The Best STRESS BUSTER By DAN HARRIS FIND YOUR PLACE A Small Town’s INSPIRATION From the book IF YOU LIVED HERE A New Way to SAY THANK YOU 20 By GINA HAMADEY PAINS Weird & to Never Wonderful Ignore INVENTIONS From THEHEALTHY.COM By ANDY SIMMONS ® ® THE POWER TO REDUCE ALLERGENS IN CAT HAIR & DANDER INTRODUCING Purina® Pro Plan® ™ LiveClear Breakthrough nutrition The key ingredient Discover a difference discovered through over is a specific protein starting in the third a decade of research from eggs week of daily feeding Outstanding Nutrition and Taste + The Power to Change Lives Learn more at ProPlan.com/LiveClear Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A. Reader’s Digest CONTENTS FIND YOUR 64 84 HAPPY PLACE ... inspiration health & medicine We Moved to the 20 Pains to “Worst Place Never Ignore in America” When is a twinge no big It started out as some- deal, and when is it a thing of a joke. We’ve warning that something been living here for needs attention fast? four years now—and by jen babakhan and tracy middleton loving it. from thehealthy.com by chris ingraham from the book if you lived here you’d be home by now 100 life well lived On Dad’s Trail, Forever 74 He taught his son how fascinating facts to ride and all the rules Weird and Wonderful on the road of life. Inventions by taylor brown from From a bicycle that garden & gun rides on water to a Features pillow that stops all 106 snores, these 18 news- drama in real life s e 58 worthy gadgets will I Was Scammed by g a love & kindness make you smile in m My Best Friend i y My Thank-You Year t appreciation—or She swindled him out of t e How writing 365 notes g utter disbelief. $92,000 and forced him / y t of appreciation recon- by andy simmons i into bankruptcy. But he r r nected the author to a finally got justice. g e what’s important in life. l by johnathan walton y k by gina hamadey from huffpost.com Reader’s Digest Contents Departments 6 Dear Reader 8 Letters everyday heroes 10 The Serial Samaritan by genevieve looby 13 The TP Exchange by rob nikolewski and hayne palmour iv from the san diego union-tribune quotable quotes 14 Octavia Spencer, Kelly Clarkson, Hasan Minhaj i won! 16 The International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship everyday miracles 20 A Little Life Saved, a Big Friend Made by kristen warfield On the Cover Photograph by Yasu + Junko A Small Town’s Inspiration .................................... A New Way to Say Thank You................................ Weird & Wonderful Inventions ............................ The Best Stress Buster........................................... 20 Pains to Never Ignore ....................................... 2 june 2020 | rd.com Reader’s Digest Contents how to 24 Find Peace 116 Anytime, Anyplace Humor by dan harris and jeffrey warren with carlye adler from 18 the book meditation All in a Day’s Work for fidgety skeptics 38 we found a fix Life in These 29 Fix Spotty Wi-Fi, United States and More 13 things 51 34 The Truth About Laugh Lines Wildfires 52 by elizabeth yuko Laughter, the Best the food on Medicine your plate 41 I Am Tuna 99 The Genius by kate lowenstein Humor in and daniel gritzer Uniform Section news from the world of medicine 116 Story Time Is for 46 Shifting Sleep Everyone by meghan cox Cycles, and More gurdon from the book the your true stories enchanted hour 115 Signs from Above 120 Brain Games ) k and an Ode to Dad 38 122 Word Power s a m ( 128 Photo Finish s e g a m i Send letters to [email protected] or Letters, Reader’s Digest, PO Box 6100, y Harlan, Iowa 51593-1600. Include your full name, address, e-mail, and daytime t t phone number. We may edit letters and use them in all print and electronic e g / 41 media. Contribute your True Stories at rd.com/stories. If we publish one in a s e print edition of Reader’s Digest, we’ll pay you $100. To submit humor items, visit p e y rd.com/submit, or write to us at Jokes, 44 South Broadway, 7th Floor, White l Plains, NY 10601. We’ll pay you $25 for any joke or gag and $100 for any true o r funny story published in a print edition of Reader’s Digest unless we specify a c . otherwise in writing. Please include your full name and address in your entry. ) 2 ( We regret that we cannot acknowledge or return unsolicited work. Requests k for permission e to reprint any material from Reader’s Digest should be sent b to [email protected]. Get help with questions on subscriptions, u z renewals, gifts, address changes, payments, account information, and other n e inquiries at rd.com/help, or write to us at [email protected] or Reader’s e l o Digest, PO Box 6095, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1595. j Reader’s Digest which we arrange to “lose” hundreds DEAR READER of wallets in plain sight and count how many get returned. Last time we did it, in 2013, Helsinki proved most honest, but New York City scored well, with 8 out of 12 wallets returned. Now my Staying Connecticut town faced its own little wallet test with the anxiety of a pan- Positive demic as a backdrop. On his drive home, John was feeling fter stocking up at the shop- bereft. This was going to be a living Aping center we both frequent, nightmare. Then his cell phone rang. my friend John was half a mile “Is this John?” a man said. up Danbury Road, at the mom-and- Five minutes later, John and the pop wine store he likes, when he man, name of Alex, met up at a local reached into his pocket to pay. Uh- gas station. Alex stood next to his big oh. No wallet. tree-service truck and told John how The stay-at-home order had just he’d spotted the wallet and braked to been issued in our state, and the last a stop in the middle of busy Danbury thing anyone needed was to be cut off Road to retrieve it. Then his son, rid- from all bank and credit cards with no ing shotgun, went to work, apparently driver’s license. You can imagine how using teen whiz-kid savvy to suss out John felt. John’s cell number from social media. He retraced his steps. Car. Kohl’s. Now Alex, grinning from ear to ear, The Stop & Shop parking lot where handed John his billfold. he’d loaded everything up and John was dumbfounded at their then wiped it down because no determination. “Here, let me pay way was the coronavirus getting you or something,” he said, of- near his 80-year-old mother. fering the $20 bill from his wal- She has asthma, and he was let. No, said Alex, he couldn’t headed to her home to deliver take money; he needed noth- some goods. ing. John thanked him But the wallet wasn’t again, and they began anywhere. He must to part. Then John have left it on his roof had another idea. n e h and driven off. “Hey, do you need o c If you’ve read RD toilet paper?” w e h for long, you know Alex looked sheep- t t a the wallet test, in ish. “Well, my wife m 6 june 2020 fight back against a foe like this is for each of us to stay as positive as we can. Through the Depression, World War II, 9/11, and other times of great change, it has been the role of Reader’s Digest to help readers do that. Please allow PLEASE ALLOW THIS this issue to help you find that hap- pier, more optimistic place, if it can, ISSUE TO HELP YOU with its stories of gratitude and family FIND THAT HAPPIER and kindness, and of an even more re- PLACE, IF IT CAN. markable toilet paper exchange. “The spirit of this guy,” John recalls of his exchange, shaking his head. “He was just so sweet.” has been looking ...” he conceded. And please share stories of local John handed him several rolls from heroes and kindness from your own ) y his newly purchased stash. life. Across America, neighborhoods, e n o “Thank you, thank you!” Alex ex- workplaces, hospitals, churches, com- m ( claimed, as if John were the hero. munity groups, and whole towns and s e g I write this column at a terribly un- cities are coming together to help a m i certain time. By the time you read it, others. Our annual Nicest Places y t t e six weeks or more after the magazine search is a powerful way to put them g / r has gone to press, COVID-19 in lights. Now is when we rely on you may have e e t killed many more of my town’s resi- to go to rd.com/nicestplaces to tell the s i t r dents than the 12 it has so far—I can’t world about them. a , ) t know. Our economy may be recover- Just write from the heart. It’s urgent e l l ing or in ruins—I can’t know. I can’t for us all to hear positive stories, now a w ( know how many of us will have been more than ever. d i e brought low by this unprecedented r Bruce Kelley, y medical crisis.