【推荐2】Are blacksmiths (铁匠) going extinct in America? Not according to Craig Kaviar, a famous practitioner of the craft (手艺) who is based in Louisville, Ky. If anything, he said, “there’s been a renewal.”

The industrial revolution (革命) made a lot of traditional blacksmith work out of date. But blacksmiths like Mr. Kaviar, 69, have found success creating so-called functional art. Mr. Kaviar, for instance, is regionally known for making handrails with metal leaves and birds. He recently completed a three-part archway for the local Crab Orchard Animal Sanctuary with almost Tim Burtonesque details. Mr. Kaviar said he had taken “the criteria the owner had” and had then made the work his own, adding horses, trees, a giraffe and more.

Mr. Kaviar reached a national audience on the HGTV show “Modern Masters” before going global. But it’s in Louisville that his work is most famous. And, in his telling, the craft is only growing in the area. “When I came to Louisville, there was no one doing it,” he said. “Now there are several other people around doing it as well. It’s a fine craft.”

Mr. Kaviar also works with Guns to Gardens, a group that repurposes guns which are voluntarily given up into garden tools. His role is straightforward: “I take one part of the gun and make a hole in the center. And then on one end, I flatten it.”

Mr. Kaviar said he would continue to work so long as his body could handle it. He is typically in the shop from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. “I fear that if I give it up, I’ll sit around watching TV too much,” he said. “It helps keep me in shape.”

“I also love using the tools and the feel of the metal,” he added. “When you’re striking hot metal, the metal has a different feel, and different heat. You can really judge what you can do through it.”

【推荐3】One day, Vinod Menon, head of the physics department at City College of New York, was going through his office mails. He opened a box, only to find $180,000 with a nameless letter and a return address. Having never seen so much money, he was too shocked to know what to do with it.

City College of New York is one of the most-productive public university systems in the United States, and the physics department has played a key role. Three Nobel Prize winners in physics received their education there, and in 1921 Albert Einstein gave one of his first lectures at the Harlem campus.

“Supposing that you are a bit curious as to why I am doing this, the reason is simple,” the letter read. It continued to explain that many years before, its generous writer had taken advantage of the excellent educational opportunity, available at City College to study physics, earn a master’s degree, and do a long, productive, well-rewarding scientific job. The sender wished to offer the money to poor students learning physics and other sciences.

The return address was to a house in Pensacola, Florida whose owners had no idea of the money. The money was first put aside, but after the two-month-long research which had found nothing that could link it to activities which are not lawful, the leaders of the college decided to keep and make good use of the money.

Dr. Menon, who grew up in India, noted that the gift would provide for two fully-funded scholarships every year for ten years, and that he would try to see it go into the hands of the students who had the fewest means — such as immigrants like him.

【推荐1】We had finally decided to skip our traditional family dinner and make the trip to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when Kerry was 5. Like many other families we packed a small backpack with sliced turkey sandwiches and juice boxes. After getting off the train, we were walking up to the entrance when Kerry spotted a homeless woman sitting in the shadows, invisible to all except my curious daughter.

“What’s that?” she asked. Linda and I looked at each other, worried about the need to explain something very different than the happy scene we were about to join. During our first years of parenthood we’d discussed how we would explain such topics as life, death, and love. But homelessness? It came so suddenly that we just gave as simple an explanation as we could and continued on to the parade.

The following year, we decided to attend the parade again. So the night before Thanksgiving we went shopping for sliced turkey for sandwiches. “Can we bring some sandwiches for those people?” she inquired. Again, Kerry caught us off guard. “Why?” was my first reaction. But we knew immediately whom she meant. How could we refuse? Why would we refuse? This was a golden opportunity to honor Kerry’s sense of charity. Six-year-old Kerry was teaching us an important lesson. That night we prepared and packed two-dozen sandwiches into our now overstuffed backpack.

Scanning the shadows after reaching Manhattan again, Kerry spotted a homeless man sitting in the same spot as last year. We stopped and took out the first of the little feasts from the pack. Without a word of instruction, we handed it to Kerry. She walked over to the man slowly, handing the sandwich to him. Neither spoke a word. Then we were off to the parade, stopping along the way to distribute the rest of the sandwiches, except one for each of us.

Somehow, no giant Thanksgiving sit-down feast ever tasted as good as those sandwiches. Over the next decade we did the same things again and again. After all, there’s nothing like sharing a turkey sandwich with new friends.

【推荐2】In 2009 in a small town, Todd Bol came up with an idea to share his mother’s love of reading with others. Bol’s mother had been a teacher who had loved reading. He decided to build a wooden box and fill it with books. Bol placed the box of books on a post in his front yard with a sign that read “Free Books”. Soon his neighbours noticed this tiny model of a “schoolhouse”. They began taking the books and replacing them with books of their own. The tiny library allowed people the opportunity to “check out” books day or night.

Bol’s friends and neighbours wanted little libraries of their own. Bol built several and gave them away. One of his friends, Rick, believed that Bol’s little libraries could benefit more than just local friends and neighbours. With these ideas in mind, Bol and Rick came up with a plan to build over 2,500 Little Free Libraries around the world. They believed that books should be available to all people, no matter where they live or what their background is. To help achieve their goal, Bol and Rick created a website that provides information about the Little Free Libraries and how people can establish little libraries of their own.

Thanks to Bol and Rick, the Little Free Libraries are encouraging people to read more. They didn’t just provide books. They also helped build friendships and a sense of belonging among community members. As more and more people visited Bol’s little library, they began talking with one another. They shared thoughts, ideas, and stories. They got to know one another. Everyone loved the little library. After all, as Bol says, “It’s a magic box with books. People tell us all the time that they’ve met more people in a week than they have in a lifetime.”

Today there are more than 25,000 Little Free Libraries around the world, and they can be found on almost every continent.