The Saturday Evening Post November/December 2020

This year has been a nightmare for millions. As I write, a vaccine for the coronavirus is still a dream, and anger and frustration and fear are hallmarks of our lives. Most people are not going to feel very thankful on the most American of holidays — a time that’s usually marked by joyous gatherings with friends and family. But it turns out that even in depressing times, feeling goodness and gratitude is something that can be enhanced with mindful attention and practice. Writer Tom Hallman Jr. recently spoke to Brook McCall, who, despite having been paralyzed in an accident at age 22, made an independent life and career for herself. Because he was writing a piece that would run close to Thanksgiving, Hallman asked her if, despite her hardships, she…

Nelson Peña “CBD is so fascinating. For decades it was taboo to study it, just because it comes from the cannabis plant, and even though it produces no psychoactive effect,” says Peña, who with co-author Scott Meyer examines what it is and how it works in “Should You Try CBD?” (page 34). “Now it’s legal as a natural, plant-based supplement, and it’s become a grassroots wellness phenomenon, with millions using it for anxiety, pain, and insomnia. As science finally begins digging deeper into CBD, the big question is, can it live up to the hype?” Lina Zeldovich “Cooking Up Memories” (page 40) explores how a rising generation of First Nations chefs in Canada is now reclaiming and expressing their tribal heritage through food. “Listening to the chefs’ childhood stories brought back my own…

Setting a Mood The September/October issue was wonderful, and the cover — Setting the Decoys by Bryan Haynes — perfect to set the mood for the coming of fall. Tim Janes, Winchester, Kentucky Coping with Grief Sallie Tisdale’s essay “Learning to Grieve” (Sep/Oct) really hit the mark. Last year, I lost my son to cancer; he died here at home, surrounded by hospice and loved ones. Tisdale’s poignant examples of what characterizes grief and bereavement will be instantly recognized by those who have suffered losses such as mine. Congratulations on a forthright, unflinching analysis of this all-too-human phenomenon. Michael Landau, Rome, New York Having lost more family members and cherished friends in death than I wish to count, and having served more than 40 years as an ordained pastor assisting hundreds of people working through grief,…

The tendency with the annual Thanksgiving Day story is to offer something of a cliché, something you’d expect to find in a television show where everything is neatly wrapped up in 30 minutes. Life isn’t that neat. You see, humans aren’t hard-wired to be grateful, something I learned from a neuroscientist at the University of Portland. Part of our protective DNA, Sarina Saturn told me, is this human tendency to count curses instead of blessings. That’s part of evolution, forcing people to focus on threats that could lead to extinction. Our brains seek out the worst. In prehistoric times, the threat might have been a woolly mammoth. Today, it’s comparing yourself to others. A friend got a year-end bonus and you didn’t. Your vacation at the beach pales next to the trip your…

Many of us keep somewhere in our home a dust-covered carton crammed with decaying photographs that reveal the complex stories of our long-ago lives. The dread that attaches to these cartons — the reason they are seldom visited — is understandable. Experience tells us that the fading images stored within are bound to trigger good memories but, almost surely, some bad ones as well. They are fraught. I want to come back to them in a moment. But first: Do you recall the Polaroid Corporation, maker of the instant cameras that were ubiquitous not so long ago? Polaroid went bankrupt in 2008. The internet and smartphones killed its business. Who needed pictures on disposable paper when you could endlessly manipulate your snaps on a hard drive or the web? Well, shock…

Every now and then I come up with an idea so brilliant I’m surprised no one has thought of it before me. This particular gem occurred to me after meeting a young couple who had five kids and then that same day speaking with a couple who didn’t have any but were trying. The man with all the kids was complaining about the cost of Christmas, what with five children and all, and that’s when I had the bright idea that if, during the holidays, he rented out two or three of his kids to the couple who didn’t have any, they’d all be happy. Good Christmases are the ones with little kids; bad Christmases have surly teenagers and jaded adults who snarl at one another. As everyone knows, there are good…