The Saturday Evening Post March/April 2020

A few years ago, my wife was walking down a New York City street and suddenly lost her footing and fell to the ground. She was unable to get up — she didn’t realize it, but she’d broken her hip. A small crowd of eight or so quickly gathered around her, calling 911, propping her up a bit, and offering words of comfort until an ambulance arrived. This, in a city with a reputation for rudeness and indifference toward strangers and residents alike. I was reminded of that day as I read American Pop columnist Cable Neuhaus’s “Kindness Is the New Cool” (p.16). “As we stumble through this bitterly contentious moment in our national life,” he writes, “I’ve begun to wonder if, astonishingly, kindness isn’t about to break out. Tiny sprouts…

Louise Aronson In “Better Medical Care for the›Elderly” (page 42), geriatrician Aronson uses stories from 25 years of experience caring for older patients to illustrate how complex people’s health needs can become as they age. “Life has three main, decades-long phases, each with challenges, opportunities, hardships, and pleasures: first childhood, next adulthood, and then elderhood,” she says. “Recognizing that is the first step toward creating an old age to look forward to and celebrate.” Megan Hill After the removal of obsolete dams on the Elwha River in the Pacific Northwest, it once again flows freely, and salmon and other wildlife are returning to their natural habitat. In “How a Dying River Was Brought Roaring Back to Life” (page 38), Hill reports on the massive ecosystem restoration project and talks with scientists who are…

Simply Breathtaking I love the beauty of egrets in real life, but your cover painting by Ohara Koson, showing the birds huddled together for warmth in falling snow, took my breath away. Jenna Miller, Chicago, Illinois Elvis’s Worst Concert “When Elvis Flopped in Vegas” (Jan/ Feb) is a fascinating look at the reinventions of Las Vegas and Elvis — a fast learner who turned Colonel Parker’s perceived blunder into the beginnings of his great success. When Shecky Greene asked Bing Crosby what he thought about the young singer, Crosby predicted that “he’ll be the biggest star in show business.” Bob McGowan Jr., online comment In October ’55, Elvis appeared at my Ohio high school, performing for an afternoon assembly that none of us ever forgot. He was dressed in light-colored slacks and white shoes and sporting…

Everything, as they say in America, has its price. It has been found that a lack of sleep costs the American economy $411 billion a year and stress another $300 billion. Countless other studies have calculated the annual cost of pain ($560 billion), heart disease ($309 billion), cancer ($243 billion), and diabetes ($188 billion). Surf the web at work sometimes? That costs the American people $63 billion a year. Did you show up hungover as well? Tack on another $77 billion. And while you may not know it, the American government has long put a price tag on Americans themselves. The Obama administration pegged the value of the average American life at $9.1 million. That was up from $6.8 million under the Bush administration. Americans have developed the penchant for measuring nearly…

Not that I look to Lady Gaga for guidance on anything other than music, but late last year, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the pop superstar said something simultaneously obvious and powerful: “Kindness heals the world. It’s what brings us together — it’s what keeps us healthy.” Ah, that Gaga genius revealed! With apologies to the Beatles, kindness is all ya need. These days in particular, I think we hunger for it. As we stumble through this bitterly contentious moment in our national life, I’ve begun to wonder if, astonishingly, kindness isn’t about to break out. Tiny sprouts of it, all over. There are signs that cannot be ignored. Without making any effort, I’ve spotted hundreds of accounts similar to the one about a Florida real-estate agent who paid off all…

March is National Frozen Foods Month, so the National Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Association is encouraging us to share our interactions with frozen foods on social media, which sounds vaguely obscene and I won’t be doing it. I love some frozen foods — ice cream, for instance — but can’t abide others, like frozen pizza, which tastes like cardboard no matter who makes it. Just because a food can be frozen doesn’t mean it should. I never walk down a frozen foods aisle without thinking of Bill Dollens, who ran the frozen food department at Johnston’s IGA in Danville, Indiana, where I worked sacking groceries in high school. He was winding down his career just as mine was cranking up. Bill Dollens was the picture of calm, except during storms, when…