【推荐2】When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr.Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note-“Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery”-and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically(魔术般)appear.     

All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr.Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn’t freeze. And I remember Mr.Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.   

Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch(门廊)！Every so often my son’s friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

【推荐3】This is a true story that happened in Japan. In order to repair the house, a Japanese tore open the walls. Japanese houses normally have an empty space between the wooden walls. When pulling down the walls, he found that there was a lizard (蜥蜴) staying there because a nail (钉子) from outside was hammered into one of its feet. He saw this, feeling pity and curious. When he checked the nail, he found it was nailed 10 years ago when the house was first built.

What happened? The lizard had survived in such a position for 10 years! It had been in a dark wall partition (夹层) for 10 years without moving! Then he wondered how this lizard survived for 10 years without moving a single step — since its foot was nailed! So he stopped his work and observed the lizard: What had it been doing? What and how had it been eating? Later, he didn’t know from where another lizard appeared, with food in its mouth. Ah! He was astonished and touched deeply. The free lizard had been feeding it for the past 10 years.

Such love, a beautiful love! Such love happened with this tiny creature … What can love do? It can do wonders! Just think about it: one lizard had been feeding the other for 10 long years, without giving up hope on its partner. If a small creature like a lizard can love like this, just imagine how we can love if we try.