taylor
South Fulton, Tennessee
Your funny military
story could be worth
$$$. For details, go to
rd.com/submit.
Rd.com 77
 DRAMA IN REAL LIFE

RUN
OVER BY A
SPEED
BOAT
A gruesome accident nearly killed CARTER VISS.
Healing from his injuries would be tough;
forgiving the boat’s driver, even tougher.

By Gary Stephen roSS

78 OctOber 2021
 Reader ’s Digest

Photograph by Erika Larsen

Reader ’s Digest Drama In Real Life
BENEATH
THE OCEAN’S
surface waits a different world—quiet,
full of wonder, shimmering with life.
Carter Viss loved that world. It’s why
he left Colorado to study marine biol-
ogy at Palm Beach Atlantic University.
It’s why he got a job at the Loggerhead
Marinelife Center, just up Highway 1
on Florida’s east coast. And it’s why
he spent so much free time snorkeling
in the reef system just a few hundred
yards from the famous Breakers resort
in Palm Beach.
This particular Thursday morning—
November 28, 2019—was especially
nice. It was Thanksgiving. Tourists
and locals hit the beaches. The water
was flat, the sky blue, and the under-
water visibility spectacular. Carter, 25,
and his coworker Andy Earl, 32, spent
a couple of hours among the sharks,
eels, turtles, octopuses, lionfish, and
angelfish. They netted some small
specimens for Carter’s personal col-
lection. Finally, around noon, they
began their journey back to shore.
To a diver underwater, outboard
engines have a clear, unmistakable
80 OctOber 2021
sound. Swimming on the surface,
however, Carter didn’t hear the
speedboat. It was just 50 feet away—
and heading straight for him.
Th e Tal l e y G i r l wa s a w h i t e
36-footer with an aqua-colored hull.
But the boat’s most striking feature
was a trio of massive 400-horsepower
Mercury outboard engines with five-
blade propellers. All that power had
it gliding over the water at 50 mph—
much too fast with swimmers nearby.
Christine Raininger was sitting atop
her paddleboard waving her hands,
yelling, “Hey, slow down!” But the
people on the boat—retired Goldman
Sachs executive Daniel Stanton Sr.; his
30-year-old son, Daniel Jr.; his son-in-
law; and two grandchildren—never
Courtesy Palm BeaCh PoliCe
heard her warnings over the roar of
those engines.
The Talley Girl was almost on top of
Carter by the time he saw it. He pulled
desperately to one side, getting his
head and upper torso out of the boat’s
path before it ran him over, sending
him tumbling and somersaulting. The

propeller of the far-right engine had
sliced his right forearm clean off, turn-
ing the water around him crimson.
This can’t be happening, Carter
thought. It was too bizarre.
Inhaling seawater and his own
blood, Carter realized he would drown
if he didn’t swim. But he couldn’t
swim. His right arm was gone. Both
his legs were smashed, dangling use-
lessly beneath him, and his remain-
ing hand was damaged. Bobbing for a
second, he screamed for his life before
slipping beneath the surface.
Andy Earl heard his friend’s cries.
He swam toward Carter, reaching him
at about the same time as Raininger,
Daniel Stanton Jr.
(white visor), Talley
Girl, and first
responders soon
after the accident
who had watched the horror unfold.
While Earl kept Carter’s face out of
the water, Raininger squeezed his up-
per arm to stem the blood flow, then
fashioned a tourniquet from the cord
on her paddleboard.
Meanwhile, on the Talley Girl, a
frantic Stanton Jr. threw the engine
into reverse, stopping alongside the
stricken swimmer. Horrified, in shock,
he helped Earl and Raininger load
Carter onto the dive platform at the
boat’s stern.
I’m not going to make it, Carter
thought, pain searing through the
adrenalin. No way I’m gonna make it.
“God is with us,” Earl reassured his
Rd.com 81
 friend, over and over,
holding his hand as Tal-
ley Girl made for shore.
“God is with us.” Carter,
a devout Christian, felt
his fear and panic melt
away. In its place came
total surrender, a kind
of blissful acceptance.
Dying felt as if he were
diving again, this time
into another beautifully
peaceful realm.
AS IT TURNED OUT, the worst
day of Carter’s life was not without
things to be thankful for. Earl and
Raininger being nearby, for one. The
speedboat reversing so quickly. The
first responders who waded into the
ocean to meet Talley Girl. The ambu-
lance that raced to St. Mary’s Medical
Center. The 12-person critical-care
team, already briefed and suited up,
that received Carter in the trauma bay
barely 20 minutes after the boat strike.
Also fortunate was the fact that
Robert Borrego, a critical-care sur-
geon and the medical director of
trauma at St. Mary’s, was on duty.
The son of a Cuban fisherman, Dr.
Borrego had come to America at age
nine. Thirty years at St. Mary’s and a
stint at a field hospital in Iraq had ac-
climated him to dealing with massive
trauma. Many soldiers he’d worked on
had been devastated by improvised
explosive devices, commonly known
as IEDs.
82 OctOber 2021
Carter with his mother, Leila. One or
both of his parents remained by his side
throughout his hospital stay.
Carter’s injuries were not so differ-
ent, with one exception: Major open
wounds in the ocean are doubly per-
ilous, as the victims keep bleeding
because blood can’t clot, and infec-
tion is very likely.
The doctor did a quick assessment.
Carter was in Stage 4 shock, mean-
ing he’d lost at least 40 percent of his
blood volume and was on the verge
of multi-organ failure. A diver had
retrieved Carter’s arm, but there was
no hope of reattaching it.
Next, Dr. Borrego noted the dam-
age to Carter’s left hand and wrist. His
right knee was dislocated and deeply
lacerated, his kneecap nearly severed,
and his femur fractured. His lower
courtesy viss family
left leg and ankle were smashed, with
deep gashes in the flesh, and his left
foot was turning blue.
It was a miracle Carter had gotten to
the hospital alive, but every moment
counted. One option was to amputate

both legs. Amputation could be done
quickly and would lower the risk of
infection. But one doctor, Dilhan
Ab eyewardene, pointed out that
Carter was young and active, with
his entire life ahead of him. Surely, it
was worth trying to save his legs.
Dr. Borrego agreed.
A team of three surgeons and two
residents set to work. First, they
trimmed the loose skin around the
mangled stump of Carter’s upper
arm. This procedure, called a guillo-
tine amputation, makes for a cleaner
cut, allowing for easier cleaning of the
wound before it’s closed. Next, doc-
tors reset both legs, encasing each
CARTER HAD LOST
A LOT OF BLOOD AND
WAS VERGING ON
ORGAN FAILURE.
in a fixator, a sort of exoskeleton that
maintains proper alignment as the
bones begin their slow repair process.
They also set the fractures in Carter’s
left hand and wrist and repaired the
soft-tissue damage.
After an intense three and a half
hours in the operating room, liber-
ally infused with eight units each of
red blood cells, plasma, and platelets,
Carter was moved to the ICU.
The next 48 to 72 hours would be
critical. The human body can fight
only so many battles at once before
Drama In Real Life Reader ’s Digest
shutting down. All anyone could do
now was wait, and hope.
IN CENTENNIAL, a city out-
side Denver, Chuck and Leila Viss
were taking a chilly, snowy walk
after church when Leila’s cell phone
rang. The display showed a Florida
number. She assumed it was a tele-
marketing robocall.
Back in the car, heading home to
start dinner, she saw there were two
voicemail messages. She put the
phone on speaker so Chuck could
listen as well. It was a sheriff in
Palm Beach County. As the mother
of three active boys—Carter is her
middle son—Leila wondered: What’s
Carter done?
All they recall hearing was “Boating
accident … lost one arm … trying to
save his legs.”
Panicked, they pulled into a parking
lot. “We took turns losing it and com-
forting each other,” said Leila.
The day became a desperate, blurry
scramble of canceled dinner plans,
urgent calls, postponed work dead-
lines, and attempts to book flights on
a holiday. Chuck finally found two
seats on a plane out of Denver that
evening, with a layover in Boston.
Frayed and exhausted, Leila and
Chuck reached St. Mary’s Intensive
Care Unit around 10 a.m. The at-
mosphere was calm but intense, as
doctors and nurses moved with pur-
poseful efficiency. But any sense of
calm for the couple disintegrated
Rd.com 83
Reader ’s Digest Drama In Real Life
when they saw their son. The sight of
Carter in bed, swollen and bandaged,
his right forearm missing, fixators on
his legs, and tubes down his throat,
was overwhelming. Leila and Chuck
had to be helped out of the room to
compose themselves.
So began their vigil. The pair took
turns by their son’s bedside, where
Carter was hooked up to a ventila-
tor. He was tormented by hallucina-
tions—“ICU psychosis,” doctors call
it—which can be caused by medicine,
infection, even low blood oxygen. He
knew his family was there, but so were
strange, gruesome creatures that were
crawling all over him.
“Get them off me,” he begged.
Carter was so out of it that he
didn’t know he’d already had four
operations. Infected flesh had been
excised, a titanium rod inserted in his
shattered shinbone, and hardware in-
stalled in his left wrist and right knee.
Nor did he recall the many visits he’d
had from church friends and Logger-
head colleagues.
One or both of his parents was al-
ways by his side. Chuck, an employee
of the software company Oracle, was
able to work remotely. Leila, a church
organist and piano teacher, needed to
be back in Centennial. So Chuck took
up residence in a nearby condo and
Leila commuted.
Over the 68 days Carter spent in
the hospital, Chuck and Leila noted
each milestone. The first day he
sat up. Being moved out of ICU to a
84 OctOber 2021
“step-down” room. The first time he
wiggled his toes. The first time he
sat in a wheelchair. The first day he
ate actual food: hospital Jell-O and
chicken broth Chuck brought him.
The day Carter stood unaided. And
a few days after that, his first shaky,
excruciatingly painful steps.
Arguably the most significant mile-
stone came the day Carter had his
breathing tube removed. That’s when
Dr. Borrego told him the battle was
90 percent won. Carter says that in
that moment, he knew two things: I’ve
got a long road ahead of me, and I’m
gonna make it.
He decided then and there that
he would put his spared life to good
use by educating others about ocean
safety and conservation. Heading into
yet another surgery, he told his par-
ents, “I can make a bigger difference
now than I ever could before.”
But before he could do that, he
had one last battle to fight: getting off
the heavy doses of morphine, oxyco-
done, and fentanyl that had eased his
pain. Dr. Borrego gradually reduced
his dosages until his patient, deter-
mined to use nothing more than Ad-
vil and medical marijuana, tore off his
fentanyl patch.
Withdrawal made for a harrow-
ing few days, but Carter, as Dr. Bor-
rego puts it, “has incredible mental
strength—just extraordinary.”
Carter was discharged from St.
Mary’s in February 2020. By June,
seven months after the accident, he
 returned to work at the
Marinelife Center. Fit-
tingly, his duties include
helping with the rehabili-
tation of loggerhead sea
turtles that have been in-
jured in boat strikes.
Today he can bend his
right knee only 90 de-
grees. For a while, resid-
ual infections had him on
and off antibiotics. He’s been fitted
with a prosthetic forearm but finds
it cumbersome. Still, Dr. Borrego
says that his recovery has been
almost miraculous.
Physical healing is one thing. The
emotional legacy is less obvious, more
nuanced. “The accident itself,” Carter
says, “I try not to remember how real
it was, the panic and horror. It feels
more like remembering a dream now,
or a nightmare. And I try not to think
of what I can’t do, and focus on ways
to work around things.”
AS CARTER RECOVERED,
and then got on with his life, Daniel
Stanton Jr. was going through his own
Allen eyestone/UsA toDAy netWoRK
agony. Consumed with guilt, he told
the Palm Beach Post that he kept re-
living the scene of the accident over
and over in his mind. “Not a day has
passed since Thanksgiving where I
haven’t thought about the terrible
events of that day and all that Carter
has been through since,” he said. “I
imagine it will weigh on me every day
for the rest of my life.”
Carter with four of his heroes: Dr. Robert
Borrego, Dr. Dilhan Abeyewardene, Andy
Earl, and Christine Raininger
Last September, Stanton was
charged with willful and reckless op-
eration of a vessel, a first-degree mis-
demeanor punishable by up to a year
in jail.
“The prosecutor gave us several
options,” says Chuck. “Carter insisted
he did not want Stanton to face incar-
ceration. He said, ‘I’d rather have him
working with me on ocean safety than
sitting in a jail cell.’ ”
Two months later—almost a year
from the day of the accident—Carter
Viss and Daniel Stanton Jr. entered
the courtroom. The sight of Stanton
caused Carter to flash back to the ac-
cident. It was jarring, but thankfully
brief. A few minutes later, Carter stood
and read a victim statement.
“Imagine yourself doing the thing
you love,” he said, recalling the day
of the accident. “Then, in a matter of
seconds, your joy and contentment
is interrupted by a sudden impact.”
Rd.com 85
Reader ’s Digest Drama In Real Life
Carter Viss
back on the
job, tending
to a lionfish
After describing the horror he had en-
dured, Carter said, “This is not a story
from a war zone, but from an area
you once called your ‘happy place.’ ”
And yet he somehow found the silver
lining in his trauma. “I believe that
everything happens for a reason and
all the pieces are in a place to make
positive changes for marine safety,”
he said.
Then it was Stanton’s turn to speak.
Addressing Carter directly, he said,
“I cannot fathom the physical and
emotional pain you and your family
have endured.’’
The Visses knew the remorse was
genuine. “You could see the pain in
his eyes,” Chuck said.
Heeding Carter’s wishes, the judge
sentenced Stanton to 75 hours of
86 OctOber 2021
community service, a year’s proba-
tion, a $1,000 fine, and a mandate to
work with Carter on legislation to en-
hance ocean safety and conservation.
After the judge handed down
his ruling, Carter shook Stanton’s
hand and said quietly, “Let’s make
a difference.”
And they are. For starters, the two
are advocating for clearer “diver
Allen eyestone/UsA toDAy netWoRK
down” markers off beaches and strict
speed limits for boats.
Has the legal resolution led to for-
giveness? “Forgiveness comes from
the heart,” says Carter. “I feel like I’m
going in the right direction. If I were
him and had to live with the guilt and
remorse, I’d almost prefer to be in my
shoes. But if I can ease someone else’s
pain, I will.” RD
 Reader ’s Digest

Not for Nothing

YOUR My grandmother enjoyed gambling. She
would play cards with anyone and loved
TRUE scratch-off lottery tickets. After I received
STORIES
in 100 Words
the call on the day she died, I went for a walk.
At some point, I came across a lottery stand.
I looked to the heavens and asked Grandma
to send me a number. Two and six popped
Abandon Hope, into my head. I pleaded, “I need a third!” but
All Ye Who Enter I got nothing. Not knowing what to do, I
My cell phone rang the
other day, but the caller played 126. The winning number was 026.
was looking for someone —Mike Wilson New York, New York
else. When I told her she
had the wrong number,
she verified that she had
dialed correctly, then
asked whether a certain
e-mail address was mine.
(It wasn’t.) She said the
person she was looking
for had filled out an on-
line job application and
was using my number.
“Perhaps the person just
typed it in wrong,” I said.
“What’s the job for?” She Who’s the Boss? was awfully early for it.
replied, “Data entry.” In 1974 I was an under- I went to that concert.
—Debbie D. graduate at the University The fellow who had asked
Spring Hill, Florida of Hartford. I remember for directions was there
a young fellow pulling up all right—onstage. No
to me in his car one day one knew who he was,
To read more true and asking, “Where’s the but I was so impressed
stories or submit one, gym?” I figured he had with him. Sometime
go to rd.com/stories. come to see the concert later, I learned his name:
If we publish yours in that was happening in Bruce Springsteen.
the print magazine, it the gym that evening, but —Alanna Mozzer
could be worth $100. I remember thinking he agawam, maSSacHuSettS

Illustration by Melanie Lambrick Rd.com 87

 LIFE WELL LIVED

My mom’s 80th-birthday tattoo

is just the latest example of her wild
newfound independence

GOLDEN
GIRL
by Mark Angus Hamlin
from The Globe and Mail

When your mother enters her ninth
decade, you make a point of being
a little extra vigilant for any signs of
decline—memory loss, bouts of rep-
etition, a general acceleration of age-
related deterioration.
Thankfully, my mother has been
blessed with good health, and her
mental faculties seem to have re-
mained largely intact. But when she
got inked after turning 80 last Sep-
tember, I had to wonder.
To celebrate Mom’s landmark
birthday, we were planning a large
party—but then, of course, every-
thing had to be canceled because of
COVID - 19. After all, her entire social
circle is high risk, composed as it is
of septuagenarian and octogenarian
friends from her book (wine) club, her
garden (wine) club, and her church.
Instead, we arranged an outdoor
family lunch at our lake house in
Quebec.
My mother looks just like many
grandmothers. She is short, plump,

88 OctOber 2021 Illustrations by Marcos Chin

Reader ’s Digest

Rd.com 89
Reader ’s Digest

and white-haired. She’s rosy-cheeked

and jolly, and when she laughs her
eyes almost seem to disappear behind
those chubby cheeks. She comes from
an old, traditional Catholic family. She
was a career civil servant. In short,
she didn’t do crazy stuff.
That all changed a few years ago.
She began to surprise my older brother
and me with bouts of what she de-
scribed as “independence.” At the
time, we merely saw them as exam-
ples of irresponsibility and possibly
age-related questionable judgment.
In early 2015, the year she turned
75, she informed us she’d booked a
seven-night trip to Turkey. Alone. Be-
cause she had never been. Of course,
that was absurd. There was no way
my brother and I could allow that. A
vulnerable little old lady wandering
the streets of Istanbul on her own, not
speaking a word of Turkish, with no
knowledge of the laws and customs of
the land—it was out of the question!
She paid no attention to us. Off she
went. When she returned, she told us
it had been a wonderful success. As
it turns out, she had barely spent any
time alone after hiring a taxi driver
to show her around Istanbul for a
few days. He took her to the souks,
mosques, and restaurants. He intro-
duced her to a rug vendor, “a lovely
fellow,” and she bought some rugs.
The vendor had taken her address
details and promised to ship the rugs
home. The vendor and my mother ap-
parently struck up quite a friendship
and she had told him to please drop
by if he were ever in Canada. My
mother beamed as she told this story.
We couldn’t believe how naive she
had been and duly sat her down to
explain that she had been duped. The
vendor had her money. She neither
had nor would be receiving any rugs.
And, of course, she had no possible
recourse.
Some weeks later, her rugs arrived.
As did a lovely note from Mustafa. To
our even greater surprise, the follow-
ing year Mustafa himself arrived, and
promptly called our mother to inform
her of that fact.
“He came by for a cup of tea. They
drink a lot of tea in Turkey,” my mother
told my horrified brother and me.
At 77, she did a similar thing while
on a Caribbean cruise with her
younger sister. Upon disembarking in
Cuba, she wandered off on her own,
flagged down a motorcycle rickshaw,

90 OctOber 2021
 Live Well Lived

and had the driver “show her around
the island” for several hours. Of course,
she neglected to inform her sister of
her plans (“she would have worried”),
causing my aunt to spend the entire
afternoon searching for our mother.
My aunt didn’t find her until Mom
returned just before the ship was due
to depart. She had been sampling a
local drink with “some very nice
Cubans” at a bar “somewhere off in the
forest—just a shack of a place, really.”
Still, her 80th birthday was when
she really outdid herself. Sitting on
the deck of the cottage for the outdoor
birthday lunch with her family, Mom
informed us that she decided she had
to get a tattoo. Her first. It would be
her 80th-birthday present to herself.
My brother and I eyed each other.
Was she joking? What does Mom know
about tattoos? She goes to church, not
to tattoo parlors. It seemed so absurd
we didn’t believe it.
Six days later, she had a tasteful but-
terfly on the outside of her left ankle.
My brother and I wondered: Had
she become addlebrained? But
Mom proved that she was thinking
straighter than most of us.
Her streak of independence seems
to be thoughtfully based on a realiza-
tion that life is to be lived, and when
there’s relatively little of it left, it needs
to be lived now. This philosophy
reminded me of the line from The
Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy
living or get busy dying.”
As happened with most of us, the
pandemic kept her cooped up, away
from loved ones and fun. The tattoo
was her way of flipping 2020 the bird.
And we couldn’t be prouder of her.
I don’t think Mom knows what her
next big “thing” is. She’s a little old
lady who sits in her apartment, but
she won’t sit still much longer. Sure,
she’s prone to folly, though maybe
that’s what we need right now. Some
pointless, wonderful folly. RD
The Globe and Mail (January 5, 2021), copyriGhT ©
2021 by Mark anGus haMlin, TheGlobeandMail.coM

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Rd.com 91
 NATIONAL INTEREST

THE
TRACTO
 Reader ’s Digest

If you buy a machine—be it a

smartphone or a combine—you
should be able to fix it, right?
Big Tech says no. Ordinary
Joes say yes. Witness the
biggest battle in the right-to-
repair movement, being fought
on farms across America.

ORWAR By Peter Waldman and Lydia Mulvany

From bloomberg.com

Rd.com | octobeR 2021 93

We’re a nation of
tinkerers, says right-
to-repair advocate
Kevin Kenney.

I
t’s Husker Harvest Days,
Nebraska’s biggest agricultural trade
show, and Kevin Kenney is working
the pavilions. The engineer, inventor,
and inveterate manure-stirrer is try-
ing to be discreet. He has allies here
among the sellers and auctioneers
of used tractors and aftermarket
previous spread: farm images/getty images. this page: walker pickering
parts, not to mention among the
farmers and mechanics. But enemies
lurk everywhere.
Kenney is leading a grassroots cam-
paign in the heart of the heartland to
restore a fundamental right most peo-
ple don’t realize they’ve lost—the right
to repair their own farm equipment.
By sheer dint of personal passion, he’s
taking on John Deere and the other
global equipment manufacturers in a
bid to preserve mechanical skills on
the American farm.
Big Tractor says farmers have no
right to access the copyrighted soft-
ware that controls every facet of to-
day’s equipment or even to repair their
own machines, that it’s the exclusive
domain of authorized dealerships.
Kenney says the software barriers
National Interest Reader ’s Digest
create corporate monopolies—and
destroy the agrarian ethos of resiliency
and self-reliance.
“The spirit of the right to repair is
the birthright we all share as a hot-
rodding nation,” he says. Tall and
trim at 57, with gray-flecked hair and
a passing resemblance to a corn-fed
George Clooney, Kenney has kicked
up significant pushback against the
computerization of U.S. agriculture.
At stake for Deere & Company and
other big manufacturers is the free
rein they’ve had as they have mod-
ernized farming with data and soft-
ware. The transformation has helped
U.S. farmers increase productivity, but
at the cost of a steady shift in opera-
tional control from farmer to machine.
One of the world’s oldest and most
hands-on occupations has literally
become hands-off.
Anything a farmer does on a mod-
ern tractor, beginning with opening
the cab door, generates a message
captured by its main onboard com-
puter. This uploads the signal to
the Cloud via a cellular transmit-
ter, which in many Deere models is
located beneath the driver’s seat.
These machines have been meticu-
lously programmed and tested to
minimize hazards and maximize pro-
ductivity, Deere says, and it’s frankly
too complicated for farmers, or for
anyone who doesn’t know the ins and
outs of programming.
“One tweak could cascade through-
out an entire software system and
Rd.com | octobeR 2021 95
Reader ’s Digest National Interest
lead to unintended consequences,”
says Julian Sanchez, Deere’s director
of emerging technology. It doesn’t
take much imagination to envision a
coding mistake by a hacker, or even
a well-intended farmer or mechanic,
that sends a 500-horsepower com-
bine careening into a farmhouse or
through a clutch of workers eating
lunch in the fields.
For a decade, the right-to-repair
battle cry has rattled around rar-
efied circles of digital-rights activists,
techno-libertarians, and hands-on
repair geeks. Now, largely because
of Kenney’s persistence, it’s tug-
ging at the Farm Belt. Why, activists
ask, should the buyer of an espresso
machine or laser printer have to get
replacement pods and cartridges
from the original manufacturer? Who
is Apple Inc. to dictate that only its
certified parts can be used to repair
a broken iPhone screen? What gives
Deere the right to insist, as it did in
a 2015 filing with the U.S. Copyright
Office, that its customers, who pay as
much as $800,000 for a piece of farm
equipment, don’t own the machine’s
software and merely receive “an im-
plied license” to operate the vehicle?
“If it has a chip in it, it’s going to
get monopolized,” says Gay Gordon-
Byrne, executive director of the Repair
Association, which promotes the re-
pair and reuse of electronics. Gordon-
Byrne has helped Kenney set a clear
goal: a law modeled on a landmark
Massachusetts statute, passed in 2012,
96 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm
that required automakers to offer car
owners and independent mechanics
the same diagnostic and repair soft-
ware they provide their own dealers.
After it passed, automakers relented
and made all their repair tools avail-
able nationwide. That’s what Kenney
demands for farm equipment.
At Husker Harvest Days, an ag
industry blowout held every Sep-
tember in Grand Island, Nebraska,
Kenney moves warily. After lunch,
he drops by to see Kenny Roelof-
sen of Abilene Machine LLC, a five-
state retailer of used equipment and
A CODING MISTAKE
COULD SEND A
COMBINE CAREENING
INTO A FARMHOUSE.
spare parts based in Abilene, Kansas.
Roelofsen’s company is instrumen-
tal in keeping older tractors in the
field, an essential service for smaller
farmers on tight budgets, but he says
software barriers in newer machines
are killing his incentive to make and
sell parts.
“I’ve stopped developing parts for
machines built after 2010, because
walker pickering
I know my customers can’t work
on them without software,” he says.
“Only giant corporate farms can afford
newer equipment. For the small guy,
it’s not economically feasible.”
Photo/IllustratIon credIt

Mechanic Jeremy
Davis says getting
even a basic manual
from John Deere is
impossible.
 American farmers
have a familiar saying to
describe their loyalty to
Deere, an attachment
stretching back gen-
erations in many fami-
lies: “We bleed green.”
D e e r e ’s g r e e n a n d
yellow farm vehicles
dominate the world’s
$68 billion market
for agricultural equip-
ment, accounting for
more than half of all
farm machinery sales
in the U.S. and over a
t h i rd o f e q u i p m e n t
revenue worldwide. “I feel stabbed in the back,” says farmer Tom Schwarz.
The company says
the world needs digitized farming to enthusiasts say. The efficiency gains
feed the 10 billion people expected on of recent decades have increased pro-
Earth by 2050. The proprietary soft- ductivity an estimated 1.4 percent per
ware that repair advocates revile is year for the past 70 years. Deere and
what enables sensors and computers other agriculture technology compa-
on machines to log and transmit data nies are betting that what the industry
on everything: moisture and nitrogen calls precision agriculture can dramat-
levels in soil; the exact placement ically expand output.
of seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides; There’s also a more obvious motive
and, ultimately, the size of the har- for protecting proprietary software:
vest. Having access to so much real- money. Historically, the healthy profit
time data enables farmers and their margins of the parts and services
computer-controlled machines to units have helped smooth out earn-
plant, spray, fertilize, and harvest at ings when the demand for machines
optimal times with little waste. All the is down. For Deere and its dealerships,
walker pickering

farmers have to do is link their equip- according to company filings, parts

ment to agronomic prescriptions and services are three to six times more
beamed to them over the Internet. profitable than sales of original equip-
This is farming’s version of big ment. Farmers need to keep aging
data, and the potential is staggering, equipment running; that helped

98 OctOber 2021

increase annual parts sales by 22 per-
cent, to $6.7 billion, from 2013 to
2019, while Deere’s total agricultural-
equipment sales plunged 19 percent,
to $23.7 billion. If a right-to-repair
law pries open the parts and ser-
vices markets to competition, Deere’s
cyclical balancing act could falter.
Sanchez denies that the company
is fighting to protect a parts-and-
services monopoly. “On the repair
side, I would say we’re all in,” he says.
“There’s a significant number of tools
that exist in the market and are avail-
able to any farmer without having to
go through the dealer.”
HORROR STORIES OF
TRACTORS SHUTTING
DOWN OVER COMPUTER
FAULTS ARE COMMON.
That’s news to Jeremy Davis, one
of a small number of independent
equipment mechanics in central
Nebraska. At least half the repairs he
sees involve code faults triggered by
emission control systems. The faults
render vehicles inoperable—a bit like
a mouse incapacitating an elephant.
Davis can replace the exhaust filters
and particulate traps that throw off a
tractor’s codes, but dealerships won’t
provide the software to restart the
machine unless he or the owner hauls
it in or pays for a mechanic to make a
house call.
National Interest Reader ’s Digest
Davis scoffs at another industry
argument against sharing repair soft-
ware with farmers and independent
mechanics: that they’ll abuse it to dis-
able emission control systems. The in-
centive works the other way around,
he says. Many farmers who own
machines with warranties that are
about to expire will delete the emis-
sion system software to avoid costly
future repairs. If right-to-repair leg-
islation leads to more independent
mechanics being able to resolve faults
quickly and easily, owners would have
less motivation to disable emission
controls, Davis says. “The way it is
now is unfair to owners, and it’s un-
fair to me.”
To Kenney, the notion that farmers
can’t work on their own tractors is
an affront to the rugged individual-
ism that built America. Raised on a
central Nebraska farm, he was always
passionate about machines. When
he was 12, he and a friend rebuilt the
transmission of his dad’s 1953 Stude-
baker pickup.
Today, he makes his living installing
tractor software for a farm data com-
pany, and tuning and tweaking trucks
and tractors. His calling, however, is
the right to repair. He’s spent the past
four years turning many conservative
farmers against the corporate incarna-
tion of motherhood and apple pie.
For Nebraska farmers, horror sto-
ries about tractors “bricking,” or shut-
ting down from a computer fault, are
Rd.com 99
Reader ’s Digest
all too common. A Deere spokesper-
son says, “Help is never more than a
finger tap away,” referring to the com-
munications equipment on modern
farm implements.
But getting a machine run-
ning again isn’t always quick. Bill
Blauhorn of Palmer, Nebraska, lost
a half day of harvesting corn while
waiting for mechanics to drive
65 miles to his farm to reset the soft-
ware on his 2017 Case IH combine.
Its emission control system would
repeatedly ice up on cold nights and
in the morning throw a fault code that
prevented it from starting. In 2018,
Blauhorn was racing to bring in the
harvest before an approaching wind-
storm when the system wouldn’t turn
over. He says the five-hour wait for
someone to show up and do a half-
hour software fix contributed to a loss
of at least 15 percent of the crop.
Since then he doesn’t take chances.
“We just let the machine run all night,”
he says.
Andrew McHargue’s tractor went
down for a week during planting sea-
son while he waited for technicians to
solve a problem. McHargue, of Chap-
man, Nebraska, paid $300,000 for the
new machine in 2014, and over the
next few years he sank almost $8,000
into clearing fault codes. He finally
mothballed it in favor of a 2010 model
without the latest software and emis-
sion control systems. The used tractor
cost him an additional $160,000.
“The whole disconnect is about who
100 OctOber 2021
really owns it,” says McHargue. “If it’s
mine, I should be able to fix it myself.”
As things stand, Deere has the tech-
nical ability to remotely shut down a
farmer’s machine anytime—if, say,
the farmer missed a lease payment
or tuned a tractor’s software to goose
its horsepower, a common hack avail-
able through gray-market providers.
A Deere spokesperson says many
manufacturers can remotely control
vehicles they sell, but Deere has never
activated this capability in the U.S.
“WHO REALLY OWNS
THE TRACTOR? IF IT’S
MINE, I SHOULD BE
ABLE TO FIX IT.”
Kenney worries that equipment
makers’ remote control over vehicle
software makes farmers—and the
food supply—vulnerable to sabotage.
His concerns are real. In 2016 the
FBI issued a warning that U.S. agri-
culture is “increasingly vulnerable
to cyberattacks as farmers become
more reliant on digitized data.” What
if a foreign adversary hacks Deere and
shuts down thousands of tractors in
the field? What if the Internet or the
electric grid is knocked out by a cyber-
attack or geomagnetic storm? Unable
to restart their machines without
dealer software, farmers may have no
recourse but to watch as food produc-
tion crawls to a halt.
 National Interest

Before closing time at Husker Harvest imposed by powerful manufacturers

Days, Bruce Rieker, chief of govern-
ment relations for the Nebraska Farm
Bureau, sits down to talk. The bureau’s
delegates have twice voted, almost
unanimously, in favor of the right to
repair. Yet Rieker killed the proposal.
Despite bipartisan support in Nebras-
ka’s legislature, some powerful law-
makers didn’t want to take on Deere
and the equipment lobby, telling the
two sides to settle their differences
without legislation.
“A lot of times I believe the best
solution isn’t legislative or regula-
tory, it’s parties working things out,”
Rieker says.
But to Kenney and his collaborators,
Rieker’s position is pure capitulation.
“Why would we send that signal to
the companies that you don’t need
to worry about us—that we’re not go-
ing to take any action that threatens
your revenue?” says Tom Schwarz, a
Nebraska Farm Bureau leader.
Right-to-repair advocates got some
good news in July when President Joe
Biden signed an executive order that
curbs “unfair anticompetitive restric-
tions on third-party repair or self-
repair of items, such as the restrictions
that prevent farmers from repairing
their own equipment.” The measure
also applies to technology companies.
As this article went to press, the Fed-
eral Trade Commission was consider-
ing how to enact such a rule.
Kenney, however, is not the type to
wait patiently. Recently, prior to Pres-
ident Biden’s action, he emailed Gay
Gordon-Byrne, of the Repair Asso-
ciation, a photo of a 2017 Deere com-
bine that he’d proudly tuned up for
a friend with an extra 50 horsepower
using gray-market software. She wasn’t
impressed. Such tweaking could fall
outside copyright law and amount to
theft of services, she warned him.
Kenney wasn’t buying it. He wrote
back: “Gay, thanks, but why was it
OK years ago to pull the diesel engine
fuel pump off, screw the horsepower
up, put it back on, and run it with no
consequences of ‘theft’? Just because
these engines are now electronic vs.
mechanical we’ve lost our rights to
repair and modify? Back in my day
we truly believed: Hot-Rodding is a
National Birthright!” RD
BloomBerg.com (march 5, 2020), copyright © 2020 By
BloomBerg l.p. all rights reserved

Putting the Brat in Bratwurst

“Parenting” is cooking food to a safe internal temperature
and then waiting three hours until it cools back down
to a temperature my child can tolerate.
@mom_tho

Rd.com 101
Reader ’s Digest

102 OctOber 2021

 TRUSTED BRANDS

HOW A STEALTH TEAM OF CHEMISTS

DISCOVERED A MIX OF MOLECULES THAT
CHANGED LAUNDRY FOREVER

Photograph by Joleen Zubek Rd.com 103

Reader ’s Digest Trusted Brands
or many of us, Tide is the
most squeaky-clean of home helpers.
In 2018, Americans bought $1.7 billion
worth of Tide products, more than all
other detergents (including Purex,
Persil, Gain, and Arm & Hammer)
combined. This year, the 4,000 Ameri-
cans surveyed by the global market-
research firm Ipsos for the annual
Reader’s Digest Most Trusted Brands
survey selected this super-cleaner
not only as the most trusted deter-
gent brand but also as the single most
trusted brand in the Home and Family
products category.
America’s first name in laundry has
an interesting backstory, but the ori-
gin of the name itself was apparently
unrecorded—which is ironic, given
that the bold name and packaging
have played a role in Tide’s success.
When Cincinnati-based manufacturer
Procter & Gamble (P&G) set out to cre-
ate Tide in the 1930s, it was referred to
as Project X. The code name reflected
P&G’s recognition that its team was
104 OctOber 2021
engineering something revolutionary.
At the time, washing powders were
nothing more than pulverized soap.
They weren’t great at cleaning the
kind of ground-in dirt left by the aver-
age blue-collar worker, not to mention
the average red-blooded five-year-old.
Plus, soap is made from fats and oils,
ingredients that don’t dissolve in wa-
ter and do leave behind a residue (aka
the dreaded soap scum) that stiffens
when clothes dry.
Procter & Gamble has been in the
home-product business since the Civil
War. The company first sold soap and
candles, made from the animal fats
readily available from nearby meat-
packers. But as the 20th century took
shape, kerosene replaced candles,
and plant-based cleansers such as
Ivory Soap replaced those made from
PROCTER & GAMBLE
HAS BEEN IN THE
HOME-PRODUCT
BUSINESS SINCE
THE CIVIL WAR.
animal fats. Procter & Gamble was
seeing a huge chunk of business being
washed down the drain. The hope was
that the newfangled, entirely synthetic
Project X would save it.
“This may ruin the soap business,”
P&G’s chairman William Gamble said

at one point. “But if anybody is going
to ruin the soap business it had better
be Procter & Gamble.”
Courtesy ProCter & Gamble arChives (3)
P&G’s top-secret team was led by a
chemist named David “Dick” Byerly,
who had started working on synthetic
detergents well before World War II.
At first, many of his formulas cleaned
clothes but left them “like sandpaper,”
said Thomas Halberstadt, one of Byer-
ly’s supervisors. The big bosses grew
tired of Byerly’s failures. “The only
comments he ever got were ‘What in
the hell are you working on that for?’ ”
It took a decade for
David Byerly and his
team of chemists to
create their sudsy
breakthrough.
Halberstadt said in a 1984 interview.
“But Dick was an obstinate cuss in
some ways. Tenacious as all get-out!”
It took Byerly and the Cincinnati
chemists ten years to come up with
a solution. They finally hit upon a
mixture of alkyl sulfate and sodium
tripolyphosphate, a combination that
creates molecules that grab hard not
only to grease and dirt but also to wa-
ter. It all just rinses away, leaving clean
fabric without any soapy residue. It
was, ultimately, a triumph of trial
and error. As the American Chemical
Society put it: “No one could figure
Rd.com 105
Reader ’s Digest

out why it worked, but it worked.”
And Tide was an instant success.
Sold first as powder, the product hit
the market just as America’s great
postwar boom began. New suburban
homes with their new appliances (in-
cluding the recently invented top-
loading washers) needed something
big. P&G’s marketing department
leaped into action, giving boxes away
with washing machines and flooding
magazines and newspapers with ads
showing happy, healthy housewives
literally hugging the iconic orange box.
While the original plan was to mar-
ket Tide in the soap-scum-plagued,
hard-water Midwest, the product soon
caught on everywhere. By the 1950s,
the P&G officials who once dismissed
Project X were boasting about what
one called “the first big change in
soapmaking in 2,000 years.” Eventu-
ally it would be turned into a liquid
(1984) and then the fantastically prof-
itable Tide Power Pods (2012), which
NEXT YEAR, TIDE WILL
TAKE A TEST RUN TO
THE INTERNATIONAL
SPACE STATION.
cost a whopping 67 cents a load, com-
pared with about 28 cents a load for
the ordinary liquid variety.
Of course, those rainbow-colored
Pods proved to be one of P&G’s big-
gest challenges since the run-up to

Auto Insurance Home Furnishing

The 19 Other GEICO Retailer
Most Trusted Passenger Cars IKEA
Home and (excluding trucks)
TOYOTA
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Family Brands SUV/Crossover LYSOL
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winners from RD’s latest Airline BEHR
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following categories: VERIZON FIDELITY

106 OctOber 2021

 Trusted Brands

Project X. Children thought the pods variety might be Space Tide, the prod-
looked like candy and ate them, lead- uct of a new partnership between
Courtesy Behr Paint ComPany, Courtesy geiCo, Courtesy Purina,

ing to thousands of calls to poison-
control centers across the country.
Fortunately, P&G designers sprang
into action, adding extra child-
Courtesy toyota, getty images (2), joleen zuBek (2)
P&G and NASA . The average space-
station astronaut goes through about
150 sweat-soaked pounds of clothes
a year, much of which ends up get-

proof packaging and a bitter taste to
discourage kids from swallowing
the pods.
And P&G has continued to use its
labs to find new ways to keep Tide in
washing machines—and shopping
carts. The company has developed an
almost endless series of varieties: Tide
with special scents (or with no scent
at all), Tide with fabric softeners, and,
most recently, high-powered Tide
for environmentally friendly cold-
water washes.
And soon, perhaps, the newest
ting dumped into the void to burn up
while tumbling back to Earth.
A Mars mission won’t have the
luxury of restocking, so next year Tide
will take a test run to the International
Space Station to see how well the deter-
gent cleans and reacts in the low-water,
no-gravity environment outside Earth’s
atmosphere. It’s another monumental
challenge, of course. Then again, P&G
has always said that when it comes
to Tide’s ability to clean, the sky’s the
limit. We’ll soon see—literally—how
true that is. RD

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 Reader ’s Digest

BRAIN GAMES
7 Pages to sharpen Your Mind

Fact or Fiction?
MEDIUM Determine whether each statement is true or made up. To reveal the
solution to the bonus question, write the letters indicated by your responses in
the corresponding numbered blanks. Turn the page upside down for the answers.

1. Lightning never 2. Kentucky has more 3. South Africa has

strikes the same bottles of bourbon a total of five official
place twice. than people. languages.

FACT: B FICTION: J FACT: O FICTION: I FACT: L FICTION: H

4. The World Series 5. Atlanta is farther 6. Pablo Picasso made

was first broadcast west than Cleveland. about 5,000 works of
on the radio 100 years art in his lifetime.
ago this month.

FACT: N FICTION: L FACT: D FICTION: Y FACT: G FICTION: E

emily goodman (fact or fiction). noun project ( 4 )

7. Every part of the 8. Mexico is the most 9. Walmart sells a Patti

human body can popular international LaBelle sweet potato
repair itself. travel destination pie every two minutes.
among Americans.

FACT: O FICTION: E FACT: R FICTION: A FACT: T FICTION: E

BONUs QUEsTION Which brand accounts for more than half of all farm machinery
sales in the United States? (Need help? Turn to “The Tractor War” on page 92.)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
50,000. 7. Fiction; teeth can’t. 8. Fact. 9. Fiction; Walmart sells one every two seconds. Bonus Question: John Deere.
tuckians by about 2:1. 3. Fiction; it has 11. (Five feature in its national anthem.) 4. Fact. 5. Fact. 6. Fiction; he made about
Answers: 1. Fiction; the Empire State Building is hit about 25 times each year. 2. Fact; bourbon bottles outnumber Ken-

Rd.com | octobeR 2021 109

Reader ’s Digest

Quick Crossword
easy Fancy a fright? Fit the names of these spooky
characters from literature into the grid:
1 2
AHAB (Moby Dick) 3 4
BATES (Psycho)
BELOVED (Beloved)
DRACULA (Dracula) 5
GRENDEL ( )
HYDE (The Strange Case 6
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
LECTER (The Silence of the Lambs)
RATCHED (One Flew Over 7 8
the Cuckoo’s Nest) 9
SIKES (Oliver Twist) 10
WILKES (Misery)

Phoning It In 1 2 3

emily goodman (quick crossword, Phoning it in). noun Project ( 9 )

MediuM Each number in the message ABC DEF
below corresponds to a letter on a
standard telephone keypad. For
instance, a 2 could represent an A, a 4 5 6
B, or a C; a 3 could be a D, an E, or an GHI JKL MNO
F; and so on. Can you decipher the
message to reveal a timely fun fact?
7 8 9
PQRS TUV WXYZ

896 63 843 6678 7678527

425569336 26788637 367 222437

5278 9327 9373 74275 263 9632

110 OctOber 2021
 Brain Games

The Artist at Work All Around

MEDiuM Caroline is going to paint a still life, but first the Octagon
she has to set the scene. She has the following eight Easy If these numbers
items: red grapes, a bottle of red wine, a banana, a form a sequence, which
sunflower, a green apple, a green vase, a pine cone, number is missing?
emily goodman (The arTisT aT Work). darren rigby (PiPe doWn). marcel danesi (all around The ocTagon). noun ProjecT (8)

and a wooden bowl. From the following clues, can you

determine which objects Caroline will select? 4

9
63

19
?
9

39
15
✦✦ She will pick only one fruit.
✦✦ She will pick the vase only if she also 79
picks the sunflower.
✦✦ She will pick exactly two man-made
objects—but only one made of glass.
✦✦ She will pick exactly one item of each color.

Pipe Down BASE STREET HOUSE

Difficult Place levels A and B

in between the BASE and
STREET levels so that all the
pipes connect. The black circles
indicate where pipes extend up-
ward. The blue circles indicate
where they extend downward.
Levels A and B may need to be
flipped over, rotated, or both. If
the BASE is oriented correctly as
drawn, in which corner of the
diagram will the house be?

For more Brain Games,

go to rd.com/
A B
crosswords.

For answers, turn to page 115.

Rd.com 111
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 Brain Games Reader ’s Digest

9. verify v.
WORD POWER ('vair-uh-fy)
A discredit
B confirm
C exaggerate
Mark Twain once wrote, “When in doubt,
tell the truth.” That’s good advice, but who 10. ersatz adj.
among us hasn’t told a little white lie—or ('air-sahts)
A genuine
a whopper? This month’s words relate to B neutral
facts, fiction, and the gray areas between. C bogus
Once you get to the bottom of this quiz, turn
to the next page for the moment of truth. 11. slander n.
('slan-der)
A false statements
By Sarah Chassé B flawed argument
C con artist

1. credible adj. 5. duplicitous adj. 12. cozen v.

('kreh-dih-bull) (doo-'plih-suh-tus) ('kuh-zin)
A upfront A dishonest A guarantee
B biased B wishy-washy B fact-check
C believable C principled C deceive

2. ruse n. 6. candid adj. 13. fallacy n.

(rooz) ('kan-did) ('fal-uh-see)
A pledge A frank A gold standard
B trick B phony B mistaken belief
C secret C undercover C bluff

3. obscure v. 7. apocryphal adj. 14. polygraph n.

(ob-'skyur) (uh-'pah-kruh-full) ('pah-lee-graf)
A cheat A trustworthy A sworn statement
B make public B skeptical B lie detector
C hide C made-up C god of truth

4. axiom n. 8. feign v. 15. debunk v.

('ak-see-um) (fayn) (dee-'bunk)
A myth A leave out details A disprove
B source B give the appearance of B bring to light
C truism C offer as evidence C challenge in court

Rd.com | octobeR 2021 113

Reader ’s Digest

Lies Laid Bare

If someone tells a shameless falsehood, you might shout, “That’s a bald-faced
lie!” Or is it barefaced lie? Both describe a deception that’s brazenly uncon-
cealed, like a beardless face. That sense of boldness may have led to the
rise of the bold-faced lie. While popular (and found in the dic-
tionary), grammarians prefer boldface to describe a heavy font.

Word Power
ANSWERS
1. credible (C) believable.
I know “the dog ate my
homework” isn’t a credi-
ble excuse, but that’s
what really happened!
2. ruse (B) trick.
Tonight’s dinner reserva-
tions are a ruse—we’re
actually throwing Javier
a surprise party.
3. obscure (C) hide.
The burglars’ black masks
obscured their faces.
4. axiom (C) truism.
Grandpa repeats his fa-
vorite axiom often: “Mea-
sure twice, cut once.”
the actor reveals his
struggle with addiction.
7. apocryphal
(C) made-up.
Most historians agree
that the story of George
Washington chopping
down the cherry tree is
apocryphal.
8. feign
(B) give the appearance of.
Back in high school, I’d
often feign illness to get
out of gym class.
9. verify (B) confirm.
Please bring a passport or
driver’s license to verify
your identity.
10. ersatz (C) bogus.
The street vendor sells
fake Rolexes and other
12. cozen (C) deceive.
Scammers make count-
less robocalls every day,
trying to cozen a few un-
suspecting consumers.
13. fallacy
(B) mistaken belief.
Does the camera really
add ten pounds, or is that
just a fallacy?
14. polygraph
(B) lie detector.
The murder suspect in-
sisted he was innocent,
though he refused to take
a polygraph.
15. debunk (A) disprove.
The existence of Bigfoot
has been thoroughly
debunked.
malerapaso/Getty ImaGes

5. duplicitous ersatz items.

(A) dishonest.
“You duplicitous double-
crosser—you’ll pay for
this!” Ellen shouted.
6. candid (A) frank.
In a candid new memoir,
11. slander
(A) false statements.
Valerie has been spread-
ing slander about her
ex-husband to anyone
who will listen.
Vocabulary Ratings
9 & Below: the truth
10–12: the whole truth
13–15: and nothing but
the truth

114 OctOber 2021

 Brain Games

Make
ANSWERS us !
L ugh
a
WHERE, OH WHERE?
(page 44)
A. Point Reyes National
Seashore in California
BRAIN GAMES
(pages 110-111)
Quick Crossword
ACROSS DOWN
3. WILKES 1. BELOVED
6. BATES 2. SIKES
7. DRACULA 4. LECTER
9. HYDE 5. RATCHED
10. GRENDEL 8. AHAB

The Artist at Work

Caroline selects the
grapes, the sunflower,
the vase, and the bowl.

Phoning It In
Two of the most popular
Halloween costumes for
babies last year were
Jakob Helbig/getty images. NouN ProJect ( 4 )
Caption Contest
What’s your clever description for this
picture? Submit your funniest line at
rd.com/captioncontest. Winners will
appear in a future Photo Finish (page 116).

shark and Yoda.

All Around
the Octagon
319. Double a number
and add 1 to get the next
number.
Pipe Down
The lower right. B, flipped
and rotated, goes on the
BASE, and A, flipped and
rotated, goes on top of B.
Reader’s Digest (ISSN 0034-0375) (USPS 865-820), (CPM Agreement# 40031457), Vol. 198, No.
1174, October 2021. © 2021. Published monthly, except bimonthly in March/April, 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 Plains,
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Rd.com 115
Reader ’s Digest Brain Games

PHOTO FINISH
Your Funniest captions

Charlie DaviDson/ComeDy WilDlife Photo aWarDs 2020

Winner
“This tiny-house fad is out of control.”
—Wil Fritz Bridgeton, Missouri

Runners-Up
National Enquirer: Tree Gives Birth to Full-Grown Raccoon
Avery Camp Chipley, Florida

Sadly, at the animal circus, the raccoon cannonball act went badly awry.
—Russell Leone Carnation, Washington

To enter an upcoming caption contest, see the photo on page 115.

116 OctOber 2021 | rd.cOm

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