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REDUCE YOUR ANXIETY

By REBECCA PHILPS

JULY/AUGUST 2021

! e t a t S y r e ert in Ev

A C I R E M A

B e st D e s

s

TH E TA

By RD &

S TE O F H

OME

100 Funniest

TWEETS EVER

From RD’S HUMOR EDITOR

HIDDEN BENEFITS of Fasting From THEHEALTHY.COM

The Women vs. the Pythons From FLAMINGO MAGAZINE

If Your Block Could Talk From the book A WALK AROUND THE BLOCK

A Holocaust Survivor Gets Her Diploma From THE WASHINGTON POST

Made with real CHICKEN No fillers

should be simple.

100% complete & balanced

SAVE NOW AT DOGCHOW.COM/SIMPLE Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.

A Trusted Friend in a Complicated World

Features

66

cover story

THE BEST DESSERT IN EVERY STATE

Apple pie belongs to all of us, but every region has its signature treat. With help from our friends at Taste of Home, we’ve found the 50 best.

112 drama in real life

Quieting Anxiety

Trapped at the Bottom of the Sea

Overlapping crises have made many of us jumpy. But how do you know when you have slipped into a more serious problem and need help? by rebecca philps

96 humor The 100 Funniest Tweets Ever

80 national interest

edited by andy simmons

Invasive Burmese pythons are squeezing the life out of the Everglades. An unlikely sisterhood of the swamp is taking them on. by craig pittman from flamingo magazine

It was supposed to be a routine under water pipeline repair job.

Then one diver’s airsupply cord snapped— when he was 300 feet down. by simon hemelryk

by emily goodman, genevieve looby, and the taste of home editors

The Snake Charmers the sun/news licensing

90 health

#We’reNotKidding.

106 who knew?

If Your Block Could Talk Fascinating facts about the streets where we live. by spike carlsen from the book a walk around the block

112 rd.com | july/august 2021

1

Reader ’s Digest Contents

Departments 6 Dear Reader 8 Letters

14

everyday heroes

14 The Street Vet by andy simmons

17 Giving the Gifts on Her Birthday by caroline fanning

how to

24 Feel Happy, Even When You’re Not by arthur c. brooks from the atlantic

where, oh where?

28 Beacon of Light your true stories

30 A Vacation Reunion, and More 13 things

32 Nitty-Gritty Details on Sand

On the Cover Photograph by Christopher Testani

America the Tasty ................................................... 66 100 Funniest Tweets Ever ..................................... 96 Hidden Benefits of Fasting ................................... 55 The Women vs. the Pythons ................................. 80 A Holocaust Survivor Gets Her Diploma............ 40 Reduce Your Anxiety .............................................. 90 If Your Block Could Talk .......................................106

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july/august 2021 | rd.com

on the cover: food stylist: jamie kimm. this page: courtesy the street vet

by emily goodman

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Reader ’s Digest Contents

The Healthy

a world of good

38 Community Food Forests, and More

55 The Promise of Intermittent Fasting

everyday miracles

40 A Holocaust Survivor Finally Gets Her Diploma

edited by rozalynn s. frazier

59 The CoronavirusDiabetes Connection

by sydney page from washingtonpost.com

best pet pals we found a fix

50 Make the Most of Lemons, and More life well lived

52 A Song in His Heart by deborah stock from the globe and mail

quotable quotes

64 Yo-Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell, Idris Elba

64

Humor 18 Life in These United States

60 News from the World of Medicine

125

36 All in a Day’s Work 44 Laughter, the Best Medicine 79 Humor in Uniform

Brain Games 121 Fact or Fiction? and More 125 Word Power 128 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 electronic media. Contribute your True Stories at rd.com/stories. If we publish one in a print edition of Reader’s Digest, we’ll pay you $100. To submit humor 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 $100 for any true funny story published in a print edition of Reader’s Digest unless we specify otherwise in writing. Please include your full name and address in your entry. We regret that we cannot acknowledge or return unsolicited work. Requests for permission to reprint any material from Reader’s Digest should be sent to permissions@tmbi.com. Get help with questions on subscriptions, 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.

from top: halfdark/getty images. dendong/getty images. larry french/getty images

46 My Divine Bovine

by russell mcclendon

Reader ’s Digest

DEAR READER

A

chat with RD humor editor Andy Simmons about the art of the one-liner, including the 100 tweets starting on page 96: Me: There is a lot of humor online.

Searching for comedic gold must be like looking for a strand of hay in a stack of needles—at times painful.

How do you do it?

Andy: The humor team—Emily Goodman, Caroline Fanning, and I— has a list of go-to comics and sites.

But you need to pack a lunch because before you know it, you’re tumbling down rabbit holes chasing gags. Don’t tell my boss, but I’ve spent many a pleasant afternoon doing just that.

Me: OK, take this one, on page 100: “I bet when the first guy wore glasses everybody was like ‘Oh la-di-da, excuse me Mr. I Need TWO Monocles.’”

That’s brilliant. What do you know about @robfree?

Andy: Nothing!

Me: So, these are just average folks thumbing away?

Andy: Watch yourself, bub—“average folks” send Reader’s Digest a million gags each year.

But yes, Twitter is the

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july/august 2021 | rd.com

great democratic experiment of the day. Every genius or idiot can have his or her say. Some are stand-up comedians, some are someone’s mom. Their rotten jobs and misbehaving kids are humor gold on Twitter.

Me: How do you pick them?

Andy: First, they have to crack me up. Second, they have to crack you up. Third, if our managing editor says, “Can we get away with saying that word?” we don’t run it.

Me: Well, one hint about me is that I especially loved this one-liner on page 99: “My parrot died today. Its last words were ‘Darn, I think my parrot is about to die.’ ” Hah! Absurdity must be a 21st-century thing.

Andy: Hah! I have two words for you: Harpo and Marx. Was there anyone more absurd? And he was cracking us up 90 years ago.

Me: Any last one-liner for the audience?

Andy: Yes, one stolen from him: “… !”

Bruce Kelley, editor-in-chief Write to me at letters@rd.com.

from top: united archives/getty images. matthew cohen

Harpo Speaks

C A R E S A N D

H E R E .

H E R E .

M O R E C L E A N I N G R E D I E N T S T O D AY. MORE RECYCLABLE PACKAGES TOMORROW. You care about a clean future. And so do we.

Proven nutrition is at the heart of what we do. But it’s not all we do.

See our commitment to cleaner ingredients and a greener planet at PURINA.COM/CARES.

Reader ’s Digest “Don’t Panic!”

May issue

Road Trips!

Utah’s Canyonlands is also lauded as one of the quietest places on earth. When we visited, we waited for other hikers to leave and then closed our eyes and just listened.

No wind whistling, birds chirping, insects buzzing, or ambient sound whatsoever.

It was an eerie experience I’ll never forget— and the scenery was spectacular, of course.

—Diane Armstrong Colorado Springs, Colorado

Jerry’s Dirt I thought I was a tough old bird but had to shed a few tears for this interesting man and his love for the planet, science, flora, bees, birds, animals, and his family. He certainly left this earth better than he found it.

—Alan Cragun Whitestown, Indiana

News from the World of Medicine The item about continuous glucose monitors

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july/august 2021

hit home for me. My husband, who has type 1 diabetes, developed hypoglycemic unawareness—an inability to feel his blood sugar dropping—which causes him to become confused. When CGMs came out, I no longer had to try to reason with someone who was disoriented. Now the monitor beeps and I just say “Your second wife is calling.”

—Denise Brady Las Vegas, Nevada

Where, Oh Where?

For me, having lived in Portland, Oregon, for several years in the mid-1970s, the view of Mount Hood in the distance was a dead giveaway for the location of the tulips in this photo!

—Susan Redding Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Saluting Arlington Cemetery I have an additional veteran to mention who is also buried in Arlington: Audie Murphy. He was one of the most decorated combat

rd photo studio

LETTERS Notes on the

I was stationed at Elmendorf Air Base in Anchorage when the Alaska earthquake occurred. The building I lived in had a long hallway with exits on each end. During the quake, it swayed so much that you couldn’t see both at the same time. Our planes bounced around like toys, and we felt aftershocks for at least a year.

—Vernon Kreuser Theresa, Wisconsin

soldiers of World War II, receiving every combat award for valor from the U.S. Army, as well as one from France and another from Belgium. He was also a singer, songwriter, actor, and rancher.

—J.L. via e-mail

cameras, repaired automobiles, and taught himself Russian later in life. But there is so much I don’t know about him, and now I have no way of finding out.

—Marvin Case Vancouver, Washington

A World of Good

archive photos/getty images (ghost), rd photo studio (photo border)

Fast Food Was Our Love Language The author states a very common feeling among children with deceased parents: “There were questions I never thought to ask.”

There are so many things I now want to know about my father.

Why did he attend public high school for three years but then transfer to a private school?

Why was he so timid that he rarely even went into a store? He built

As a caretaker for my brother who uses a wheelchair, I love the idea of a Lego ramp like the ones Rita Ebel builds for shop entrances. We often have difficulty getting over a step to enter a building.

When I told my brother about this story, he agreed it’d be nice to have a Lego ramp. But he had a question: “How much does it cost, an arm and a Lego?”

—Shannon Haynie Kalamazoo, Michigan

IMMUNE RESPONSES ✦ Thank you for “How

to Strengthen Your Immune System.” A lot has been said about handwashing, masks, and social distancing but not about how to improve our immune systems.

It’s good to protect ourselves from the outside, but more important to do so from the inside.

—Barbara Epps

weatherford, texas ✦ A doctor once noted that my husband and I must be doing something right to have such healthy immune systems at age 60. All we did was eat blueberries every day.

Now 80, we still play tennis and sleep well—and we never go a day without our blueberries!

—Trudy Williams

sanibel, florida

When the Spirit Moved You Have you ever seen a ghost? Not the scary kind; we are thinking more of a spiritual visitation or encounter that seemed like a sign from a departed loved one, maybe in a dream—or like what Demi Moore went through in Ghost.

If you’ve had such an uplifting or inspiring experience, we’d like to share it with RD readers. Tell us about yours and see terms at rd.com/ghoststory.

rd.com

9

For adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D), along with diet and exercise, once-daily RYBELSUS® can help lower blood sugar

Wake Up to the Possibilities of Reaching Your A1C Goal

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See cost and savings info at RYBELSUS.com, and ask your healthcare provider about RYBELSUS® today.

Brief Summary of information about RYBELSUS® (semaglutide) tablets Rx Only This information is not comprehensive.

• Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist • Visit www.novo-pi.com/rybelsus.pdf to obtain the FDA-approved product labeling • Call 1-833-GLP-PILL Read this Medication Guide before you start using RYBELSUS® and each time you get a refill. There may be new information. This information does not take the place of talking to your healthcare provider about your medical condition or your treatment.

What is the most important information I should know about RYBELSUS®?

RYBELSUS® may cause serious side effects, including: • Possible thyroid tumors, including cancer. Tell your healthcare provider if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, hoarseness, trouble swallowing, or shortness of breath. These may be symptoms of thyroid cancer. In studies with rodents, RYBELSUS® and medicines that work like RYBELSUS® caused thyroid tumors, including thyroid cancer. It is not known if RYBELSUS® will cause thyroid tumors or a type of thyroid cancer called medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) in people.

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What is RYBELSUS®?

RYBELSUS® is a prescription medicine used along with diet and exercise to improve blood sugar (glucose) in adults with type 2 diabetes.

• RYBELSUS® is not recommended as the first choice of medicine for treating diabetes.

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It is not known if RYBELSUS® is safe and effective for use in children under 18 years of age.

Do not use RYBELSUS® if: • you or any of your family have ever had a type of thyroid cancer called medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) or if you have an endocrine system condition called Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia syndrome type 2 (MEN 2).

• you are allergic to semaglutide or any of the ingredients in RYBELSUS®.

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• are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if RYBELSUS® will harm your unborn baby. You should stop using RYBELSUS® 2 months before you plan to become pregnant. Talk to your healthcare provider about the best way to control your blood sugar if you plan to become pregnant or while you are pregnant.

• are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Breastfeeding is not recommended during treatment with RYBELSUS®.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. RYBELSUS® may affect the way some medicines work and some medicines may affect the way RYBELSUS® works.

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• If you miss a dose of RYBELSUS®, skip the missed dose and go back to your regular schedule.

• Talk to your healthcare provider about how to prevent, recognize and manage low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), high blood sugar (hyperglycemia), and problems you have because of your diabetes.

What are the possible side effects of RYBELSUS®?

RYBELSUS® may cause serious side effects, including: • See “What is the most important information I should know about RYBELSUS®?”

• inflammation of your pancreas (pancreatitis). Stop using RYBELSUS® and call your healthcare provider right away if you have severe pain in your stomach area (abdomen) that will not go away, with or without vomiting.

You may feel the pain from your abdomen to your back.

• changes in vision. Tell your healthcare provider if you have changes in vision during treatment with RYBELSUS®.

• low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Your risk for getting low blood sugar may be higher if you use RYBELSUS® with another medicine that can cause low blood sugar, such as a sulfonylurea or insulin. Signs and symptoms of low blood sugar may include: dizziness or light-headedness blurred vision anxiety, irritability, or mood changes sweating slurred speech hunger confusion or drowsiness shakiness weakness headache fast heartbeat feeling jittery • kidney problems (kidney failure). In people who have kidney problems, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting may cause a loss of fluids (dehydration) which may cause kidney problems to get worse. It is important for you to drink fluids to help reduce your chance of dehydration.

• serious allergic reactions. Stop using RYBELSUS® and get medical help right away, if you have any symptoms of a serious allergic reaction including itching, rash, or difficulty breathing.

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Talk to your healthcare provider about any side effect that bothers you or does not go away. These are not all the possible side effects of RYBELSUS®.

Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

How should I store RYBELSUS®?

• Store RYBELSUS® at room temperature between 68°F and 77°F (20°C to 25°C).

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Manufactured by: Novo Nordisk A/S, DK-2880 Bagsvaerd, Denmark RYBELSUS® is a registered trademark of Novo Nordisk A/S. © 2020 Novo Nordisk US20RYB00510 9/2020

EVERYDAY HEROES

The Street Vet A California veterinarian makes house calls to pet owners who have no place to call home

K

wane Stewart stepped outside a Modesto, California, convenience store with his morning coffee and spotted a homeless man sitting with his back against the building. It was 2011, and the Great Recession had spilled a lot of unfortunate people onto the streets. A small dog sat in the homeless man’s lap. Stewart, a veterinarian at an animal shelter, noticed its scratched-off fur and chewed-up skin—telltale signs of an allergic reaction to fleas.

He approached the man and offered to bring flea medication for the dog’s skin, a gift the man readily accepted.

“I remember returning a week and a half later, and the hair was coming back, the rash was gone,” Stewart told the Modesto Bee. The man said his dog was finally sleeping at night

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again because it was no longer staying up scratching and chewing. “ ‘And you know,’ he said, ‘I’m sleeping at night.’ He started to cry, and that got me choked up too,” Stewart says.

Stewart was hooked. “When you give back, there is something you get in return that feels much larger.

I knew I wanted to keep doing it,” he told medium.com.

Today, Stewart, 50, has his own practice in town, yet he still finds time for street pets. He’s helped roughly 400 animals since 2011, mostly dogs but also a few cats—and once a Burmese python.

There’s a dire need for his kind of help. About 25 percent of Modesto’s homeless population own a pet, but there are few health-care options available to them. To fill that void,

malik daniels/courtesy the street vet

By Andy Simmons

Reader ’s Digest

Dr. Kwane Stewart drives around town seeking out potential patients to help.

Reader ’s Digest

“THEIR ANIMALS ARE THEIR REASON FOR GETTING UP IN THE MORNING.” that more than anybody, they need a pet, they deserve a pet,” Stewart told the Bee. “They love their pet probably more than the average person.

Because, you know, the owner is the pet’s home.”

There’s one more pressing reason for the homeless to have their pets: “I can’t tell you how many times

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Dr. Stewart says of his homeless clients, “I’ve gotten a lot more from them than I feel like they’ve gotten from me.”

people told me their animals are their reason for getting up in the morning,” Stewart says.

One of those people is Joe, an articulate white-haired middle-aged man who has landed on rough times. He says that his black-and-white mixed breed is his life.

“When I first hit the streets, I was almost to the point where I had given up,” he said in a video that Stewart posted on the GoFundMe page. “This dog was an answer to my prayers.

Every morning, I wake up, her tail is wagging. She’s always giddy. I don’t feel that loneliness. If something happened to her, I don’t know what I’d do.

To have somebody like Dr. Stewart come out here to take care of my dog just because it’s the right thing to do, that’s huge.” RD

courtesy the street vet

Stewart can often be found wandering dark alleyways and underpasses, anywhere he thinks the homeless might be camped out. He carries his medical bag, which contains treatments—vaccines, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, flea medications, and more—for most of the cases he encounters. Stewart pays for almost all of it out of his own pocket.

Occasionally, he comes upon a medical problem that requires more attention than he can provide on the street. For those expensive procedures, he set up a GoFundMe account to help cover treatment costs. “I don’t ever want to have to turn anybody away,” he explains.

He knows there are some people who question whether the homeless should even have pets. How can they care for them on the street? “I think

Everyday Heroes and know that I am near” inscribed on the clapper. It now hangs in the fouryear-old’s bedroom, where his brother can go to listen to it whenever he wants.

This is not the first time that Ferrell decided to give gifts for her birthday.

For her 47th, in 2014, she founded Love with Skin On, an organization dedicated to doing good deeds near

By Caroline Fanning her home in Roanoke, Virginia, and ebra Ferrell got the standard beyond. Its motto is simple: Be Love, well wishes on Facebook on her Do Stuff.

Over the years, Ferrell has reached 53rd birthday, but she got some unusual messages too. One was about out and touched well over 100 strangers, some found via a family in MinneFacebook callouts, sota who had just lost others with help from their four-year-old her grandkids. In anson to cancer. His other act of giving, older brother, autisshe shares her favortic and non verbal, ite inexpensive and was especially griefcreative gift ideas on stricken. Could FerPinterest for others rell help? to use.

That message and Ferrell pays for evthe 30 or so others like erything herself: gift it were exactly what cards, pay-it-forward Ferrell was looking for. purchases at driveTo celebrate her 53rd, throughs, and care the longtime social Ferrell has plans for number 54— service professional an extra year, an extra good deed. packages, as well as the gas it takes to and certified sweetie had put out a call on her Facebook play fairy godmother. Her family ofpage. She wanted to commit 53 ran- ten gives her some extra birthday cash dom acts of kindness by the end of her with a stern warning not to spend it birth month, and she needed infor- on anyone else, which she naturally mation on people who could use one. ignores. “I got a couple of Amazon When she got the note about the Min- gift cards for my birthday this year and nesota family, she sent a wind chime was like ‘YESSS! ’ ” It’s Ferrell’s party, with the message “Listen to the wind and she’ll give if she wants to. RD

Giving the Gifts on Her Birthday

courtesy debra ferrell

D

rd.com

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LIFE in these United States

When our tour group entered a cafeteria for breakfast, the woman walking in with me made a beeline for the carrot cake. But just as she reached for a slice, she thought better

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of it and withdrew her hand. As she turned away, I heard her murmur, “No, it’s too early for vegetables.”

—Betty Rosian Johnstown, Pennsylvania I was driving with my young twin grandsons when their mother called. As we chatted over the car’s Bluetooth speaker, one of the boys yelled out from the back, “Hey,

Mom, guess who this is? Is it me or Luke?”

After a slight pause, the boys’ mother remarked, “And he’s the smart one.”

—Mary Meillier Coral Springs, Florida Me, before coffee: Ugh, why is everyone shouting?

Me, after coffee: OK, yes, I do see the fire now.

— @RICA_BEE

roz chast/cartoonstock.com

Reader ’s Digest

My husband walked in the room and said, “How’s my sleeping beauty?” I smiled and opened my eyes just in time to see him pat my sleeping puppy’s head.

NO, YOU EAT IT!

— @VisionBored1

halfdark/getty images

After a visit to Yellowstone’s Old Faithful, our family stopped at a gas station outside of the park. Our daughter leaned over a water fountain, and just as she was about to take a sip, the water shot up and sprayed her face.

The gas station attendant smiled.

“That’s why we call it Old Faceful.”

—Sharron Nelson Wood LaVerkin, Utah Rummaging through my elderly mother’s freezer, I found pierogi and offered to cook them for her.

“No,” she said. “Your sister made them, but I don’t like pierogi.”

“Did you tell her that?” I asked “Of course not,” she

said, scoffing at the very idea. “If I did, she wouldn’t bring them anymore.”

—Dave Curran Vero Beach, Florida My Fitbit had stopped working, which meant I wouldn’t get any credit for all the steps I took during my upcoming Zumba class.

Luckily, my husband came to the rescue.

Handing me his Fitbit, he said, “Here, take mine. I need the exercise.”

—Debbie Wallis Centennial, Colorado

Got a funny story about friends or family? It could be worth $$$. For details, see page 4 or go to rd.com/submit.

✦ My husband wants

to make cauliflower crust pizza, so now I have to run to the grocery store and find a new husband.

— @mommajessiec ✦ Apparently, I pack an

apple in my 5-year-old’s lunch so it can get out of the house for a few hours.

— @Brianhopecomedy ✦ As a child, I truly did not understand how good I had it not having to decide what to eat for dinner every single night.

— @jonnysun ✦ Me: I don’t get why our

kids are such picky eaters. It’s just food. Eat it.

Wife: Have a salad.

Me: I’d rather die.

— @XplodingUnicorn ✦ Almost left the grocery store without buying a bag of spring mix to throw, unopened, into the garbage in two weeks.

— @thisisdrew08

rd.com

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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.

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 * Based on 24-month TRx shares for all branded to increase or make your blood pressure worse OAB medications, IMS Health National if you have a history of high blood pressure.

Prescription Audit, January 2019–December You and your doctor should check your blood 2020. THIS INFORMATION DOES NOT IMPLY pressure while you are taking MYRBETRIQ. SAFETY OR EFFICACY OF ANY PRODUCT; Call your doctor if you have increased blood NO COMPARISONS SHOULD BE MADE. 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

Reader ’s Digest

photo illustration by joleen zubek, underwood archives/getty images (rockwell), maria amador (smiley face)

HOW TO

Feel Happy, Even When You’re Not As simple as it sounds, plastering on a smile can be the first step toward cheering yourself up

By Arthur C. Brooks from the atlantic

N

orman Rockwell created some of the most iconic images of 20th-century America. His paintings, such as the Four Freedoms series from World War II and The Problem We All Live With from the civil rights movement, were intended to evoke the best in people who saw them: hope, solidarity, courage, justice. But much of his work also inspired happiness, capturing scenes of lighthearted joy. Consider Shiner, which depicts a young girl with a black eye sitting outside the principal’s office with a grin that tells you she has just been the victor in combat.

I have seen these paintings my whole life, starting with my grandfather’s beloved dog-eared coffee-table

book of Rockwell’s greatest works. A printing press operator in Longview, Washington, my grandfather was no art connoisseur. But he gave this assessment of Rockwell: “These pictures make me feel happy.”

And yet Rockwell himself struggled with happiness. In 1953, he moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a bucolic town in the Berkshires—not for its natural beauty and peace but because it happened to be the home of a psychiatric hospital where he and his wife could receive treatment for chronic depression. There, he was a patient of the world-famous psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, with whom Rockwell racked up a therapy bill so large that he had to accept commissions for rd.com | july/august 2021

25

Reader ’s Digest How to Feel Happy Kellogg’s Corn Flakes magazine ads.

That a man with such significant happiness problems would be known for painting images of undeniable happiness might seem ironic. In truth, it’s not strange at all. Research shows not only that you can bring joy to others even if you’re unhappy but also that doing so is a reliable way to improve your own well-being too.

The key is to act like a happy person would, even if you don’t feel like it. Last year, researchers at the University of California at Riverside asked people to behave in either extroverted or introverted ways for one week. Those who purposely acted extroverted—which decades of research have shown is one of the most common characteristics of happy people—saw a significant increase in well-being. (Meanwhile, acting introverted led to a decrease.)

Similarly, spending money on others and volunteering have been shown to raise one’s own happiness levels.

One plausible explanation is that prosocial behaviors induce a cognitive dissonance—I feel unhappy, but I am acting happy!—which people resolve subconsciously by feeling happier.

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom, calls this the “As If Principle”: If you want to feel a certain way, act as if you already do, and your brain will grant you that feeling, at least for a while. In common parlance, “Fake it till you make it.”

I am not suggesting that “Fake it

26

july/august 2021 | rd.com

till you make it” is a substitute for traditional medical treatment for depression, of course. Rockwell was in formal therapy most of his adult life.

But his happy paintings were clearly part of his treatment. As Rockwell’s biographer Deborah Solomon points out, “He was painting ... his longing.”

Even if not literally, you can use the Rockwell formula to bring joy to yourself and the people around you when you are down. First, ask what happy people in your situation would do to make things better for themselves and others. How would they greet others in the first call of the day? How would they write an e-mail? Whom would they call just to check in? If you’re stuck, interview happy people you know about the little things they do for their acquaintances and loved ones.

Next, make a plan to follow through on everything you just imagined.

Write three ideas for extra-kind greetings on a Post-It note and stick it below your computer screen before that Zoom or phone call. Draft a sample e-mail in the voice of a happy person and use it as a template. By deliberately preparing yourself to cheer up the people around you the way a happy person spontaneously would, you’ll create the conditions by which you can produce your own happiness naturally—and give the gift of happiness to others as well. RD the atlantic (march 4, 2021), copyright © the atlantic media co. all rights reserved. distributed by tribune content agency, llc.

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WHERE,RD OH WHERE? Photo Quiz An

I

t’s not surprising that local residents call this stately lighthouse Big Red. What is surprising: Big Red is only 32 feet tall, a pip-squeak compared to the giant 198-foot Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the nation’s tallest. But Big Red is used to standing up to the competition. It is one of the most photographed lighthouses in its state, a state that is home to more lighthouses than any in the country. Another one of Big Red’s special qualities: It’s the rare lighthouse that stands watch over two bodies of water (and one of those is pretty great too). What lighthouse is it?

(Answer on page 127.)

Doubling Point, Maine B Cape Spencer, Alaska C Marcus Hook, Delaware D Holland Harbor, Michigan

photography by deb snelson/getty images

A

Reader ’s Digest

rd.com | july/august 2021

29

Reader ’s Digest

YOUR TRUE STORIES in 100 Words Home Away from Home My wife and I were on vacation at Yellowstone.

During a boat tour, one of the boat’s workers asked everyone where they were from. The couple directly behind us said that they were from New Jersey. I’m originally from there, so I turned around and recognized my best friend from high school.

I joined the service soon after graduating 40 years ago and we had lost touch, but we’ve stayed in contact ever since we reconnected that day.

—D.M. via rd.com

To read more true stories or submit one, go to rd.com/stories.

If we publish yours in the print magazine, it could be worth $100.

30

A Match Made in Cartoon Heaven Over lunch at Olive Garden, my husband and I decided to get a kitten and name her Olive, in honor of where we were. Olive is now two years old. Last summer, she spotted our new neighbor’s cat in our backyard. Olive is smitten with him, and he with her. They sit together for hours. When she doesn’t see him, Olive paces the house and continues to look for him, even in the dark. His name: Popeye. True love is Popeye and Olive (Oyl).

—Donna Powell Rich Kennebunk, Maine

The Need for Speed As a teenager, my grandfather dreamed of having a horse. His father didn’t understand why, but he reluctantly agreed to let my grandfather work in order to earn enough money to buy one. I have a cassette tape of my grandfather talking about his boyhood longing for

july/august 2021 | rd.com

a horse, of “the need to mount a steed and ride against the wind at full speed.” To digitize this recording, I enlisted the help of my 16-year-old son. When we finished, my son asked, “Now do you understand why I want a car?”

—Loretta Evans idaho falls, idaho

Illustration by Melanie Lambrick

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Reader ’s Digest

13 THINGS

NittyGritty Details on Sand

1

You might think sand is beige— and boring. But sand comes in every color. The black sand in Hawaii and Santorini has volcanic minerals mixed into it. Bermuda’s pink beaches get their color from the red and pink shells of tiny marine creatures. Even rarer is green sand, whose color comes from the mineral

32

july/august 2021

olivine; only a handful of beaches have enough of it to appear distinctly green. And on Rainbow Beach in Australia, the sand appears in more than 70 colors.

2

Sand can taste good. We think of it as the blanket covering a beach, but technically sand is Illustration by Serge Bloch

fuse/getty images

By Emily Goodman

any material made up of grains measuring six one-hundredths of a millimeter to two millimeters in diameter.

With that definition, salt and sugar qualify.

3

The stuff on the shores can come from a variety of sources, including from the poop of parrotfish, which eat algae and dead coral and excrete hundreds of pounds of sand a year. Sound gross? Perhaps, but the sand that comes out of parrotfish is what you’ll find on some of Hawaii’s most beautiful white sand beaches.

4

Still, most sand comes from granulated rocks that streams carry to the sea—some three billion tons of it each year.

Yet we use 50 billion tons of sand around the world annually, to make paper, paint, and the silicon chips that power computers. It’s also in construction materials such as concrete, brick, and glass.

5

Depending on what’s in it, sand must be heated to more than 2,500 degrees F to become glass. The oldest (and fastest) glassmaker is lightning. When a bolt strikes dry sand, it instantly melts and fuses the sand into hollow branching glass tubes.

6

Not all sand is suitable for building. Desert sand is too smooth for the grains to lock together.

Saudi Arabia, with all of its desert, has to import sand in order to build its cities. With much of the world urbanizing, the demand for sand has skyrocketed. Sand extraction is a billion-dollar industry worldwide.

7

People steal sand; there’s even a sand mafia in India.

It’s illegal to take sand from any beach in Hawaii, though many tourists still do. Swiping sand from the Italian island of Sardinia could land you in jail.

8

When you lie on the beach, you’re lounging on someone’s living room. Most of the creatures who call sand home are microscopic. There are as many as a million of them in just a square meter of sand, though altogether they weigh less than a tenth of an ounce. On the other end of the spectrum, larger animals such as sea turtles lay their eggs in sand. Not all of them hatch, and those that don’t hatch provide nutrients for the plant life that grows in the dunes.

9

Some of our country’s notable sand dunes are in states with little or no coastline. Indiana has only 45 miles of shoreline, but the Indiana Dunes National and State Parks welcome about as many visitors a year as Yellowstone.

At more than 700 feet high, the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado are the nation’s tallest.

Bring a board and you can “surf” them. rd.com

33

Reader ’s Digest 13 Things

10

But be careful.

Sand—on a dune, in the desert, or at the beach—can shift quickly. Sandbars are especially dangerous.

They can be submerged in a matter of minutes, and riptides often form in breaks in the bar.

Quicksand is not nearly as deadly as movies might have you believe.

If you do find yourself stuck, lean back to distribute your weight over a larger area.

11

The world’s tallest sandcastle was built in 2019 at the annual sand sculpting festival held

in Binz, Germany, a city on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. It took a team of 20 almost a month to construct.

The highest peak was nearly 58 feet high.

12

German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann’s 1816 short story “Der Sandmann” popularized the myth about a creature who sprinkles sand in our eyes while we sleep.

One version of this folktale is that the sand induces sweet dreams, hence the lyrics of the Chordettes song: “Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream (bung bung bung bung) ...”

13

Carl Sagan said there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on the world’s beaches. Of course, neither can be literally counted. But researchers at the University of Hawaii estimated the number of grains of sand on earth.

Their answer: seven and a half quintillion.

(That’s 75 followed by 17 zeros.) RD

sources: britannica.com, coastalcare.org, conserveturtles .org, ecomare.nl, education .seattlepi.com, geologyin.com, guinnessworldrecords.com, hawaiinewsnow.com, history .howstuffworks.com, indianadunes .com, medium.com, npr.org, oceanservice.noaa.gov, onlinesand.co.uk, postandcourier .com, sandatlas.org, sciencedaily .com, travelchannel.com, travelcroc.com, tybeeisland.com

Always a Dull Moment Are you worried about raising your blood pressure? Is gray your favorite color?

Then the Dull Men’s Club Calendar will look great on your blank wall.

Each month features an anti-beefcake pinup, fully dressed, pallid, and chosen for his uniquely uninteresting pastime. One man photographs telephone poles.

Another collects envelopes. Two brothers created a museum filled with their cuckoo clocks—more than 300 of them. In the past, the calendar included only British men (because: Prince Charles), but this year’s features several Yanks, and even a few women. One of them is California student Elena Kamas, who takes pictures of different “Slippery When Wet” signs that cleaning crews set on newly mopped floors. The variety is endless! If you want to see them for yourself, the calendar sells for $12 on Amazon. Enjoy—but not too much.

34

july/august 2021 | rd.com

Reader ’s Digest

All in a Day’s

WORK Two coworkers of mine at the post office—a supervisor and a letter carrier—were always at each other’s throats.

Recently, they were at it again, this time a real barn burner of an

36

july/august 2021

argument. I walked in just in time to hear the supervisor deliver a devastating insult, or so he thought: “I’ve taught you everything I know, and you still don’t know anything!”

—Michael Jollie New Windsor, New York It was 1930s Chicago— the height of the Depression. My grandparents owned a small grocery store, and one

of their regulars was a charming man who seemed to be the center of attention wherever he went. Though she didn’t know his name, my grandmother admired how he embraced everyone as family. He’d send food baskets to the poor, pay others’ rent, and help people with their troubles.

Grandma was so struck by his innate

alex gregory/cartoonstock.com

“If only I’d thought to take my phone with me, I could be getting some work done.”

Kudos to therapists for resisting the natural urge to top other people’s problems.

banksphotos/getty images (snowplow), jpgfactory/getty images (c 3 po)

— @joshcomers

decency that she admonished my grandfather to be more like him. She knew that one day this kind stranger would be recognized by the world for his deeds, and she was right. One morning, Grandma picked up the newspaper.

There on the front page was a picture of her hero. His name: Al Capone.

—Marcia Weisenfeld Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey A sign spotted outside a carpet/flooring store: “If it’s in stock, we got it!”

—Charles Thomas Warren, Michigan

“What would be your main strength?”

“Well, I can communicate with animals ...”

“Wow, impressive.

Any weaknesses?”

“They can’t understand me.”

— @EndhooS

After taking my time at the shoe store, I finally found a pair of flats that were both comfortable and stylish. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when I brought them up to the register, the cashier gave them a zero-star review: “They make the ugliest shoes these days.”

—A.P. via rd.com

BUT YOU CAN CALL ME MR. PLOW

Minnesota’s Department of Traffic asked residents to suggest names for its eight new snowplows, then let residents pick their favorites. And the winner was … Plowy McPlowFace. Does that odd moniker leave you cold? Maybe you’ll warm up to these nominees, even though none of them made the cut: ✦ C-3PSnow ✦ Edward Blizzardhands ✦ Flake Superior ✦ For Your Ice Only ✦ Lake SnowBeGone ✦ Mary Tyler More Snow

Anything funny happen to you at work?

It could be worth $$$.

For details, go to rd.com/submit. rd.com

37

A WORLD OF GOOD HUNGER IN AMERICA

T

he Browns Mill Park neighborhood of Atlanta is what’s known as a food desert—the nearest grocery store is a 30-minute bus ride away, and many of the community’s 2,700 residents need public transportation to get there.

38

july/august 2021

But about five years ago, a seed was planted in Browns Mill that has grown, quite literally, into something beautiful.

The Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit, teamed up with the city of Atlanta and the U.S. Forest Service to transform a local sevenacre pecan farm into a community food forest. Thousands of volunteers cleared the space underneath the trees, planted the crops, and harvested them for visitors to stock their refrigerators. Today, Browns Mill residents in need can pick—or just pick up—hundreds of varieties of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and herbs, at no cost. Atlanta’s urban food forest is now the largest of about 70 community food forests in the country.

“The urban food forest is more than just free food,” says Celeste Lomax, food forest manager and herbalist.

“It’s about healing.”

from top: martin barraud/getty images. courtesy the conservation fund

GROWING HOPE IN AN URBAN GARDEN

Reader ’s Digest

Wiki-editing in South Africa

GOOD SPORTS

Soccer to the Rescue

CULTURE

from top: courtesy moleskine foundation. via twitter

The Children Will Teach Them Not long ago, the Wikipedia entry for Paris contained more information than the entries for the entire continent of Africa. Surprised? The organizers of the Moleskine Foundation, a nonprofit that funds worldwide education initiatives, certainly were.

They were even more shocked to discover that most of the Africa-related entries were written by Westerners.

So the Moleskine folks decided to turn that geographic disconnect into a teachable moment. The foundation’s WikiAfrica Education program solicited help from teachers and students across Africa. Today, the wiki contains more than 40,000 pieces contributed by students, many written in their native African languages.

Soccer teams are all about goals, but Italy’s A.S. Roma club went after a big one: helping find lost children. Professional soccer teams in Italy will often introduce new players via Twitter, usually with a funny one-liner that soccer-crazed fans have come to love. Roma decided to leverage its sizable Twitter following by pairing the announcement of each new player with the photo of a missing child, much like the bygone U.S. milk carton program.

In the past year, Roma’s lost-child posts have helped return seven children to their families. Other teams, including A.C. Milan, have followed Roma’s lead. RD

An A.S. Roma team tweet about a missing American girl rd.com

39

EVERYDAY MIRACLES

A Holocaust Survivor Finally Gets Her Diploma

By Sydney Page from washingtonpost.com

I

n 1939, Miriam Schreiber should have started first grade. Instead, she spent that year—and the following five—trying to survive. She was living in Poland when World War II broke out. “My entire life was disrupted within minutes,” she says. “I was looking forward to starting school.”

She never made it.

40

july/august 2021

“It has been a profound regret of mine, all my life,” says Miriam.

Decades later, though, the now-89year-old Holocaust survivor finally got something she had always longed for: a high school diploma.

“From the first time I met Miriam, she told me how disappointed she was to have never had a formal education,” Illustration by Gel Jamlang

Reader ’s Digest says Erica Kapiloff, a social worker at Jewish Family Services in West Hartford, Connecticut, where Miriam now lives. “Not having a degree has always been a thorn in her side.”

Kapiloff and Miriam Brander, director of operations and community programs at Jewish Family Services, reached out to the New England Jewish Academy, a Jewish high school in West Hartford, to ask whether the school would consider presenting Miriam with an honorary diploma at its 2020 graduation ceremony.

Richard Nabel, the principal of the school, passed the query on to the students. “It was for the graduating class to decide, as they would be sharing their graduation with her,” he says.

He brought a few seniors to Miriam’s home in October 2019 to hear her story. She told them everything, starting at the very beginning.

Miriam was born in a village just outside Warsaw in 1932. Life was good, she says. Then the war started. Miriam and her family spent months hiding from the Nazis, starting when she was seven. They ran from village to village and forest to forest in a perpetual state of panic.

“We were on the run all the time and didn’t know where to turn,” says Miriam. “We were always cold and hungry. It was horrible. It was chaos.”

Soon after the war started, the family was transported to a slave labor camp in Siberia, where they spent

nearly six years living in squalor—and barely living at all.

“It’s hard to describe the suffering,” says Miriam, who watched as family members froze and starved to death.

“My grandfather was lying next to me dead for three days,” she remembers, her voice trembling as she relives the horror in her mind. “We eventually buried him under the snow.”

Miriam was not liberated until March 1946—nearly a year after the war ended, when she was 14 years old. She and her remaining family

“WE WERE ON THE RUN AND DIDN’T KNOW WHERE TO TURN. IT WAS CHAOS.” members went to a displaced persons camp in Germany, where they faced continued discrimination and anti-Semitism.

There, Miriam met her husband, Saul Schreiber, also a displaced survivor at the camp.

The couple married in Germany when Miriam was 15, and they had their first child a year later.

“We needed to rebuild our lives in whatever way we could,” says Miriam, adding that having a child gave them hope for a brighter future.

The couple left Germany in 1948 and lived in Israel, then Sweden, and then in another displaced persons rd.com

41

Reader ’s Digest Everyday Miracles camp in Germany before finally immigrating to America in 1960.

“Saul worked in a chicken market, and I went to work in a bakery, making 99 cents an hour,” says Miriam.

Getting a formal education was never an option for her. She and Saul focused on sending their two sons to school, thus giving their kids opportunities they never had.

“We became successful because of my parents,” says Bernie Schreiber, 73, who was a teacher for 32 years. “My brother Bob was able to buy and build his own business successfully. I credit my parents, but especially my mother, for her dogged determination.”

Over the years, Miriam learned seven languages. Her parents taught her Polish and Yiddish, but she taught herself Russian, English, German, Hebrew, and Swedish. “I educated myself,” she says. “I read books day and night. I still do.”

“I’m in awe of her,” says Bernie.

So were the high school seniors who heard Miriam’s story.

“We had a class meeting and discussed how to honor her,” said Shoshana Olkin, 19, one of the students who went to Miriam’s home.

“The class instantly said ‘Yes, let’s

give her an honorary diploma,’ ” says Principal Nabel.

The idea was to present Miriam with a diploma at the school’s graduation ceremony, but when COVID-19 hit, the service became virtual and the honorary diploma plan was put on pause.

“But we still really wanted to do this for her,” says Brander. “I talked to her family to come up with a way that was COVID-friendly.”

On August 16, during a socially distanced ceremony in the school gym, Miriam Schreiber was presented with a high school diploma from the New England Jewish Academy.

Wearing her cap and gown, she walked to the podium with “Pomp and Circumstance” playing as her family and members of the Jewish community watched with pride.

“When I finally got the diploma, I kissed it,” she says. “I just couldn’t believe it was mine.”

“There weren’t too many dry eyes among the 30 of us there,” says Nabel.

Miriam’s family was especially moved.

“I’m not sure she even realizes the importance of that moment to me,” says Bernie. “I am so proud of her.” RD washingtonpost.com (august 25, 2020), copyright © 2020 by the washington post.

This Recipe Really Adds Up The sum of the cabbage is directly proportional to the square root of the carrot divided by the mayo. That is Cole’s Law. @suadshamma

42

july/august 2021 | rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest

LAUGHTER The best Medicine

—innerworkspublishing.com

I’ve created an app to help with insomnia.

It lets you talk to other

44

july/august 2021

“A tattoo? You’re kidding. It sure looks like a suit.”

really boring people until you fall asleep.

It’s online sedating.

—Jon Harvey, comedian Season to Taste ✦ Spices were first brought to Europe in the Middle Ages, and some of them

are still at the back of my cupboard.

— @craiguito ✦ I switched the labels on all my wife’s spices. I’m not in trouble yet, but the thyme is cumin.

—Submitted by Justin Mitchell Denver, Colorado

peter steiner/cartoonstock.com

Little Johnny and his friend Tommy were on their very first train ride. A vendor selling concessions came by, and Tommy’s mother bought each child a candy bar.

Johnny eagerly tore into his just as the train went into a tunnel. When the train emerged, Johnny saw that Tommy was still struggling with the wrapper.

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you,” Johnny said to Tommy.

“Why not?” asked Tommy.

“Because I took one bite and went blind for half a minute.”

Start each day with a positive thought, like “I can go back to bed in about 16 hours.”

— @AbbyHasIssues A priest, a minister, and a rabbit walk into a blood bank. The rabbit says, “I think I might be a type O.” —Submitted by Vincent Gottschalk Dallas, Texas A wealthy businessman liked to show his party guests his pool and

say, “If you swim a lap, I will give you $10 million, half of my estate, or my daughter’s hand in marriage. But there’s a shark in the pool.”

One day as he said this, there was a loud splash. A man swam a lap of the pool and got out just as the shark thudded into the wall.

“So, would you like $10 million?”

“No,” the man said.

“Half of my estate?”

“No,” the man said.

“Ah! You want to marry my daughter.”

“No! I want the name of the man who pushed me in!”

—alphausa.org

Got a funny joke?

It could be worth $$$.

For details, go to rd.com/submit.

EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK

via sadanduselss.com (2)

Bibliophiles can be so clever! Before you dive into your summer reading, watch out for booksellers (and librarians) pulling pranks.

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Reader ’s Digest

Jenna sometimes hugs Phillips for 20 minutes.

BEST PET PALS Contest

Jenna the Cow williamsburg, virginia

J

enna and her twin brother were born on a North Carolina dairy farm in 2018. Female calves with twin brothers are often infertile, so Jenna was set to be killed shortly after her birth. Fortunately, the dairy farmer’s 16-year-old daughter convinced her dad to let her find a home for Jenna instead. When Jenna was just three days old, I drove from

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Williamsburg, Virginia, to Durham, North Carolina, in my Subaru to pick up the little calf. I named her after the wonderful farm girl who saved her life.

Jenna was so sweet and tiny curled up on a blanket in the car, and I was too nervous to stop during the ride home. Sure, she had a few accidents on the road, but nothing could dampen my spirits at having a chance to rescue this little girl.

I fed Jenna three bottles a day for six months and spent many nights in

courtesy ryan phillips

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Reader ’s Digest Best Pet Pals

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Jenna helped seal the deal with Phillips’s fiancée (left), so she is now his “wingcow.”

in a bright pink harness. Jenna loves to meet new people. She also gets to show off how she learned to “shake hooves” for alfalfa treats. She is so much like a puppy—a puppy who weighs over 1,000 pounds.

Mallory, my fiancée, actually lived across the country when she saw a video of Jenna and me on an animal rescue site. We began working together to rescue another calf, and Mallory soon came out to visit us in Virginia. She quickly won Jenna over.

I proposed last August. Bringing Mallory into my life has earned Jenna the title of “wingcow.”

—Nominated by Ryan Phillips Want to read more Pet Pals tales?

See nominees at rd.com/petpals.

Finalists will appear in our October issue.

courtesy ryan phillips

the barn to make sure she never felt lonely. She loved to circle and chase me at bottle time. When it ran empty, she would headbutt my stomach to try to get milk out of me. I’m pretty sure she actually thinks I’m her mother.

Jenna still loves to play headbutt, where we put our heads together and push. She usually lets me win. Occasionally, she shakes her horns and knocks them into my head—and feels bad as soon as she realizes she hurt me. She has so much fun pretending our strength is close to equal, even though she could easily throw me across the yard if she wanted to. But she is always ready to break for hugs.

Hugs are one of her favorite things.

She’ll press her head into me and just hold the position for 20 minutes.

If I don’t come outside early enough to get her in the morning, Jenna will walk around the house from window to window and then stand on the back porch mooing for me to come out and play. She wants to be included in absolutely everything I do, whether it’s working in the yard (often to fix something she knocked down) or eating in the kitchen (where she watches through the window). When Jenna was little, I would bring her in the house for carrots. She no longer fits through the doors, so we feed her carrots through the kitchen window, our carrot drive-through.

I take her for walks around our city. Tourists always do a doubletake at the man strolling with a cow

THE POWER TO

REDUCE ALLERGENS IN CAT HAIR & DANDER

Reader ’s Digest

WE FOUND A FIX 5 Tricks to Improve Your Life*

1

When Life Gives You Lemons, Do Not Waste Them food If you need just a squeeze of lemon or a splash of lime to perfect your recipe or drink, don’t slice up the whole fruit and store the unused wedges in the recesses of your fridge only to be found weeks later all shriveled up. Keep the fruit whole and make a small puncture in the skin with a fork or skewer. Then squeeze out what you need without drying out the entire lemon or lime.

*From RD.com and THEHEALTHY.COM

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2

Lighten a Heavy Plant Pot gardening Heaving a giant planter around can do a number on your back, especially if you routinely move it in and out of the sunlight or rain (and you don’t lift with your legs when you do it). Next time you repot, fill the bottom with a layer of packing peanuts, making sure they’re not the kind that disintegrates in water.

Then cover with landscape fabric and lay the potting soil on top for a lighter load.

3

Here Comes the Sun Saver auto Have you no choice but to park in the unforgiving sun, with nary a shady spot nor covered garage to be seen? If so, once in park, turn the steering wheel so the top is upside down and free of the windshield’s direct sunlight. When you head out later and straighten it, you will be able to drive comfortably without oven mitts.

4

Save Hundreds with an Itemized Bill money Since 80 percent of medical bills have errors, ask for yours to be itemized. “I’ve seen charges for tissues, a toothbrush, housekeeping—all things that should be included in the cost of the room,” says Medical Bill Detectives president Beth Morgan. Once details are requested, billing departments often knock off inflated charges. (One Tylenol can cost $15 at the hospital.)

5

Give Pesky Sand the Brush-Off cleaning A day at the shore is lovely, but bringing half the beach back to the house on your legs is not. Pack a jar of cornstarch among the shovels and boogie boards to sprinkle over legs and feet before getting in the car. It soaks up all the moisture that sand clings to (just as baby powder does, but without the scent), making it easy to brush off.

(But sand isn’t all bad! Flip to page 32 to read about its finer points.)

Photographs by Joleen Zubek

Reader ’s Digest

LIFE WELL LIVED

A Song in His Heart An encounter with a waiting room songstress unlocks a side of my father I’d rarely seen before Alzheimer’s

By Deborah Stock from the globe and mail

A

t a medical laboratory clinic in Waterloo, Ontario, an elderly woman sat on the edge of a waiting room chair belting out the Celine Dion tune “My Heart Will Go On.” Other than a slight rhythmic rocking of her torso to the Titanic theme song, she was motionless, with her arms crossed elegantly over her chest. With little effort, she was able to send her sweet, high-pitched voice exploding into every corner of the clinic.

I had fun watching how people reacted. There was a lot of shifting in seats, but mainly they awkwardly averted their eyes and tried to pretend there was nothing out of the ordinary going on.

I was there with my father, who was getting a routine blood test, when the woman arrived. She settled into the illustration by Dorothy Leung

seat directly across from my dad. Because she was so tiny, she was forced to perch on the edge of the chair so her feet could touch the floor. The position made it seem as though she were sitting forward to engage in conversation with him. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

I was concerned about how my dad would react to the possible encroachment on his space. He was 77 at the time and had been living with Alzheimer’s for several years. He was a brilliant, introverted, card-carrying Catholic military man who was suckled and plumped on guilt, obligation, and humility. When he was healthy, he tolerated people’s eccentricities dutifully but with a healthy dose of silent reproach. He considered it wholly bad mannered to bring undue rd.com | july/august 2021

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Reader ’s Digest Life Well Lived attention to oneself. Since Alzheimer’s has a tendency to play havoc with a person’s patience and erode restraint, Dad had experienced a few challenging encounters in the past. I couldn’t help but think that this melodic little woman was playing with fire.

Her singing began gently, like a quiet hum. I glanced over at Dad. His smile was gone, and he was staring right at her. She was staring back.

I couldn’t read his expression, but it seemed to be something like confusion. This wasn’t an unusual state for him, and I wondered whether he was actually seeing her at all or if he was lost somewhere deep in his mind, not really aware of her presence at that point. Or maybe he was trying to establish whether this was someone he should know.

This didn’t deter the diminutive songstress one bit, and her singing slowly got louder. By the time she got to the chorus—“Near, far, wherever you are ...”—it was full-tilt belting. She was in a meditative, eyes-shut, torsorocking, inner-diva-embracing trance.

Now Dad looked a little stunned.

I tried not to laugh. The thought of my tightly wound, somewhat prudish dad being serenaded in a packed medical lab by this itty-bitty Celine

Dion was just too delicious. Still, I watched for any sign of an impending irritated outburst. Instead, his face softened, and the tension eased in his brow. He no longer looked confused.

People say that Alzheimer’s is a thief, that it steals your loved ones slowly, day by day. There is so much heartbreaking truth in that statement. But certain experiences with my dad have allowed me to see a side of him that I never knew existed. I will hold on to those moments when he held my gaze and told me tender stories about when he was a child or tales of his stint in the Air Force, as if he knew that he didn’t have much time left to show me who he really was. In an unexpected way, that’s what happened for me that day in the clinic. Alzheimer’s sometimes seemed to be peeling back the onion of my dad’s true self, and while I hate that he’s struggled with this disease, I love the sweet man I’ve met.

When her song ended and the waiting room became silent, the woman opened her eyes. My dad was still looking directly at her.

“That was beautiful,” he said.

And she smiled and said, “Thank you.” RD the globe and mail (october 22, 2019), copyright © 2019 by deborah stock, theglobeandmail.com.

Autocorrect Stinks Again I love how “voice to text” is always so a carrot. @barryjohnharper

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Reader ’s Digest

Wellness from Thehealthy.com

The Promise of Intermittent Fasting A popular diet trend works well for many weight watchers, and the benefits might extend beyond your waistline Edited By Rozalynn S. Frazier ike many people who put on extra weight, Jerico C. was surprised when it happened to him. A native New Yorker who loved walking around the city, he used to be able to eat whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and stay pretty thin. But then, well, life happened. A move to California

L Illustration by James Steinberg

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Reader ’s Digest meant more driving and less walking. His advertising sales job required company dinners and later nights.

Two kids left little time to think about healthy eating, and get-togethers with his extended Filipino family meant lots of big meals. “When you welcome anyone into your home, it’s an automatic feast,” he says. Suddenly, Jerico turned 40 and found 199 pounds on his six-foot frame. “I had to do something different,” he says.

It was around that time that he came across a post on social media by a friend who had dropped about 60 pounds. How’d he do it? Jerico

asked. IF, said the friend. “If? If what?”

Jerico responded.

The answer was intermittent fasting (IF): fasting completely for discrete periods of time and eating most anything you want otherwise. That can mean fasting for parts of a day, a day at a time, or two days a week.

Jerico decided to try an 18:6 plan, which meant car ving out a sixhour window—say, from noon until 6 p.m.—when he could eat whatever he wanted and then going the next 18 hours with absolutely no food (but unlimited water, coffee, tea, and other noncaloric beverages). Two and a half

i tried it

Thanks to my genes, I have varicose veins and chronic swelling in my ankles. I also have restless leg syndrome (RLS). And before I turned 50, I got up to pee two or three times a night. I decided to research natural remedies and read that compression socks addressed most of my issues.

Ugly or not, I had to try them.

I ordered graduated compression stockings—the compression is strongest at the ankle and gets lighter as you go Compression up the leg. The first day, I wore them for a few hours and nosocks don’t have ticed that my legs didn’t ache as much. Even though I deto be unstylish. cided not to sleep in the socks, that night I got up only once to use the bathroom. I’ve worn the socks most days since with the same results.

The socks give my poor circulation a boost in the right direction—away from my ankles and back up to my heart, increasing blood flow to all my vital organs.

The stockings can also help prevent blood clots. If you’re considering trying them on your own, stick with a compression measurement of 15 to 20 mg. Consult your doctor before trying socks for serious conditions that might require greater compression. —Lisa Marie Conklin

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courtesy physix gear

Compression Socks to Help Circulation

The Healthy

years and 25 pounds later (give or take a few, thanks to the pandemic), Jerico hasn’t looked back. “I like it a lot,” he says. “It has made me realize that our appetite is more tied to seeing food than needing it. I do miss breakfast food, though. In fact, I regularly have breakfast for dinner.”

No one would say that intermittent fasting is easy, but it has many advantages. There’s no counting calories, resisting snacks, cutting out food groups, or other challenges that come with restrictive dieting. Instead of focusing on what you eat as dieters do on Paleo (no processed foods, grains, or sugar), Atkins (low carbs), Whole30 (no sugar, alcohol, grain, dairy, legumes), and other regimens, IF puts the emphasis

on when you eat. “Rather than saying ‘Just eat less,’ we tell them not to eat after 6 p.m.,” says Elisabetta Politi, RD, nutrition director for the Duke Diet and Fitness Center. “For those who have the discipline, it works.”

No matter how long your fasting period, the metabolic impact on your body is similar. Typically, when we eat, our bodies break down the carbohydrates from the food and turn them into a form of sugar known as glucose, one of the body’s preferred fuels. Unused glucose is stored for later in your liver. So if you are eating three meals a day, your body always has energy on hand as well as a reserve it can tap.

But when you’re fasting, your body doesn’t have a steady stream of food rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest to turn into energy. That means it has to tap its reserves. After about eight hours, it depletes the stored glucose and needs another source of energy.

This is when the body begins burning fat for fuel, explains Mark P. Mattson, PhD, adjunct professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. This, combined with the fact that you are

AFTER EIGHT HOURS OF FASTING, THE BODY BEGINS BURNING FAT FOR FUEL. likely taking in fewer calories during the shorter eating window, is going to help get rid of excess weight.

If those were the only benefits of IF, it would be worth a look for many people. But since the dieting fad has become more widespread in recent years, studies have discovered that its benefits can extend far beyond what you see on your scale. Research in Nutrition Journal revealed that IF reduces artery-blocking LDL cholesterol as well as triacylglycerol, which cause hardening and/or thickening of the arteries.

Both arterial conditions are major factors in heart disease. A 2019 study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that IF might ward off neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s.

The theory: The plaques that clog

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neurons in the brain feed on glucose.

Not surprisingly, glucose reduction also benefits people with diabetes. A study published in 2018 in JAMA Network Open showed that the 5:2 diet (limiting calories to 500 to 600 per day for two days and eating regularly for five days) results in weight loss and improved blood sugar control for people with type 2 diabetes. These fasts may promote autophagy, a deep cellular cleanup that allows your body to purge old, damaged cells and replace them with new ones.

All that said, intermittent fasting isn’t a miracle, and as with any strict diet regimen, you should consult your doctor and carefully weigh the benefits against the potential side effects.

People with diabetes, heart disease, or gout should know that the lack of food triggers steep dips in blood sugar.

All types of fasting can cause headaches, fainting, weakness, and dehydration, says Scott Kahan, MD, the director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness in Washington, DC. IF could backfire, leading to increased appetite and binge-eating, as well as a slower metabolism. And going without food is a recipe for being hangry—you may feel irritable on fast days, says Krista Varady, PhD, professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois, Chicago. What’s more, a randomized control trial published in a 2020 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that most of the fasters’ lost weight was lean muscle, not fat.

The Healthy Lastly, if you are under high levels of stress or in intense athletic training, consider steering clear. Especially avoid extreme 36:12 fasting, which calls for 12 hours of unlimited eating followed by 36 hours of zero calories.

“When you do any type of fast, part of the benefit comes from mildly stressing your body; just like when you lift weights, you damage the muscle to make it stronger,” says

Robin Foroutan, RD, an integrative medicine dietitian in New York City and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “With fasting, you are stressing out the body, but it gets stronger in response.” And, if you stick to the program, it can get thinner too.

The CoronavirusDiabetes Connection

full-blown diabetes at the time they were experiencing severe COVID-19,” says Francesco Rubino, MD, chair of metabolic and bariatric surgery at King’s College London, who coauthored a letter about the issue in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Among people who were hospitalized with severe COVID-19, newly diagnosed diabetes appeared in 14.4 percent of cases, according to a study published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism. The mechanism for the link is not clear yet, but it may have something to do with the virus’s triggering an autoimmune response, as well as its effect on specific proteins that are involved in sugar metabolism.

Dr. Rubino urges people who have had COVID-19 to be vigilant about symptoms associated with diabetes: frequent urination, increased hunger and thirst, and fatigue. If these symptoms persist after the virus has abated, patients might want to have their blood sugar level checked. RD

By Russell McLendon

arly on in the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors recognized that while people with diabetes were no more likely to get the disease than the general population, they were more likely to become sicker.

It turns out that the relationship between COVID-19 and diabetes goes two ways. “Some people who had no history of diabetes were showing with

E

With reporting by Denise Mann, Kim Fredericks, and Corey Whelan

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Reader ’s Digest The Healthy

News From the

WORLD OF MEDICINE WHY WOMEN SHOULD PUMP IRON TOO On average, people lose 3 to 8 percent of muscle mass over the course of each decade after their 30s. Strength training can slow this decline. In fact, according to a Sports Medicine review, all seniors—men and women—have a lot to gain from resistance exercises, whether they’re pumping iron or simply doing squats, push-ups, and sit-ups.

While men add more pounds of muscle overall from those activities, the benefits in women are proportional to their (usually smaller) sizes. Fighting off age-related muscle loss isn’t the only perk: Resistance training can improve stamina, balance, flexibility, and bone density, which can translate into a lower risk of falls.

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If you suffer from osteoarthritis in one or both of your knees, you’ve probably heard conflicting advice about what kind of footwear will help you feel and function as well as possible. Some experts recommend stable, supportive shoes with cushioning, while others believe that flat, flexible, barefoot-style shoes are better at decreasing symptoms. When Australian scientists recently put both options to the test, users reported more pain reduction and fewer adverse events such as knee swelling and sore ankles when they wore shoes that were more stiff and supportive.

Although the right shoes won’t prevent those issues on their own, together with exercise, weight management, and medication, they can help make it easier to live with osteoarthritis.

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Reader ’s Digest The Healthy

Seniors are at higher risk for heat-related illnesses than younger folks, and a new Canadian study has highlighted a fascinating reason why: They sweat more when they’re running low on body fluids.

When it’s hot out and you’re being active, you start perspiring, which helps your body regulate its temperature downward. It also makes you lose fluid, which in turn increases the concentration of sodium in your blood. When this concentration gets high (the body gets dehydrated, in other words), a younger adult will stop sweating as much, begin to feel overheated and thirsty, and likely reach for a glass of water. But older adults’ bodies tend to be less responsive to dehydration. A lot of sweating— and fluid loss—may continue without the warning of feeling uncomfortably thirsty. This ability to keep pushing may sound like a superpower, but it’s actually a reason to be extra careful: It brings a higher risk of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and heat stressrelated cardiovascular problems.

As a result, older people may need reminders to drink water while being active during a heat wave. It could be a good idea, for example, to set a recurring alarm on your watch or smartphone before heading out.

Also, since you can’t necessarily rely on your thirst, watch for other signs of dehydration, including infrequent urination, dark-colored urine, fatigue, confusion, and dizziness.

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A New Plant-Based Insect Repellent Keeping mosquitoes and ticks at bay is about more than avoiding itchy bites.

These bugs sometimes transmit serious infections such as West Nile virus and Lyme disease as well as Zika, malaria, and other tropical diseases. If you’re hesitant about using synthetic insect repellents such as DEET, you could instead try nootkatone, a compound found in grapefruit skin and Alaskan yellow cedar trees. Nootkatone is already used around the world as a food flavoring and a fragrance.

The Environmental Protection Agency registered it last summer as an insect repellent, paving the way for new products to hit shelves as early as next year.

Unlike other plantbased repellents such as citronella, which wear off quickly, nootkatone’s effects can last for several hours. RD

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Reader ’s Digest

QUOTABLE QUOTES The pandemic accentuated that part of me that says why am I useful? Am I useful for anything?

I’m only useful if I feel I can respond to need.

—Yo-Yo Ma, musician

There isn’t a healthy body in the world stronger than a sick person’s spirit.

—Andrea Gibson, poet

I’ve loved quite a few people, and by that I mean I really feel happy in their company. That’s pretty much it—the joy of someone’s company. That’s what I call love.

—Joni Mitchell, singer

Limiting the hot dog’s significance by saying “It’s just a sandwich” is like calling the Dalai Lama “just a guy.”

—Janet Riley, publicist

To reflect is one thing, but to regret is another. Regret is useless.

getty images ( 3 )

—Idris Elba, actor

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Reader ’s Digest

B E E S H T T

COVER STORY

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Apple pie belongs to all of us, but every region has its signature treat.

With help from our friends at Taste of Home, we’ve found the 50 best.

STATE

Photograph by Christopher Testani illustrations by Maria Amador

By Emily Goodman, Genevieve Looby, and the editors at Taste of Home

Reader ’s Digest ALABAMA

ARKANSAS

Lane cake This dessert made 19th-century southern hospitality a piece of cake.

Perfect for impromptu guests, Lane cake is filled with dried fruit (traditionally raisins) soaked in whiskey or bourbon, which keeps it moist even days after it comes out of the oven. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, young Scout eats one so boozy that she feels the effects.

Chocolate rolls Depending on your culinary touchstones, these pastries look like flat croissants or fried burritos. The buttery dough is stuffed with cocoa powder and sugar before being rolled into gooey sticks up to a foot long.

Searcy County, in northern Arkansas, is the self-proclaimed “chocolate roll capital of the world” and hosts the annual Chocolate Roll Festival.

Akutaq Also known as Eskimo ice cream, akutaq calls for reindeer fat, seal oil, berries, and snow—all whipped by hand until it becomes airy. In Yupik, akutaq (“ah-GOO-duck”) means “mix them together.” It’s traditionally made after the first seal catch of the year, though it can be enjoyed at any time with vegetable shortening and sugar in place of the animal fat and oil.

ARIZONA Cactus candies You might call these desert gumdrops. They’re made by combining the bright pink juice of the prickly pear cactus and simple syrup. The mixture is then cooked, cooled, and coated with sugar. The flavor lands somewhere between lemon and watermelon.

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CALIFORNIA Frozen yogurt In Massachusetts, where it was invented in the 1970s, frozen yogurt went by the ungainly nickname frogurt. The Valley girls of SoCal helped rebrand it “froyo” and transformed this low-cal, low-fat, highsugar frozen dessert into a lifestyle.

Today, California is the corporate home to many of the big chains, including Menchie’s, Pinkberry, Tutti Frutti, and Yogurtland.

COLORADO Root beer float In 1893, Frank Wisner gazed at snowcapped Cow Mountain against a dark summer sky. It looked like a scoop of vanilla ice cream floating in dark soda.

The next day, he made the float at his brewery in Cripple Creek. The black cow, as he called it, was born.

opening spread: food stylist: jamie kimm. this page from top: christopher testani, food stylist: jamie kimm. joleen zubek

ALASKA

Cover Story

CONNECTICUT Snickerdoodles These are sugar-and-spice cookies, and this being the Nutmeg State, the spice in question is obviously ... cinnamon. Flat and chewy, this is the rare cookie that doesn’t use vanilla.

As for the name, it might come from the German Schneckennudel (“snail noodle”)—or it might be made up.

DELAWARE

from left: christopher testani, food stylist: jamie kimm. jmichl/getty images

Strawberry pretzel salad Don’t let the name fool you—no lettuce (or anything green) allowed here.

This tricolor “salad” comes with three layers: a crust of crushed pretzels mixed with butter and sugar, a middle layer of cream cheese and Cool Whip (and more sugar), and a top layer of strawberry Jell-O that is usually studded with real strawberries, Delaware’s state fruit.

FLORIDA Key lime pie In 1965, state representative Bernie Papy Jr. proposed a $100 fine against anyone selling a version of this dessert that wasn’t made with the tart-sweet limes famously grown in the Keys. His bill didn’t pass, but Floridians are still protective of their signature dish, despite a rumor that it was actually invented in New York City.

GEORGIA Peach cobbler When the biscuity top layer starts to sink into the juicy peaches below, this inverted pie looks a bit like cobblestones. At the Georgia Peach Festival each year, volunteers make one that is 11 feet by 5 feet and six inches deep.

HAWAII Haupia This pudding (pronounced “HOWpee-ah”) is as thick as lava. Made with coconut milk and ground pia (a member of the yam family), haupia rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest ILLINOIS Chocolate-covered strawberries At a gourmet store in Chicago in the 1960s, Lorraine Lorusso had a crazy-delicious idea. She took some fresh strawberries from the produce section and dipped them in melted chocolate from the store’s bakery. She let the chocolate coating harden before offering the jazzed-up berries to customers, who themselves were pretty jazzed. Pro tip: If you want to make them at home, make sure the berries are completely dry or the chocolate won’t stick to them.

INDIANA

IDAHO Huckleberry pie Idahoans are happy to share slices of huckleberry pie, which is made from their native wild blueberry-like fruit mixed with nutmeg and cinnamon.

What they won’t share is where they harvest the berries. “People here in Idaho are protective of their huckleberry spots,” says Taste of Home Community Cook Cindy Ruark-Worth.

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IOWA Scotcheroos The Des Moines Register calls these “Rice Krispies Treats on steroids,” which means you start with Rice Krispies Treats and then layer on peanut butter, melted chocolate, and butterscotch. “These chewy bars are as Iowan as you can get!” says Taste of Home Community Cook Anna Miller.

pamela_d_mcadams/getty images

thickens when it’s heated and thickens more when it cools. In fact, you can cut it into blocks and eat it with your hands, which is how it’s typically served at luaus (though it’s also a popular wedding cake topper).

Hoosier pie Eggs were scarce in the 1800s, when Hoosier pie was invented, so this is the rare dessert without any. Its creamy filling is thickened with flour or cornstarch and poured directly into a pie crust. The flavor comes from vanilla extract and lots of sugar, hence its nickname: sugar cream pie.

Cover Story

KANSAS Pfeffernuesse The name is German for “pepper nuts,” but these bitesized spice cookies often contain neither. “Pepper” refers to spice in general, and pfeffernuesse usually are made with star anise. The “nut” has to do with their size: The Mennonites who brought them to Kansas in the 1870s used their sewing thimbles to cut out the dough.

from top: eric gevaert /shutterstock. say-cheese/getty images

KENTUCKY Derby pie “Count on Derby pie at any Derby party worth its salt,” says Taste of Home reader Deb Sexton. “It pairs perfectly with a Kentucky bourbon.” The buttery filling has chocolate chips and walnuts folded in to it. Some bakers even spike it with bourbon.

LOUISIANA Beignets Would a doughnut by any other name taste as sweet? Absolutely. A New Orleans speciality, these Frenchinspired square puffs have no holes, but they do sport a generous dusting of powdered sugar.

MAINE Blueberry pie Blueberries are one of the few fruits indigenous to North America, and they

are all over Maine. The wild ones are smaller and sweeter than the cultivated varieties, making for a pie so scrumptious, it’s the state’s official dessert.

MARYLAND German cookies Marylanders have been fighting a cookie war for almost 150 years. On one side are fans of the thick, chocolaty Berger cookies, brought to Baltimore from Germany in 1835. On the other are those who prefer the thin, crisp cookies made by Otterbein’s, which arrived from the motherland in 1881. Which is better? Marylanders, you tell us.

MASSACHUSETTS Boston cream pie Perhaps the most famous slice of false advertising in the history of desserts, this “cream pie” is really a custardfilled layer cake topped with a chocolate glaze. When JFK was president, his mother’s version was frequently featured at state dinners.

MICHIGAN Cherry pie Michigan produces 75 percent of the nation’s tart cherries, and many of them end up in pies. Taste of Home reader Bethann Muzio says cherry pie is “great with ice cream during the summer months.” rd.com

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Lefse You’ll find any number of treats tucked inside these Norwegian crepes: fruit spread, chocolate s au c e, w h i p p e d cream, and more. But the real surprise is that the dough is made from potatoes, which are riced and then “smothered in butter and sugar,” says Taste of Home Community Cook Julie Herrera-Lemer.

MISSISSIPPI Mississippi mud pie When it comes to chocolate desserts, this one takes the cake. A chocolate crust is filled with layers of chocolate mousse (or pudding) and then topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. A waitress who lost her home to a Mississippi River flood in 1927 is said to have coined the name, and it stuck (the way a bit of mud pie might stick to the roof of your mouth).

MISSOURI Gooey butter cake Among the happiest of accidents, gooey butter cake was created when a baker in St. Louis reversed the quantities of flour and butter (usually a 3:1 ratio) in a traditional yellow cake.

The concoction came out less than an inch high, but its buttery gooeyness was so popular that nearby bakeries went for it too.

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MONTANA Huckleberry ice cream Huckleberry in all of its forms (syrup, jam, pie, vinaigrette, and even vodka) is popular throughout Montana. But in ice cream, the berry provides just the right amount of sweetness, not to mention a beautiful periwinkle hue.

NEBRASKA Tin roof sundae As a teenager, Harold Dean “Pinky” Thayer operated the soda fountain at his father’s pharmacy in Potter, Nebraska (population 328). One day in 1930, he scooped some vanilla and chocolate ice cream into a bowl and topped that with warm marshmallow cream, salted peanuts, and chocolate sauce. The shiny chocolate looked a bit like the pharmacy’s tin roof, and a new classic was born. The sundae is still served inside that same building in Potter today, but you’ll also find the flavor sold commercially around the country.

NEVADA Basque cake When settlers from the mountainous Basque region between France and Spain came here to mine for gold, they brought something golden with them too. The buttery, almondflavored gâteau Basque features a thick layer of either pastry cream (typical of Spanish Basque cake) or black cherry jam (typical of the French version).

bhofack2/getty images

MINNESOTA

from top: vm2002/shutterstock. germi_p/getty images

NEW HAMPSHIRE Apple cider doughnuts Home to the oldest operating apple orchard in America, New Hampshire is known for its many apple recipes. You’ll find the fruit’s tangy, freshly squeezed juice in the state’s especially tender doughnuts (the acid in the juice makes them soft). They can be glazed or dusted with cinnamon sugar, but if you want to dunk them in your morning coffee, plain is the way to go.

NEW JERSEY Cannoli “New Jersey is known for our amazing Italian bakeries,” says Taste of Home reader Nancy Gridley. Even with all of their hits—biscotti, pignolate, sfogliatelle—it’s hard to top cannoli.

The fried tubular shells stuffed with creamy ricotta cheese can be studded

MADE TO

HELP FILL

YOU UP

Reader ’s Digest Cover Story

NEW MEXICO Biscochitos These crunchy rounds are a kind of spicy shortbread cookie flavored primarily with anise and sprinkled with cinnamon. New Mexicans love the biscochito so much that in 1989 they named it their state cookie, making it the country’s first officially designated state sweet.

NEW YORK Cheesecake In 1929, Arnold Reuben (of sandwich fame) was so enchanted with cheese

pie that he played with the recipe until he created what is now credited as the original New York–style cheesecake. The key to turning an otherwise plain cake into a miracle of creamy smoothness? Extra egg yolks and cream cheese. (Fun fact: A New York dairy farmer invented cream cheese in 1872.) New Yorkers serve their cheesecake au naturel—no fruit or other toppings. You might have other ideas.

NORTH CAROLINA Sweet potato pie Considering that a sweet potato is a vegetable, it’s not surprising that sweet potato pie wasn’t originally considered a dessert. But in North Carolina, where more than half the nation’s sweet potatoes are grown, the blend of sugar and spice (and sweetened condensed milk) has been perfected to the point where sweet potato pie has pushed pumpkin pie off the Thanksgiving menu for many families.

NORTH DAKOTA Caramel rolls Not to be confused with cinnamon buns or sticky rolls, caramel (pronounced “CAR-mull” here) rolls are baked sitting in a sauce of butter and brown sugar. Some even add vanilla ice cream to the mix. Once out of the oven, the rolls are flipped over so

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from top: paul sirisalee/shutterstock. debbismirnoff/getty images

with chocolate, ground pistachios, and more. This is the dessert people die for, at least in The Godfather. After they shoot a disloyal compatriot, one mobster says to another, “Leave the gun; take the cannoli.”

that the hot, gooey sauce runs down the sides and pools as a thick cream underneath.

OHIO Buckeyes In 1964, Gail Tabor of Columbus set out to make an ordinary batch of chocolate-covered peanut butter balls. She put the peanut butter on a toothpick to dip it, which meant that there was a spot on the ball that didn’t get covered with chocolate. In fact, the circle of beige surrounded by the ring of brown looked a lot like the seed from a buckeye tree, which happens to be the mascot of football-crazed Ohio State. Today, no tailgate would be complete without them.

OKLAHOMA

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Fried pie This single-serving dessert that you can hold in your hand is like an empanada. It can be filled with fruit (apple, cherry) or cream, which can be traditional (lemon cream) or decadent (peanut butter chocolate cream).

OREGON Marionberry cobbler The Marionberry (a blackberry/ raspberry hybrid) was developed by the Oregon State University Agriculture Department in 1948. Now “these berries are everywhere,” says Taste of

10 LAYERS

OF WHEAT

IN EVERY BITE

Reader ’s Digest Cover Story

PENNSYLVANIA Shoofly pie This “pie” is really a molasses crumb cake baked in a pie cr ust, which makes it easier to hold while eating, according to Taste of Home Community Cook Susan Bickta. It comes in two versions: dry-bottom (which is baked fully) and wet-bottom (which is baked until it is just set, to give it a gooier, more syrupy texture). Both were created by the Pennsylvania Dutch.

RHODE ISLAND Del’s Frozen Lemonade Franco DeLucia came to Cranston, Rhode Island, in the early 20th century and turned his father’s lemonade recipe from Naples, Italy, into a slushie empire. The two newest flavors: coconut and blood orange.

SOUTH CAROLINA Benne wafers These crisp, crunchy cookies taste both sweet and nutty because

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they are topped with toasted sesame seeds—benne means “sesame” in Bantu, a group of languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa. Sesame seeds were brought to the southern United States by African slaves, who believed eating them would bring good luck.

SOUTH DAKOTA Kuchen The German word for cake, kuchen is typically made with a sweet dough and a fruit filling: peaches, apples, plums, figs, or berries will work. You can top it with custard, too—or not. The German immigrants who brought kuchen to the Dakotas in the 1880s used whatever was on hand, hence all the different variations.

TENNESSEE Banana pudding The dessert equivalent of lasagna, banana pudding is actually vanilla pudding layered with banana slices and vanilla wafers and then topped with meringue or whipped cream. Beloved throughout the South, in Tennessee it’s honored with an annual festival.

TEXAS Pecan pie Pecan is the state tree and the state pie of Texas, so the pie “shows up at every

from top: taste of home. james andrews/getty images. joleen zubek, wafers courtesy olde colony bakery

Home Community Cook Darlene Brenden. That includes in cobbler, where a bed of the purple berries is capped with a fluffy biscuit served warm and topped with vanilla ice cream.

NEW! holiday,” says Taste of Home Community Cook Joan Hallford. One secret to always having enough nuts on hand: “Keep your pecans in the freezer!” says Hallford. Fun fact: Pecan trees are alternate bearing, meaning they produce their fruit every other year.

UTAH Jell-O In the 1980s, Jell-O executives started targeting their advertisements to young families. It worked especially well in Utah, which was then the state with the highest birth rate and is now the state with the highest per capita consumption of Jell-O. Senator Mike Lee even hosted a weekly “Jell-O with the Senator” event in his DC office before the pandemic.

VERMONT

ac_bnphotos/getty images

Maple creemee This is a combination of Vermont’s culinary signatures: a maple syrup

A CEREAL FOR

CINNAMON

ROLL LOVERS

TO LOVE

Reader ’s Digest Cover Story

Molasses cookies Many West Virginians relied on molasses until refined sugar became readily available after World War II. But these cookies, also flavored with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg, are yummy enough to have stood the test of time.

WISCONSIN flavored dairy treat that’s frozen to the consistency of soft-serve ice cream.

Vermonters insist the creemee is creamier.

VIRGINIA Chess pie The name comes from, well, no one is certain anymore. Some claim that chestnut flour was an original ingredient. Others think it’s a misinterpretation of “just pie” said in a southern accent. It really is “just” butter, flour, sugar, and eggs—sometimes flavored with vanilla extract or lemon juice.

WASHINGTON Loganberry pie Named for James Harvey Logan, who was the first to cross a blackberry with a raspberry, loganberries have a short shelf life. They thrive on Whidbey Island near Seattle, where whatever berries the people can’t consume right away get put to good use in pie.

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Kringle This dessert, which arrived with Danish immigrants in the 1800s, is like coffee cake, only flakier and filled with nuts, fruit, or cream cheese or some combination of the three. It is sometimes topped with chocolate. Want to try it? Kringle is a bestseller at Trader Joe’s stores around the country during the holidays.

WYOMING Cowboy cookies These jacked-up chocolate chip cookies are made with lots of butter and with rolled oats, pecans, and coconut added to the dough. They supposedly packed lasting energy for long days out in the Old West. More recently, Laura Bush’s cowboy cookie recipe beat Tipper Gore’s gingersnaps in the 2000 Family Circle Presidential Cookie Bakeoff. RD

clockwise from top left: matthew clemente/shutterstock. dlerick/getty images. cavan images/getty images

WEST VIRGINIA

Reader ’s Digest

Humor in

UNIFORM

ellis nadler/cartoonstock.com

During our introduction to Vietnam, the instructor warned us about the deadly sea snakes in the South China Sea. “If one of those snakes bites you,” he said ominously, “you’ll take three steps and drop dead.”

A newly arrived GI raised his hand and asked hopefully, “What if we stand still?”

—Dick Crislip Wichita Falls, Texas Basic training requirements while at Fort McClellan included a demanding 12-mile march. We got started at 6 a.m. and were pumped up for the trek. An hour later, feeling the heavy load

of our packs, we wondered whether the end would ever come.

“Men,” our sergeant yelled, “you’re doing a fine job. We’ve already covered four miles!”

Revitalized, we picked up the pace.

“And,” continued Sarge, “we should reach the starting point any minute now.”

—gcfl.net

Got a funny story about the military or your military family?

It could be worth $$$.

For details, see page 4 or go to rd.com /submit. rd.com

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NATIONAL INTEREST

THE

SNAKE CHARMERS

Invasive Burmese pythons are squeezing the life out of the Everglades. An unlikely sisterhood of the swamp is taking them on.

By Craig Pittman from flamingo magazine

Reader ’s Digest

Anne Gorden-Vega’s sons dubbed her the Python Hunter.

Photographs by Mary Beth Koeth

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Reader ’s Digest

For Beth Koehler and Peggy Van Gorder, this is how it works: Three days a week they run Hair of the Dog, their dog grooming salon in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Then they close up shop, pick up their camper, and head down to the Everglades for three nights of hunting Burmese pythons—powerful constrictors that squeeze the life out of their prey.

Each night of the hunt, they spend hours slowly rolling along gravel back roads searching for the elusive invasive reptiles. They switch on massive lights atop their Jeep, lights that turn the night as bright as day. The humid air is filled with a subdued chorus of hoots and ribbits.

The younger, more athletic Van Gorder drives, never going more than about 6 mph, while Koehler, the more focused of the two, stands with her head through the sunroof, peering ahead for any sign of a snake.

The pair, known to their fellow python hunters as PegBeth, achieved some statewide fame in 2019 when they bagged the 500th python to be caught by hunters working for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They’re not doing it for the money; there’s hardly any profit in searching for the slithery invaders. The job pays $8.46 an hour plus $50 per snake, with another $25-per-foot bonus for snakes longer than four feet. Some nights the pair comes up empty, meaning they are

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basically making minimum wage.

No, it’s not for the money. They’re doing it to save Florida’s wildlife.

The first Burmese python turned up on the outskirts of Everglades National Park in 1979. It measured 11 feet, 9 inches and had been flattened by a car. By the late 1990s, a National Park Service biologist named Ray “Skip” Snow sounded the

VAN GORDER RELISHES THE RUSH OF WRESTLING WITH A BIG, HISSING SNAKE. alarm about pythons taking over the Ever glades. No one took his warnings seriously because he had no proof that pythons were mating in the wild. In 2003, he finally found hatchlings, incontrovertible evidence of breeding—only to be told by the people in charge that it was now too late to stop the snakes.

National Interest

courtesy beth koehler and peggy van gorder

Peggy Van Gorder (left) and Beth Koehler hold up one of their captures. From 2017 to July of last year, professional snake hunters caught 5,000 snakes. The largest was 18 feet long.

Today, biologists estimate that about 100,000 pythons infest Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, and the thousands of acres of marshy public land surrounding them. But they’re not staying put.

CNN reported that a woman in West Palm Beach found a Burmese python in her washing machine. The problem has gotten so bad that in February, the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission banned possession and breeding of Burmese pythons and 15 other nonnative species.

“I grew up down here,” Koehler, 61, says. “I’ve seen the changes that have taken place. And now, all you’re going to see are rats, gators, and pythons …

That’s why they have to be taken out.”

While some hunters take out the snakes with bullets, Koehler and Van Gorder prefer to nab them by hand and stuff them into large sacks. Van Gorder, an Army brat who grew up all over the place, says she relishes the adrenaline rush of wrestling with a big, hissing snake. Once, she was bitten on the hand by a struggling python. The snake’s tooth remained lodged in her finger for months. It didn’t lessen her enthusiasm for the hunt.

“We want to get our adventure in now,” the 55-year-old says. “I can sit on a cruise ship when I’m an old lady.” rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest

T

o the public, the face of Florida’s python hunters is Dusty “Wildman” Crum, who once caught a python that measured 16 feet, 11 inches long. The folksy, thick-bearded Crum stars in the Discovery Channel’s Guardians of the Glades, where he runs through the swamps barefoot, showing little apparent regard for the gators, feral hogs, and venomous native snakes that also occupy the soggy terrain. The truth is, though, Florida’s licensed python hunters come in all shapes and sizes. Quite a few are female. One of the best is Anne Gorden-Vega.

Gorden-Vega’s LinkedIn profile describes her as a teacher at the Ceramic League of Miami and an artist who specializes in hand-carved tiles, sculpture, and raku firing. What LinkedIn doesn’t mention is that the vivacious 62-year-old with long silver hair has caught 236 pythons for the state.

G orden-Vega grew up hiking around the Everglades, watching the animals. She gave it up when she became a mom, trading in her nature hikes for nine years as a soccer coach. Then one day, one of her art students mentioned she was going python hunting with a state contractor.

Gorden-Vega finagled an invitation A Burmese python curls around Anne Gorden-Vega’s leg (near right).

Gorden-Vega scours the roads and levees at night for signs of scales.

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to tag along, and before she knew it, “Monday became ladies’ night out,” she says. “We’d drive around the swamp laughing our butts off.”

She noticed, though, that these expeditions were different from the nature hikes of her youth. She saw no raccoons or foxes or any other small mammals. The pythons had eaten them. A 2012 scientific study found that between 2003 and 2011, the areas where pythons had proliferated saw a 99 percent decrease in raccoon populations, a 98 percent drop in opossums, a 94 percent drop in whitetailed deer, and an 87 percent falloff for bobcats. The number for rabbits and foxes: 100 percent.

National Interest The pythons’ effect on the landscape made Gorden-Vega want to do more snake catching. She and her art student, a 59-year-old stay-at-home mom, filled out applications with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission but figured they had zero chance of being selected. Of the 40 snake hunters the commission employs, only ten are women. To their surprise, both women were hired.

“I looked at her and said, ‘They’re desperate,’ ” says Gorden-Vega.

When Gorden-Vega goes hunting, sometimes she’ll let a friend or a licensed hunter from out of town tag along. Other times, she goes out alone, leaving her husband, a service

technician for AT&T, at home as she cruises the levees. She drives a 2017 Chevy Colorado ZR2 with four-wheel drive and bright LED lights on top. The truck has what she calls “99,000 python miles” on the odometer. She burns a lot of gas patrolling the levees half the night. She fills the silence by listening to audiobooks, mostly “historical fiction, anything about Florida, murder mysteries, weird stuff. It’s fun being out in the Glades and listening to stories about the Everglades.”

Gorden-Vega figures her best tool for catching pythons is the element of surprise. The pythons are used to being the apex predator, so when she grabs one by the head, the snake is

D

onna Kalil does not call herself a python hunter. Instead, she’s a “python elimination specialist.” She wears a python-skin hat.

Her Ford Expedition has python-skin seat covers and a custom-made “Python Perch” on the roof. Once, when

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Kalil, above and at top left with a colleague, says that snake hunting is not some sort of Wild West roundup where anything goes.

she gave a speech at a conference, her daughter Deanna made cookies for the audience using python eggs.

“This has taken over my life,” Kalil says.

peter fisher (2)

too stunned to react. That gives her a chance to stuff it into a bag.

If it puts up a struggle, the wrestling match usually takes about 15 minutes, on rare occasions up to an hour. She just lies down on the snake, digs in with her elbows, and wears the thing out. Sometimes the pythons fight back in a very messy way, peeing and pooping on her.

“We call that the sweet smell of success,” she says, “because you smell that way because you got one.”

National Interest Reader ’s Digest Kalil collected snakes and lizards as a kid. She sold Florida real estate in the 1980s. In 2017, she became the first female python hunter hired by the South Florida Water Management District. She was going to try it for three months. Four years later, the five-foot-ten, 125-pound Kalil was one of a handful licensed to hunt pythons for both the water district and the wildlife commission, meaning she has access to land owned by both agencies.

When hunters working for the wildlife commission catch pythons, they take them to a state laboratory in Davie. Some pythons are killed with a bolt gun and dissected for examination. Some are injected with a microchip for tracking and turned loose so they will lead the hunters and researchers to other snakes.

At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. During the coronavirus pandemic, the rules changed. The lab was no longer open to visiting hunters. Instead, hunters had to euthanize their snakes and do virtual measuring and weighing with an app.

Killing the snakes is the hardest aspect of the job for Kalil, who believes in killing animals only if you’re going to eat them. The first one she killed was a little one, just 4½ feet long. She stabbed it in the head.

“I cried for a good long time,” she says. Even now, “I can’t look them in the eyes. And I apologize to them for what I’m about to do to them.”

One nearly got the better of her. She was grappling with a 7½-footer when her daughter called. Rather than let the call go to voice mail, Kalil tried to answer it.

“It was a silly mistake,” she says.

With Kalil distracted, the snake wrapped itself around her neck. She couldn’t get the leverage to pull it loose, so she had to stagger back to her truck, where some friends were packing up their gear, and tap one on the back. Her friends got the snake off of her before she passed out.

WITH KALIL DISTRACTED, THE SNAKE WRAPPED AROUND HER NECK. Kalil hasn’t saved any other hunters, but she has rescued a couple of alligators that were losing battles with pythons. She has also caught a python that had already swallowed a gator.

Kalil has captured more than 500 pythons so far, including more than one “mating ball” made up of multiple snakes tangled together during breeding season. The biggest python she’s caught by herself was 12½ feet long.

The biggest one she nabbed with assistance was a 15½-footer.

When she started out as the lone woman working for the water district, no one showed her the ropes, she rd.com

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says. “Their attitude was, ‘I learned the hard way, so you should have to learn the hard way too.’ ” Kalil takes the opposite approach, helping new hunters learn the right way to catch pythons. “I don’t want to see a bunch of guys coming out here shooting up the Everglades because they think the only good snake is a dead snake.”

A

my Siewe abandoned a successful career in real estate in Indiana to become a python hunter.

“I have this insane passion for snakes,” says Siewe. “I can’t explain it.”

When she was growing up, her dad would take her to a nearby creek and teach her how to catch frogs and reptiles. She started keeping snakes as pets and even began breeding them for sale.

Siewe, 44, was filmed catching Lake Erie water snakes, and the video went viral. Soon she got a call from a reality show that was filming a python hunt, asking whether she’d be interested in participating. Her reaction: “Wait, they pay people to hunt snakes in Florida?”

She never got on TV, but the inquiry planted a seed. She traveled down to Florida and managed to get Kalil to take her out on a hunt. They caught a python that night.

“Right there, I was hooked,” Siewe says. She went back to Indiana and told

Amy Siewe, who moved to Florida specifically to hunt pythons, films her snake encounters for YouTube.

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her fiancé they were moving to Florida.

In a bit of a catch-22, to become a licensed python hunter, Siewe had to show she had experience hunting pythons. But by volunteering to help Kalil catch snakes, she picked up the necessary experience. Now she ventures out looking for pythons about four times a week, mostly in Big Cypress National Preserve. Sometimes she goes on foot, sometimes by car, sometimes by canoe. She and a partner paddle out to islands in the swamp, hop out, grab any snakes

courtesy amy siewe

Reader ’s Digest

National Interest they see, and then load them into the canoe to take back.

“One time we got seven pythons, one of them 15 feet long,” she says. A snake that size weighs around 140 pounds.

“The canoe was so low to the water we could not have put in another snake.”

Recently, the state has tried using dogs and a new type of camera with infrared technology mounted on drones to sniff out the elusive snakes, but with little luck. The problem with the dogs, says Siewe, is that they’re at risk of being gobbled up by alligators.

As for souped-up drones, they can’t spot the pythons if they’re hidden beneath the earth.

“They burrow,” Siewe says. “A lot of their nests are underground. You can be standing right on top of a python and not see it.” That’s why the only way to catch them is the slow, lowtech way: hiring hunters like Siewe to search for them for hours on end and then grab them by hand and stuff them into a bag.

And that’s fine by Gorden-Vega.

She can’t picture herself ever quitting.

Python hunting, she explains, “becomes a part of you. You think, It’s warm tonight, I’ve got to go out. You get an itch.” RD flamingo (july 1, 2020), copyright © 2020 by flamingo magazine, flamingomag.com.

Literary Prizefights No one delivers a cutting comment quite like a writer with a bead on a rival, as these takedowns show: He doesn’t even write literature—he writes ... yak! He doesn’t write novels—he writes journalistic hyperbole! You couldn’t teach that [bleeping] [bleep] to [bleeping] freshmen in a [bleeping] freshman English class! john irving on thomas wolfe

If he would have had fewer pompous musings and a little sounder education it would have been better maybe. ernest hemingway on f. scott fitzgerald

Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the. mary mccarthy on lillian hellman

That’s not writing. That’s typing. truman capote on jack kerouac

Truman made lying an art form—a minor art form. gore vidal on truman capote

rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest

HEALTH

QUIETING Overlapping crises have made many of us jumpy. But how do you know when you have slipped into a more serious problem and need help?

hand lettering by maria amador

By Rebecca Philps

FIVE YEARS AGO, Meredith Arthur, a 45-year-old San Francisco resident and an employee of the social media company Pinterest, arrived at a neurologist appointment in a distraught state. She spoke a mile a minute, rattling through her extensive research on the vagus cranial nerve and explaining why she thought it might hold clues to her crippling shoulder and neck pain, frequent dizziness, nausea, and chronic migraines. “I was presenting my inexpert case to an expert, who stopped me and said, illustrations by Pete Ryan

‘I know what’s wrong. You have generalized anxiety disorder.’ ” For Arthur, the diagnosis was a shock. She had been so focused on her debilitating physical symptoms that she hadn’t considered that they could be linked to her mental health.

Almost immediately, it clicked.

“My brain was always in overdrive,” Arthur recalls. “I wanted to work all the time and solve everything.”

She would never have described herself as a worrier, however, and certainly didn’t connect her perfectionism rd.com | july/august 2021

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Reader ’s Digest to anxiety or its effect on her body.

But, in fact, physical discomfort—not distressing thoughts—is most often what drives people with anxiety to seek treatment.

“The diagnosis changed everything,” says Arthur. “It’s like somebody picked me up off the earth, turned me around 180 degrees, and put me back down.

It was the same world, but everything looked a little different.”

Arthur is one of the 40 million American adults who experience an anxiety disorder—the most common form of mental illness—every year.

But anxiety touches everyone to varying degrees. Typically, it’s intermittent and brought on by a stressful or traumatic event. Its core features are excessive fear and worry, and one of the major underlying factors is a feeling of uncertainty about situations that occur in daily life.

These are exceedingly uncertain times due to the combination of economic precariousness, social unrest, environmental catastrophes, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Managing anxiety will ensure it doesn’t rule your life.

How Chronic Anxiety Harms the Body Anxiety is part of your body’s stressresponse system, and it can be uncomfortable, overwhelming, and sometimes plain confusing.

“I describe anxiety as a futureoriented emotional response to a

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perceived threat,” says Joel Minden, PhD, a clinical psychologist and the author of Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss. “We anticipate that something bad will happen. Maybe we have evidence. Maybe we don’t. But we have a belief that something catastrophic might occur.”

Almost immediately, Minden says, your sympathetic nervous system, which controls involuntary processes such as breathing and heart rate, kicks into high gear. This leads your adrenal glands to release adrenaline and cortisol, two of the crucial hormones that drive your body’s fight-freezeflight response and prompt anxiety’s physical symptoms. Your heart races, your blood pressure rises, your pupils dilate, you get short of breath, and you break out in a clammy sweat.

Meanwhile, cortisol curbs functions that your brain considers nonessential: It alters immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system, and growth processes. This was helpful for our ancestors trying to outrun saber-toothed tigers but is not so much when you can’t stop ruminating about whether you might have caught COVID-19 when the guy behind you in line at the grocery store coughed.

For Arthur, chronic physical pain and discomfort were the most powerful manifestations of her disorder, but anxiety can show itself in many ways. You might perceive something as threatening even when it isn’t or go

Health to great lengths to avoid uncomfortable situations. You might constantly overthink plans or spend all of your time creating solutions to worst-case scenarios. Maybe you feel indecisive and fear making the wrong decision.

Or you might find yourself restless, keyed up, and unable to relax.

Often, those symptoms last only as long as certain situations are present. (You may feel nervous about flying, but you do it and the feeling fades when the wheels touch down.) Other times, anxiety can tip into becoming a chronic anxiety disorder such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, or a phobia.

The distinction between circumstantial or temporary anxiety and a more severe case isn’t always easy to make, says clinical psychologist David Carbonell, PhD, founder of the Anxiety Treatment Center in Chicago.

“There isn’t a blood test for anxiety.

At some point, everybody experiences it,” he says. “It becomes a disorder when it interferes with your behavioral choices and your ability to do as you wish in life.”

That point could be when your job requires you to fly but you’re too anxious to make it even as far as the airport, which ultimately puts your livelihood in jeopardy. More generally, you may find that anxious feelings last even after a problem has been resolved and that those

feelings seem to arise from one situation to the next without relief.

Treat Anxious Feelings When They Persist Despite the fact that chronic anxiety is very manageable with some combination of medication, therapy, and lifestyle adjustments, only about 37 percent of affected people receive treatment of any kind. The rest try to battle their anxiety from within or suppress it.

“People spend too much time and effort trying to control anxiety,” says Minden. “I encourage them to remember that anxiety is a normal emotional response.” If you try to banish it, he adds, all you’re doing is putting it more at the forefront of your mind.

Here are some tips to help minimize anxiety’s negative effects:

1. Accept it If you accept anxiety as part of life and part of everyone’s lived experience, you can learn to relate to it with self-compassion and even with humor. This is a cornerstone of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which has been gaining clinical validation, including by the American Psychological Association.

ACT guides people to see their unpleasant emotions as just feelings and to accept that parts of life are hard. Practitioners encourage patients to begin a dialogue with anxious rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest thoughts, examining the causes of those feelings while also keeping in mind their personal goals and values.

Although anxious thoughts shouldn’t be completely suppressed, sufferers can be trained to not allow anxiety to turn them away from what they want to do and who they want to be.

2. Be curious about it Along with acceptance, a mindfulness approach to anxiety can be useful, especially when you’re cycling through anxious thoughts and unable to think clearly or rationally.

In his book Unwinding Anxiety, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Judson Brewer, MD, recommends paying attention to the body sensations, thoughts, and emotions that come

MEDICATION CAN HELP Many people avoid even looking into medication for anxiety because of the stigma associated with psychiatric drugs.

Those with anxiety may worry that they’ll become dependent on the drugs or that loved ones will see them as weak or flawed.

But the fact is, modern pharmacological

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as a result of feeling anxious or worried. When we notice and name the physical sensations that are arising in our bodies (my face feels flushed; my breathing is shallow; my heart is beating quickly), we are already less caught up in those anxious reactions, simply through that act of observation, writes Dr. Brewer.

Many mindfulness training apps can help, including one, also called Unwinding Anxiety, that Dr. Brewer developed in his lab at Brown University.

After three months of using the app, test participants reported an average 57 percent reduction in their anxiety.

Understanding exactly what was happening inside her body and bringing her awareness to it was a great tool for Arthur because her “thinking

treatments for anxiety disorders are safer and produce fewer side effects than they did 30 years ago. At the same time, attitudes toward mental illness are improving. A 2019 survey by the American Psychological Association found that 87 percent of adults agreed that having a mental health disorder is nothing to be ashamed of.

If you’re ready to explore medication,

Debra Kissen, PhD, CEO of Light on Anxiety CBT Treatment Center, suggests talking to a primary care doctor, who can prescribe the medications most commonly taken for anxiety.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Zoloft and Prozac are good starting medications for many forms of anxiety.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that plays

Health brain” could then take over from her immediate fight-freeze-flight reaction to an anxious moment. Over time, her symptoms became less acute and troublesome. She pictured the hormones hitting her body the same way an ocean wave hits the beach. The beach can’t fight the wave, but it remains steady and allows the wave to wash over it and fall back.

3. Make lifestyle adjustments Learning to live with anxiety is an individual process that requires trial and error to get just right. While acceptance is the first and most important step, some lifestyle changes have been proved to take the edge off as well.

Since fatigue and increased stress leave us more vulnerable to anxiety, a role in feelings of wellbeing and happiness, as well as thinking, memory, sleep, digestion, and circulation.

SSRIs increase levels of serotonin in the brain and are considered nonaddictive and safe for long-term use.

Another choice is short-term use of benzodiazepines (or benzos), such as Xanax, which strengthen the effect of the neurotransmitter GABA—the

a well-balanced diet, adequate rest, and, above all, exercise can help us manage it better. One research study showed that regular vigorous workouts reduced the likelihood of developing an anxiety disorder over the next five years by 25 percent.

Meredith Arthur’s tool kit consists of medication—a prescription SSRI antidepressant (see sidebar below)— and a consistent meditation practice.

Arthur also shares her experiences on the website medium.com. Openly discussing her anxiety has transformed her relationship with it. “I’m learning to live in harmony, as much as possible, with this thing that is a part of me,” she says. “It’s not always pleasant, but I accept and, to the extent that I can, take care of my anxiety.” RD

primary inhibitory (“turn off”) signaler in the brain. Benzos are fast-acting and don’t stay in your system for long, but they are potentially addictive and are considered unsafe for continuous use.

Kissen believes therapy is still crucial because the gains are hardwired into your brain. For moderate to severe anxiety, combining therapy with medication is generally the

most effective. “It’s a one-two punch, where the medication is setting up the environment of your brain to make the most rapid gains as you’re doing the work of learning new ways of looking at situations,” says Kissen.

U F N 0 N 0 1

EE

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TW

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T IES

THE

HUMOR

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#We’reNotKidding Edited by Andy Simmons

Reader ’s Digest

appy birthday, Twitter!

The social networking app turned 15 this year, and thank goodness it isn’t older.

Imagine if Ben Franklin had had a Twitter account. Our funniest founding father would have spent his waking hours tweeting witty gibes against the king of England instead of helping Thomas Jefferson with his grammar. The United States might still belong to England.

Of course, Rodney Dangerfield would have had his unique brand of humor amplified in 280 characters, too, as would Dorothy Parker, Moms Mabley, and George Carlin.

Prior to 2006, the preferred humor networking platform was a vaudeville stage, a Catskill nightclub, or the Late Show with David Letterman. Today, the only stage required is a cell phone. Anyone can do it, but only the best appear here. See if you agree.

graphics by john yun. getty images ( 4 )

H

Growing Pains When parents say to kids “Go to your room and think about what you’ve done,” it’s really good practice for what you’ll do every night as an adult. @tastefactory You know you’re an adult when you suddenly start taking Bert’s side over Ernie’s. @BettyLies One hard thing to explain to people under 20 is how legitimately exciting it used to be when someone would wheel in an overhead projector. @juliussharpe [COMMERCIAL ON TV] Me, as a kid: Hey, I have that toy!

Me, as an adult: Hey, I’m on that medication. @mommajessiec rd.com | july/august 2021

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Anger Mismanagement To the guy who stole my antidepressants, I hope you’re happy now. @EddyElfenbein

“Um.” —First horse that got ridden @rorynotroy

Sick of having to go to two different huts to buy pizza and sunglasses. @Leemanish

This may be the wine talking, but I really really really really love wine. @RobinMcCauley

Honestly, Officer, I wouldn’t have pulled over had I known you were just going to criticize me. @bridger_w

It’s a ten-minute walk from my house to the pub. Weirdly, it’s a two-hour walk from the pub to my house. @funnyhumour

Awk-ward!

I was once thanked by a grieving family member for coming to a funeral. I responded, “No, thank you.” @JAMIECLAIRITY Just tried a coat on in T.J.Maxx. It was the coat of a customer trying on another coat. @LITTLECHIEF1982 Crabs always look like they’re walking

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themselves out of an awkward situation. @GreenishDuck

Growing up, my mom would often say, “If you kids didn’t cost so much, I could drink wine that comes out of a bottle.” @Earth ’sOpinions

Animal King-dumb I’m not sure what’s more confusing, that we would celebrate killing two birds or that we would need to conserve stones. @RCKruseKontrol “Eat her already!”

—Animal watching people kissing @yoyoha

Life’s a Competition If I was stuck on a desert island with only one record, I would want it to be the record for being able to swim the farthest. @GuyEndoreKaiser What do you mean I didn’t win? I ate more

kubra cavus/getty images (sunglasses), burazin/getty images (pizza)

I Drink, Therefore I Am

Humor Reader ’s Digest wet T-shirts than anyone else. @PeachCoffin If I ever say the words “my fantasy football team,” just know it is code for “I’ve been kidnapped please help me.” @LauraBenanti

Crisis Centers Drama: a word boring people use to describe fun people. @jennyandteets Every class is drama class when you’re in high school. @timothybird186

It’s a Date What my girlfriend thought, first four dates: 1. Nice shirt.

2. Wow. A second nice shirt.

3. OK, first shirt again.

4. He has two shirts. @ristolable Told my boyfriend I was going to start my period, and he said, “Again??” It’s like, you know what, you’re right. I’m canceling my subscription. @cULTMOTHER Done with dating sites.

I’m now focusing on

I interrupted their moment :(

pizza delivery guys because at least I know they have a job, a car, and pizza. @LindaInDisguise

Till Death Do Us Part I don’t want to die doing something I love. I want to die doing something I hate. That way I don’t have to finish it. @badbanana (Tim Siedell) Decided that the one phrase I do not want in my obituary is “died before his Botox doctor could revive him.” @ConanOBrien

courtesy @maevexob

My parrot died today.

Its last words were “Darn, I think my parrot is about to die.” @SamGrittner

Weight Watchers 10:38 AM Jan 13, 2021 @maevexob

Do people who run know that we’re not food anymore? @IamEnidColeslaw rd.com

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My dating profile:

We’re Just Friends “I don’t want a whole dessert; let’s just get two spoons.” —Former friends of mine @AnnaKendrick47 Liking the same stuff is one thing. But hating the same things?

True friendship. @thisisjendoll

@TheAmazingBeck

Honestly, my biggest fear about becoming a zombie is all the walking. @gashleymadison The serving size for pizza is “until you hate yourself.” @samir

Fashion Police Eleanor Roosevelt once said to “do one thing every day that scares you.” Today, I’m going jean shopping. @jake_40k

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Every neck tattoo should read “I’m not getting the job, am I?” @bazecraze

Insults

I bet when the first guy wore glasses everybody was like “Oh la-di-da, excuse me Mr. I Need TWO Monocles.” @robfree

The most cutting thing you can say is “Who’s this clown?” because it implies they’re a) a clown and b) not even one of the better-known clowns. @skullmandible

Haircuts are great because I did none of the work but get all of the credit. @ludwig

Probably the worst thing you can hear when you’re wearing a bikini is “Good for you!” @ElizaBayne

courtesy christian becker

1:14 PM Apr 10, 2021

I’ve invented Twofacebook, the antisocial network.

You start being friends with the entire world and defriend people one by one. @AndyBorowitz

Humor Reader ’s Digest

So Childish

Parents—We All Have ’Em

zargondesign/getty images (billboard), taphouse_studios/getty images (name tag)

Sometimes I want kids just so I can eat fish sticks for dinner. @ThatSusanBurke My five-year-old hasn’t said a word in the car after I convinced him that the volume control on our stereo ejects his car seat. @Brianhopecomedy I like having conversations with kids.

Grown-ups never ask me what my thirdfavorite reptile is. @SIMONCHOLLAND My five-year-old after I explained the concept of breastfeeding: “Can you squeeze Capri Suns outta those things or just milk?” @tragicAllyHere Sometimes at night, after my son has gone to bed, I go into my room and finish all my sentences. @PAULAPOUNDSTONE

Great news: I got a 100 on my son’s geometry test. @RodLacroix

Idiot or Savant?

What should we call this giant advertising board?

Phil: A philboard.

Bill: I have a better idea. @InternetHippo One of life’s great pleasures is to watch two idiots agree on something and then hear one of them say “Great minds think alike.” @RealSudoNim When someone tells me “Great question,” I never hear their answer because I’m busy congratulating myself for asking such a great question. @DamienFahey

My mom said, “You know what I need?

A selfie stick. So whenever I see someone taking a selfie, I can hit them with the stick.” @ManikivanaS My grandpa covertly followed my mother to the grocery store, walked behind her until she put pickles in the cart, and screamed, “We’ve got pickles at home!” @bananapeele Pretty much the most frightening part of my day is when I get a notification that my mother has tagged me in a post on Facebook. @CulturedRuffian Me: Mom, if you could have any power, what would you want? Mom: Sleep through the night rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest Humor

Going Mental One of my favorite games to play is “Is my headache from dehydration, caffeine withdrawal, lack of proper nutrition, my ponytail, stress, lack of sleep, not wearing my glasses, or brain tumor?” @pmilbs_

well. Mentally sound.

Met a crab.

Day 2: I have married the crab.

Day 3: I have eaten my wife. @murrman5

Updated Classics for Millennials Jane EyreBNB @DanielPaisner Tess of the d’Uberdrivers @MilesToGo13

If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, here’s my therapist’s number. @topaz_kell

Alexa, Tell Me About Two Cities @StopEatingBees

SHIPWRECK DIARY Day 1: Alone, doing

Charlotte’s Webcam @DaSkrambledEgg

All I see is hummus.

Tinder Is the Night @paul_lander LOLita @im_srishabh21 —huffpost.com

It’s Reigning Cats and Dogs Just heard a guy at the dog park tell his dog “NO!” and then more quietly, “We talked about this!” @NicCageMatch WHEN CATS ARE SAD Bartender: What’ll ya have?

Cat: Shot of rum.

[Bartender pours it] [Cat slowly pushes it off the bar] Cat: Another. @PhilJamesson “?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!”

—Dogs on the Fourth of July @kyle_Lippert

Oh, the Shame

9:42 AM Oct 19, 2019 @SophiaArmen

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“Don’t worry, I’ll hold your stuff. You just worry about making friends.” —Cargo shorts @DearAnyone

olivier matthys/getty images

without getting up to pee. @PizzaAndMuffins

7. I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor’s office was full of portraits by Picasso.

8. Russian dolls are so full of themselves.

getty images (6)

1. The worst part about being a giraffe is having a lot of time to think about your mistakes when you’re sinking into quicksand.

4. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

2. I drink too much.

The last time I gave a urine sample, it had an olive in it.

5. My granddaughter wanted a Cinderellathemed party, so I invited all her friends over and made them clean my house.

3. Why didn’t Han Solo enjoy his steak dinner?

It was Chewie.

6. Our scariest president was probably Rushmore, because he had four heads.

You’ll never be as lazy as whoever named the fireplace. @longwall26

Hi, Grandma?

Can you come pick me up from my rap battle? It’s over. No, I lost. He

9. Normal person: 9 + 7 = 16.

Me: If 10 + 7 is 17 and 9 is one less than 10 then 9 + 7 must be 16.

10. Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.

Answers

Think you know the golden age of comedy?

Prove it! Guess which of the following one-liners come from comic legends and which are from the Twitterverse.

1. @rolldiggity 2. Rodney Dangerfield 3. @movingsideways 4. Redd Foxx 5. @greenmonk 6. @meganamram 7. Rita Rudner 8. @MooseAllain 9. @louvregguk 10. George Carlin

Quip or Tweet?

saw you drop me off and did a pretty devastating rhyme about it. @ch000ch rd.com

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We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet. @CIA

Wordsmiths

Uncivil Marriage When my wife gets a little upset, sometimes a simple “Calm down” in a soothing voice is all it takes to get her a lot upset. @TheNardvark Before marrying someone, listen long and hard to the sounds of their chewing, because that’s the soundtrack to the rest of your life. @LizerRea You know that guy who looks like that other guy in that show we used to like? He died.

—How my wife and I communicate @WilliamAder

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Just found the worst page in the entire dictionary. What I saw was disgraceful, disgusting, dishonest, and disingenuous. @sixthformpoet Autocorrect walks into a bar. Bartender says, “What can I get you?” Autocorrect says, “I’ll have a bear.

A bare. Bier. Briar.

Never mind.” @sween “WHOM WHOM WHOM.” —Owl that never gets invited to parties @aparnapkin

What do you think Kid Rock and Chris Rock talk about at family reunions? @JimGaffigan “Pickup artists” and “garbagemen” should switch names. @CEEJOYNER What idiot called it a flyswatter and not a splatula? @mikecanrant Who called it your foot falling asleep and not coma toes? @chuuew

It Happens Every Time Every time a sexy woman jumps out of a giant cake, there is at least one guy who is bummed about the cake being ruined. @jonahhill

In the Name of ...

My daughter doesn’t know the word braces so she calls them “tiny jails for your teeth.” @Lhlodder

Every time I almost think humanity will be OK, I see someone struggle with the self-checkout for 20 minutes. @capricecrane

peter dazeley/getty images

Spies like Us

Humor Reader ’s Digest

Food for Thought

Self-Awareness

I wanted to go out tonight, but the avocado I bought this week will finally be ripe enough to eat between 8 p.m. and 8:15 p.m., so I can’t. @TanishaLove

“It was a good thing I was born a girl, other wise I’d be a drag queen.” @DollyParton

Fortune Cookie: YOU JUST BROKE MY HOUSE IN HALF AND NOW YOU’RE READING MY JOURNAL. @BeardSpice The best way to prepare cauliflower is by throwing it in the trash while ordering a delicious pizza. @NickYoussef Hold ... Hold ... Hold ... CHARGE!!!!!

—Ice at the bottom of a glass @zamyers

Just bought a book on narcissism.

It’s great. It’s all about me. @marcmaron Mom, Dad, I’m a gatherer.

—Caveman coming out to his parents @AristotlesNZ

Weird Science

brian hagiwara/getty images

How do they get the hurricanes to arrive in alphabetical order? @KenJennings T NOW! What do we want? MORE TIMETRAVEL JOKES! When do we want them? RIGH @johnfreiler In a thousand years, archeologists will dig up tanning beds and think we fried people as punishment. RD @oliviawilde rd.com

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WHO KNEW?

IF YOUR

Block COULD Talk

Fascinating facts about the streets where we live

By Spike Carlsen from the book a walk around the block

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ne bitterly cold morning a few years back, I shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the water to brush my teeth. Nada. In a fog, I trudged to the kitchen faucet hoping for better. Nope. My next shuffle was to my phone to call my city water department. The voice that answered was that of someone who’d already answered the phone one too many times that morning.

I learned that my waterline was frozen.

Only one company could remedy the problem, and it was booked for two days.

Two days later, after I got the all clear, the guy at the water department told me,

illustration by Ari Liloan

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Reader ’s Digest “Unless you wanna go through that again, open a faucet and let a pencillead stream of water run for the rest of the winter.” For the next six weeks, we did just that.

The endless trickle became a gnawing reminder of everything I didn’t know. I really had no idea where our water came from. Or where it went.

Or, for that matter, how my phone call to the water department had gotten through to the water department. As I stared out the window, I further realized I knew nothing about the concrete sidewalk leading to our door, the lawn beneath the freshly fallen snow, the squirrels in the trees, the ancient walnut tree on the boulevard ... nothing.

And these were just the things I could see through one dinky window. I’d read books about journeying across Antarctica, down the Amazon River, and up Mount Everest; I’d written books about 50,000-year-old wood buried in the bogs of New Zealand and the violin makers of Cremona, Italy—but I knew nothing about the world right outside my front door. So I started doing some research, and I learned the most fascinating things ...

If your home address is an odd number, you probably live on the south or east side of the street; if it’s an even number, you probably live on the north or west side.

Let’s look at street names too. If you’re strolling in Oklahoma or Arkansas, you’ll find the most popular

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street name to be Oak; if in Wisconsin, Vermont, or a dozen other states, the number one prize goes to Park; in the Deep South, Dogwood and Magnolia take the cake. But the most commonly found street name in the United States is, interestingly enough, Second. Why? The most logical explanation is that in some cities, the main drag is Main Street and in others, it’s First. Rounding out the top ten U.S. street names, in order: Third, First, Fourth, Park, Fifth, Main, Sixth, Oak, and Seventh.

“The selection of place names has often been, almost without exception, careless,” says Don Empson, author of The Street Where You Live: A Guide to the Place Names of St. Paul. “We have such misnomers as College Avenue with no college, Palace Avenue with no palace, Ocean Street with no ocean, and Hunting Valley Road with no valley or hunters.”

Your block is home to 8.1 squirrels.

With 106 species, southern Asia is considered the “squirrel capital of the world.” North America has a mere 66 species, with a density of about 1.5 squirrels per acre. And since the range of most squirrels is only a few acres, chances are the same old squirrels you see day after day in your backyard are exactly that. Some 1.12 billion of them live in the United States at any given time. They have an uncanny ability to thrive

Who Knew? in a wide range of environs—urban parks, suburban backyards, wilderness forests.

“They flourish because they—like humans—are ‘generalists,’ ” says John Moriarty, senior wildlife manager for the Three Rivers Park District in Minnesota. “Squirrels can live in treetop nests, hollowed-out tree trunks, or your attic.”

Letter carriers bring you 41 pounds of junk mail a year.

You don’t open 44 percent of it, and you recycle about a quarter of it. Over the years, the United States Postal Service has delivered mail—junk and otherwise—via stagecoach, roller skate, motorcycle, ski, Segway, toboggan, dogsled, boat, biplane, supersonic jet, snowmobile, and hovercraft.

If you live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, your mail is brought to you by mule.

In New York City, pneumatic tubes once helped deliver six million letters a day, including one third of the city’s first-class mail, via 27 miles of tubing that ran beneath the city’s streets and even across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Each capsule could travel 35 miles per hour and hold up to 600 letters (or an unspecified number of submarine sandwiches, which, according to lore, were delivered to hungry postal workers this way).

In 1958, Harry Winston had such faith in the postal service that when he donated the $38 million ($350 million in today’s dollars) Hope Diamond

to the Smithsonian, he shipped it by registered mail—in a plain brown envelope stamped FRAGILE—from New York City to Washington, DC. The cost was $145.29: $2.44 for postage and the rest for $1 million worth of insurance.

Garbage collectors pick up 6,424 pounds of your trash a year.

That’s the average for a family of four in the United States, encompassing all kinds of trash from urban, suburban, and rural cans and dumpsters. Based on those averages, if I were to kidnap your week’s worth of trash on garbage day and pick through the 50 pounds of waste left after you’d separated out the conventional recycling, I’d still find: ✦ 10½ pounds of food waste ✦ 9 pounds of plastic ✦ 7½ pounds of paper and cardboard ✦ 5½ pounds of rubber, leather, and textiles ✦ 4½ pounds of metal ✦ 4½ pounds of yard trimmings ✦ 4 pounds of wood ✦ 2½ pounds of glass ✦ 2 pounds of “other stuff”

The grass really does look greener on the other side of your fence.

The old adage is true because when you’re standing in your yard looking straight down, you see the dirt and bare spots between the blades of grass. But when you look over at your neighbor’s yard at an angle, you see only the green blades.

A healthy lawn contains about eight rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest grass plants per square inch—meaning that your 50-by-100-foot lot has 5,760,000 plants for you to tend.

According to Paul Koch, a plant pathologist from the O.J. Noer Turfgrass Research Facility at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the life cycle of any single blade of grass is only

IN LARGE CITIES, VERY FEW PEDESTRIAN CROSSWALK BUTTONS ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING. three to six weeks. “Just as your body replaces cells so you don’t have the same bones you had ten years ago,” he says, “a lawn replaces cells so you don’t have the same grass you had a year or two ago.”

If you push a button at a crosswalk in a major city, it probably won’t do anything.

Only 9 percent of New York City’s 3,000-plus pedestrian crosswalk buttons actually do anything; in Dallas, at one point, it was zero percent.

In outlying areas, small towns, and suburbs and at many urban intersections, those buttons do indeed communicate with the traffic lights. But in large cities, they’re often little more than

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thumb calisthenics devices for naive pedestrians. They remain because they are expensive to remove and sometimes, as happened in Dallas, inactive buttons are reactivated.

Steve Misgen, district traffic engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, explains that in dense urban areas, operable pedestrian crosswalk signals muddle the flow of vehicle traffic. To compensate, pedestrian traffic is allotted adequate time as part of the overall timing cycle.

Signal timing changes with the ebb, flow, and direction of traffic; cycles can range from 90 to 250 seconds.

If you had X-ray vision, you’d see that a concrete sidewalk is typically four inches thick; a driveway, six inches; the interstate, a beefy eleven inches.

We manufacture and use more concrete than any other substance on the planet. Worldwide we generate ten billion tons of it per year; 3,000 pounds for every man, woman, and child. Pound for pound, we use twice as much concrete for building as steel, wood, plastic, and aluminum combined.

The history of concrete follows a bumpy road. The Romans developed the kilns and techniques for formulating it more than 2,000 years ago. They built some of the most magnificent structures ever created, including the Pantheon, which stands today. With the fall of the empire, the formula

Who Knew? was misplaced—for nine centuries.

In 1414, the recipe was rediscovered in a copy of Vitruvius’s On Architecture found in a Swiss monastery and has played a vital role in our lives—and our walks and drives—ever since.

You have a one in six chance of receiving a speeding ticket this year.

About 41 million speeding tickets are issued in the United States every year.

Fines range from $10 for minor infractions in North Dakota to $2,500 for driving faster than 85 mph in Virginia.

The average ticket amounts to $150— which might seem like a lot until we visit Finland or Switzerland, where fines are based on income. A wealthy driver clocked doing 180 mph in Switzerland was fined $835,000.

Men are 50 percent more likely to be issued speeding tickets than women. And the hour or two following the morning rush along with the traffic lull between 1 and 3 p.m. are the times you’re most likely to get a citation—with less traffic, drivers have more room to speed up and are more prone to being spotted and ticketed by law enforcement.

You probably live within a ten-minute walk of a park.

Seven of every ten Americans are fortunate enough to live within a tenminute walk of a park. Some areas, naturally, provide more green space than others. If you step out your door in Scottsdale, Arizona, you have only a 40 percent chance of a short stroll to a park. But Missouri’s Kansas Citians have a 70 percent chance, Clevelanders an 83 percent chance, and San Franciscans a 100 percent chance—an absolute certainty—of being able to wiggle their toes in park grass within 600 seconds of walking out the door.

Just as community developer Andres Duany once posited that “great cities are nothing more than a series of villages artfully stitched together,” great park systems are little more than people and places sewn together by grass, activities, and mutual respect.

Says Mitch Silver, commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, “I can’t imagine a great city that doesn’t have a great park.” RD from the book a walk around the block by spike carlsen. copyright © 2020 by spike carlsen. reprinted with permission of harperone, an imprint of harpercollins publishers.

Light Wait At Fire Station Number 6 in Livermore, California, there’s a light bulb that has been burning almost continuously since 1901.

(They sure don’t make ’em like they used to.) ziya tong, in the book the reality bubble: blind spots, hidden truths, and the dangerous illusions that shape our world

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DRAMA IN REAL LIFE

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Reader ’s Digest

TRAPPED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

It was supposed to be a routine job for a team of men who repair underwater pipelines. Then one diver’s air-supply cord snapped—when he was 300 feet down.

By Simon Hemelryk

go to work was harder for Chris Lemons than for most people. He is a deep-sea diver, typically away from home for four-week stints several times a year. This time he had a job replacing oil pipes at the bottom of the North Sea more than 120 miles off Aberdeen, in northeast Scotland.

As Lemons, 32, got ready to leave that day in September 2012, he gave his fiancée, Morag Martin, the usual reassurances: “Don’t worry. It’s a carefully controlled environment.”

“I’ll miss you,” said Martin, 39. “But we’ll keep in touch all the time.”

The couple had met five years earlier at a party. Lemons, a six-foot-four-inch Englishman, was a diver and dive-boat crewman. He was drawn to Martin’s gregariousness, while she found him kind and funny. They started dating, and soon Lemons moved in with Martin. They lived frugally while he trained in 2011 in specialized saturation (SAT) diving, a job that involves maintaining seabed pipes for the oil and gas industry. It has its risks, from decompression

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sickness to drowning—several SAT divers have died in recent decades around the world. But Martin knew how much it meant to him.

And it paid well, helping the couple plan an exciting future together.

Martin had recently become the head teacher at a school in the Scottish Highlands, and they were building a dream house overlooking the sea.

Their wedding was set for the following April.

At home, their conversations ranged from “What place settings shall we have at the reception?” to the complexity of house foundations. They also talked about having children and later moving to France, where Lemons had family. It was a joyful time.

It’s called saturation diving because at the intense pressures found in the deep sea, gas that a diver breathes saturates the body. When the diver surfaces and the pressure drops, this gas can emerge as deadly bubbles in the blood and tissues, causing decompression sickness,

previous spread: the sun/news licensing

LEAVING HIS FIANCÉE TO

courtesy chris lemons (2)

Reader ’s Digest

or the bends. SAT divers reduce this risk by living full-time in a pressurized chamber in the dive ship.

For the September job, Lemons would be part of a three-man team sharing the SAT chamber with three other teams for a month aboard the 348-foot vessel Topaz. He was delighted to learn he’d be working with Duncan Allcock.

Allcock, 50, had been diving in the North Sea for 17 years. He worked with Lemons, who had qualified 18 months earlier, on his first few dives, becoming Lemons’s unofficial mentor. In a competitive industry with only short-term contracts, Allcock strove to make Lemons look good in front of supervisors, giving him advice and nudging him away from mistakes. “If you’re unsure about something, don’t worry. I’ll talk you through,” he’d reassured Lemons.

Their third team member would be David Yuasa, whom Lemons knew by his excellent reputation.

For the first days in the chamber, the men chatted about Lemons’s

Chris Lemons in the diving bell (top) and flanked by his fellow divers, Duncan Allcock (left) and David Yuasa

house build, his upcoming wedding, and Allcock’s son, who’d just started working in diving. Lemons couldn’t properly speak to Martin—helium in the chamber made the divers’ voices high-pitched and distorted—but they kept connected by e-mail, and Martin sent pictures of her adventures cycling and climbing local mountains.

Just before 9 p.m. on September 18, it was Lemons’s team’s turn to dive.

The three transferred to a diving bell, a smaller vessel for transport to the rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest deep sea. The diving bell was lowered on cables to around 250 feet below the Topaz. Lemons and Yuasa would descend a further 50 feet to replace some pipe on a structure resting on the seabed. The men would be connected to the bell by umbilical cords attached to their diving suits. These two-inch-thick clusters of tubes carried air, communications lines, power for the lamps and cameras on their helmets, and hot water to keep their suits warm—the seawater was just 39 degrees F. At the core was a steelreinforced rope. Each diver had 165 feet of this lifeline coiled and ready inside the bell. Allcock’s job was to feed the line to the divers as needed.

Above water, the wind was about 35 mph and the seas some 13 feet high.

Rough, but nothing the Topaz couldn’t handle. Instead of fixed propellers, the ship had five thrusters that could each be rotated. A dynamic positioning system kept the ship locked in place by constantly adjusting these, so there was no need for an anchor. The job was routine, Allcock told Lemons as he secured the heavy helmet for his partner. “There’s no rush. Take your time.”

Lemons gave him the thumbs-up. He felt relaxed, focused, and ready to go.

Dropping through the two-and-ahalf-foot hole at the bottom of the bell and into the dark ocean was always a magical moment for Lemons. Leaving

THE LONG JOURNEY DOWN 1. The crew lives in a pressurized “tin can” for 28 days to stay acclimated.

1

5. Alone at the bottom of the sea, Lemons slips into unconsciousness.

2

2. To reach the deep sea, they enter a diving bell.

5

3. The bell is lowered; the divers stay connected to it via umbilical cords.

3 4

4. The bell is dragged away, and Lemons’s lifeline snaps.

the sun/news licensing (illustration). dogwoof/floating harbour films (diver)

Drama in Real Life behind the claustrophobic diving bell, he felt weightless, sediment and fleeting marine life caught in the light of his helmet lamp. He and Yuasa started work within the manifold, a structure 30 feet high and 66 feet long; its pipes and valves managed oil flowing from wells to platforms. Toiling a few feet apart with spanners and other tools, the pair would be underwater for six hours.

Up on the ship, dive supervisor Craig Frederick sat before a bank of controls and monitors showing the feeds from the divers’ helmet cameras.

He followed their progress, giving instructions by intercom for each stage of the job. Meanwhile, in the cramped bell, Allcock sat surrounded by gauges.

He monitored his colleagues’ oxygen and carbon dioxide levels but had no communication with them.

Lemons had been working for about an hour when he heard a noise from Frederick’s control room. An alarm.

Perhaps the crew was running a test?

In fact, the Topaz had a major problem. The green light on Frederick’s instrument panel was suddenly glowing amber, then red. I’ve never seen that before, Frederick thought, alarmed.

The positioning system had failed.

The boat was now drifting and would soon drag the divers with it.

“Leave your tools and get back to the bell,” Frederick ordered. It was a highly unusual request, and Lemons and Yuasa started climbing handover-hand up their umbilicals toward

the top of the structure. In the bell, Allcock didn’t know what was happening but followed Frederick’s instruction to start hauling in the cords.

Glancing up, Lemons had expected to see the bell’s lights, but there was only blackness. Then he felt his umbilical tugging as he reached the top of the manifold and saw that it had looped around a metal outcrop. He struggled to unhitch it, but the knot only pulled tighter. What’s going on? he thought.

IF THE CORD BROKE, IT WOULD LEAVE LEMONS ADRIFT AND WITHOUT OXYGEN. In the bell, Allcock saw that Lemons’s line was suddenly taut. Frederick ordered, “Give Diver 2 more slack.”

“I can’t!” Allcock replied. Not only was it too tight, the cord was pulling its anchor off the wall, steel struts bending, bolts groaning. It was unthinkable: If the cord broke off, it would leave Lemons adrift and without oxygen. Allcock also knew that in this tiny space, if it came loose, it would knock him through the bottom of the bell into the water. He quickly climbed onto his seat to get out of the way. But there was nothing he could do for Lemons.

As Lemons struggled to free himself, Yuasa tried to get back to help, flailing his arms against the water. He almost made it. The two divers’ hands rd.com | july/august 2021

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Reader ’s Digest Drama in Real Life were just a couple of yards apart when Yuasa’s cord yanked him away. Lemons saw a look of apology on Yuasa’s face as he disappeared into the dark.

Lemons redoubled his frantic attempts to dislodge the cord. He heard it creak ominously, and then the airsupply line broke, followed by the communications feed. Unable to inhale, Lemons instinctively opened the emergency air tank on his back, as he’d done many times in training.

Seconds later, there was a noise like a shotgun as the cable snapped. His lifeline had severed completely.

Lemons was thrown backward, sinking slowly, his helmet silent without the intercom, his lights dead, his suit beginning to cool. He knew he had about eight minutes of oxygen.

HIS CHEST GREW TIGHTER. I HOPE DYING DOESN’T HURT, HE THOUGHT. In the bell, Allcock feverishly pulled up the slack umbilical, hoping Lemons would be at the end of it. His heart sank as the broken hot-water hose came up. Then came the hissing air line. He felt sick. “I’ve lost my diver!” he shouted to Frederick.

Landing on the soft seabed, Lemons struggled to his feet in total darkness. The ship could track him via a

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beacon on his suit, but he knew that if he could somehow get himself to the top of the manifold, there was a better chance of rescue before his oxygen ran out. Yet he had no idea where it was. What if he walked the wrong way into the blackness?

He picked a direction almost at random and took cautious steps, feeling only the mud beneath his feet. Suddenly his outstretched hands struck metal. He grasped it in relief and then began struggling up the structure, breathing hard.

Reaching the top, he still couldn’t see the bell. Not a speck of light.

Where had the Topaz gone? He crawled onto the platform and clung to the metal grille, terrified the current would drag him away. He reckoned he had about five minutes of air left.

He knew his chances of surviving this were slim.

Yet the situation was even worse than he realized. The ship was now some 700 feet away. The crew was desperately trying to steer back, but without the positioning system, it took two people to manually coordinate the thrusters. The Topaz was slowly zigzagging against the waves.

The minutes passed, and Lemons’s fear turned to grief. This is probably where I die. He’d never see their house finished, never have children.

“I’m sorry, Morag!” he called out. His mind fumbled with mundane practicalities. Does she know when the next payment for the building work is due?

Lemons’s neardeath experience, re-created in the film Last Breath.

dogwoof/floating harbour films

He shouted out for Allcock. “Where are you?”

His chest grew tighter as his oxygen dwindled. I hope dying doesn’t hurt, he thought. He felt himself slowly slipping into unconsciousness.

Frederick had ordered the Topaz’s remotely operated underwater vehicle to go down and look for Lemons. It sent back pictures of him lying on the metal grille. His hands seemed to be twitching. Was he was still alive, or were his limbs just moving in the current? It was 16 minutes since the umbilical had snapped.

By now, Yuasa had made it back to the bell, poised to retrieve Lemons if they could get back in position. Frederick kept him and Allcock updated on the boat’s progress, though he massaged the truth to keep their spirits up. “We’re nearly there.”

Yuasa assumed he’d be recovering a body. Allcock’s thoughts were darkening, too, and he wondered how he’d tell Martin that her fiancé wasn’t coming home. The wait was agonizing,

but he tried to keep hope alive.

We’ve not forgotten you, lad, he said silently.

Hang in there.

Attempts by the Topaz’s engineers to reengage the positioning system had been futile, so in desperation they shut it down and restarted it. Amazingly, this worked.

More than 25 minutes had passed since Lemons’s umbilical snapped.

Finally, with the ship over the dive site, Yuasa dropped down and found Lemons on his back. He glanced through Lemons’s mask; ominously, there was water inside. He clipped Lemons onto a rescue lanyard and began hauling them both up his umbilical cord. Lemons was a big man; it was like trying to carry a giant starfish. By the time he was able to push Lemons’s upper body into the bell, another six minutes had passed.

Allcock unclipped Lemons’s helmet.

His eyes were closed, his bald head as blue as a pair of jeans. Allcock knew there was little chance of surviving that long without oxygen, but with nothing to lose, he kept talking. “You’ve had an accident. I’m going to give you CPR.” He gave Lemons two breaths. And unbelievably, Lemons suddenly rd.com

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Reader ’s Digest Drama in Real Life inhaled. His eyes opened. He blinked.

Allcock could have danced a jig.

He’s back with us! For Frederick, watching via monitor, it was a big moment. “Are you all right?” he asked on the intercom. Lemons gave a weak thumbs-up.

Allcock probed him with questions after flushing his suit with hot water.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Yeah.”

“You know you’ve had a broken umbilical?”

“Yeah.”

Lemons was groggy but, remarkably, seemed himself. Back in the ship’s SAT chamber, he got medical attention while Yuasa and Allcock had, as Allcock remembers, “a bit of a hug.”

Once Lemons was stable, they visited him. There were more hugs.

Over the next three days, as the men depressurized on the Topaz, now docked at Aberdeen, they talked through what had happened over and over. It helped them deal with the shock. All gently teased Lemons about the CPR, saying that “snogging,” or making out, isn’t usually done on a dive.

How Lemons survived, and without brain damage, remains unclear. The oxygen in divers’ gas is about four times richer than normal air, so his body may have been saturated with enough to keep him going. Hypothermia could have put him in shutdown mode, too, sending oxygen to his organs.

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When Lemons phoned Martin, she was horrified to hear about her fiancé’s near miss and raced across Scotland to meet him as he disembarked from the Topaz. They kissed and hugged for a long time. For a distraction, they went to the movies, but Martin barely saw the film through her tears.

Three weeks later, once Lemons was declared fit, he returned to the North Sea with Yuasa and Allcock to finish the job. “I didn’t want to lose my nerve,” says Lemons, who is still a SAT diver.

“I’m proud of him,” adds Allcock.

“Many would have said, ‘This is too dangerous. I’m not coming back.’ ” The following April, Lemons and Martin got married in an emotional ceremony near their home. Yuasa couldn’t be there, but, says Lemons, “at the reception, people were buying Allcock whiskeys all night. And they were telling me, ‘I don’t even want to speak to you, I just want to hug you.’ ” “A band played until 4 a.m. and the place was jumping,” recalls Martin.

“People knew it was the wedding that almost never was.”

Lemons and Martin have since adopted a little girl, Eubh. They finished their house. But their life plans have accelerated. “We’re selling the house and moving to France already,” says Martin, smiling.

“I’ve had a glimpse of dying and I’m not scared,” says Lemons. “I know I’m lucky to have a second chance.

I always had a lust for life, and the accident only made that stronger.” RD

Reader ’s Digest

BRAIN GAMES 7 Pages to sharpen Your Mind

Fact or Fiction?

1. At the time the Constitution was ratified, Philadelphia was the nation’s capital. fact: S fiction: C

2. Toni Morrison regretted picking that as her pen name.

3. A cloud can weigh more than a million pounds.

fact: H fiction: P

fact: O fiction: R

4. Half of all potatoes grown in the United States become McDonald’s french fries. fact: I fiction: C

5. Albert Einstein was offered the position of president of Israel.

6. The Greenland shark can live for 400 years.

fact: O fiction: N

fact: L fiction: K

7. The phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) has three dances: Foxtrot, Tango, and Waltz. fact: L fiction: A

8. The first Ferris wheel could hold more than 2,000 riders at a time.

9. President Andrew Jackson had a pet parrot.

fact: T fiction: E

fact: E fiction: S

bonus question What is on the bottom of Mississippi’s signature dessert and on top of Massachusetts’s? (Need help? Turn to “The Best Dessert in Every State” on page 66.)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Answers: 1. Fiction; New York was then the capital. 2. Fact; “Wasn’t that stupid?” the author, born Chloe Wofford, once said. “It sounds like some teenager.” 3. Fact. 4. Fiction; about 7 percent do. 5. Fact; in 1952. (He declined.)

6. Fact. 7. Fiction; w is Whiskey. 8. Fact. 9. Fact; it made a scene at Jackson’s funeral when it started swearing.

Bonus Question: Chocolate.

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

medium Determine whether each statement is fact or fiction. To reveal the solution to the bonus question at bottom, write the letter indicated in each of your responses in the corresponding numbered blank. Turn page upside down for the answers.

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Reader ’s Digest

Quick Crossword 1

easy Carry the torch and fit the names of these Americans going for Olympic gold into the grid.

2 3 4

ROSS (beach volleyball) GRAY (wrestling) BILES (gymnastics) MOORE (surfing) LEDECKY (swimming) 8 BOUDIA (diving) RAPINOE (soccer) HUSTON (skateboarding) WILLIAMS (tennis) STEFFENS (water polo)

5

6 7

9

medium Find the three numbered sticks in the left-hand diagram that overlap one another in the way shown in the example triangle at right; that is, each stick should lie under one stick and over the other.

1

2 8 4

7

6 3 5

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emily goodman (quick crossword). darren rigby (pick-up sticks)

Pick-Up-Sticks

Brain Games

Play Your Card Right medium The cards below have been sorted into three groups according to a particular rule. In which group should the nine of hearts go?

emily goodman (play your card right, hidden refreshments). marcel danesi (do the math). carol_woodcock/getty images (playing cards)

A.

B.

C.

Do the Math difficult Use five mathematical symbols (+, -, x, ÷, and √) to complete the equation.

Use each symbol only once, and ignore the standard order of operations.

? 25 ? 5 ? 9 ? 32 ? 8 = 4 Hidden Refreshments easy The names of five beverages are hidden between consecutive words in the story below. Can you find them all? Example: The math teacher assigned a challenging problem on a derivative that easily stumped the whole class. (lemonade and tea) Last night I saw a terrific movie. The story itself was funny but also dark, as it explored the most tragic of feelings: unrequited love. The dialogue was smart in its directness. I liked this film so much, I think it should win every award.

For more Brain Games, go to rd.com/crosswords.

For answers, turn to page 127. rd.com

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Brain Games Reader ’s Digest

WORD POWER Ready to try this month’s quiz on for size?

It’s a closetful of fashion and clothing words that’ll come in handy whether you’re lounging in your sweats or stepping out in your Sunday best. Will you stay on trend or fall behind the times?

Turn to the next page for answers.

By Sarah Chassé

9. lapel n. (luh-'pel) a elbow patch. b jacket’s front flap. c pocket square.

10. sheath n. (sheeth) a crocheted shawl. b close-fitting dress. c long cape.

11. haute couture n. (oht kuh-'tyur) a high fashion. b evening gown. c off the rack.

1. stiletto n. (stuh-'leh-toh) a high heel. b body armor. c traditional costume.

5. houndstooth n. ('hownz-tooth) a belt buckle. b hidden pocket. c checked pattern.

12. beanie n. ('bee-nee) a handmade button. b knit cap. c ballet flat.

2. knockoff n. ('nahk-off) a shoulder pad. b imitation. c stunning beauty.

6. sashay v. (sa-'shay) a drape. b strut. c twirl.

13. array v. (uh-'ray) a dress up. b lay out. c embroider.

3. dapper adj. ('da-per) a dated. b threadbare. c stylish.

7. camisole n. ('cam-uh-sohl) a raincoat. b sleeveless top. c slipper.

14. gabardine n. ('gab-er-deen) a wide-legged pant. b clutch purse. c woven fabric.

4. anorak n. ('an-uh-rak) a hooded jacket. b snowsuit. c hiking boot.

8. haberdashery n. ('hab-er-da-sher-ee) a finery. b hatmaker. c menswear.

15. accessory n. (ak-'seh-suh-ree) a new collection. b decorative item. c reflective vest. rd.com | july/august 2021

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Reader ’s Digest

This Swimsuit Is the Bomb In the summer of 1946, two French designers were competing to create the tiniest two-piece bathing suit. Jacques Heim made waves with the Atom, a revealing number named for the teeny particle. Not to be outdone, Louis Réard unveiled an even smaller, navel-baring suit that shocked the public. But what’s smaller than an atom? As it happened, the first postwar nuclear tests (in which atoms were split) made headlines that same week, on the remote Bikini Atoll. And the name of a fashion bombshell, the bikini, was born.

6. sashay (b) strut.

The models sashayed down the runway.

1. stiletto (a) high heel.

Mariah sprained an ankle when her stiletto broke.

7. camisole (b) sleeveless top. Wearing a black camisole and a pink tutu, the ballerina floated onstage.

ANSWERS

2. knockoff (b) imitation.

This may look like a Gucci handbag, but it’s a knockoff I bought for 20 bucks!

8. haberdashery (c) menswear. The shop sells trousers, cuff links, and other haberdashery.

3. dapper (c) stylish.

Jin cut a dapper figure in his gray pin-striped suit.

9. lapel (b) jacket’s front flap. The senator always has a flag pin on her lapel.

4. anorak (a) hooded jacket. “Does the dog need a sweater, a rain bonnet, and an anorak?”

Paolo asked.

10. sheath (b) closefitting dress. Rachel chose a simple white sheath for her beach wedding.

5. houndstooth (c) checked pattern. “Should I go with the houndstooth or the classic plaid for my new golf pants?” Mona asked.

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11. haute couture (a) high fashion. Al’s idea of haute couture is a clean T-shirt and jeans without holes.

12. beanie (b) knit cap.

Jess sports her trademark beanie year-round, even in the heat of summer.

13. array (a) dress up.

Arrayed in an ornate gown and a tall golden crown, the queen took her seat on the throne.

14. gabardine (c) woven fabric. “Please don’t toss my gabardine blazer into the washer. It’s dry-clean only!”

15. accessory (b) decorative item. Mother always said the best accessory is a big smile— or a big diamond.

Vocabulary Ratings 9 & below: business casual 10–12: semiformal 13–15: black tie

dendong/getty images

Word Power

Brain Games

ANSWERS WHERE, OH WHERE?

make us ! a l ugh

(See page 28.)

D. Holland Harbor Lighthouse, Michigan

BRAIN GAMES (See pages 122–123.)

Quick Crossword across

down

2. ROSS 5. LEDECKY 7. BOUDIA 8. RAPINOE 9. STEFFENS

1. MOORE 3. WILLIAMS 4. GRAY 6. HUSTON 7. BILES

Pick-Up-Sticks 1

Caption Contest

2 8 4

7

6

3 5

Play Your Card Right

jodie griggs/getty images

Group B, which has cards whose ranks contain four letters.

(The ranks of group A’s cards all have three

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 128). letters and Group C’s all have five letters.)

Do the Math √25 + 5 - 9 x 32 ÷ 8 = 4 or √25 - 5 x 9 + 32 ÷ 8 = 4

Hidden Refreshments water (saw a terrific), soda (also dark), coffee (tragic of feelings ), martini (smart in its), wine (win every)

Reader’s Digest (ISSN 0034-0375) (USPS 865-820), (CPM Agreement# 40031457), Vol. 198, No. 1172, July/August 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, New York, and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Reader’s Digest, PO Box 6095, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1595. Send undeliverable Canadian addresses to ca.postal.affairs@rd.com. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, in any manner, is prohibited. Reader’s Digest and The Digest are registered trademarks of Trusted Media Brands, Inc. Marca Registrada. Printed in U.S.A. SUBSCRIBERS: You may cancel your subscription at any time and receive a refund for copies not previously addressed. Your subscription will expire with the issue identified above your name on the address label. If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. A special Reader’s Digest Large Print with selected articles from Reader’s Digest is published by Trusted Media Brands, Inc. For details, write: Reader’s Digest Large Print, PO Box 6097, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1597. CONSUMER INFORMATION: Reader’s Digest may share information about you with third parties for the purpose of offering products and services that may interest you. If you would rather not receive such offers via postal mail, please write to Reader’s Digest Customer Mailing List, PO Box 3123, Harlan, Iowa 51593-0189. You can also visit www.tmbi.com/preference-center to manage your preferences and opt out of receiving such offers via e-mail. Please see our Privacy Policy at www.tmbi.com/privacy-policy.

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Reader ’s Digest Brain Games

PHOTO FINISH Your Funniest captions

Runners-Up As Dave rested on his front steps, he began to wonder whether the flood warning was meant for him.

—Richie Holschen Spokane Valley, Washington

“The doctor told me I had to stay hydrated.”

—James Goodness Bloomingdale, New Jersey To enter an upcoming caption contest, see the photo on page 127.

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piola 666 /getty images

Winner “Siri, how to float?”

—Richard Capili Quezon City, Philippines