【推荐1】Barditch High School decided to have an All-School Reunion. Over 450 people came to the event There were tours of the old school building and a picnic at Confederate Park. Several former teachers were on hand to tell stories about the old days. Ms. Mabel Yates, the English teacher for over fifty years, was wheeled to the Park.

Some eyes rolled and there were a few low groans(叹息声) when Ms. Yates was about to speak. Many started looking at their watches and coming up with excuses to be anywhere instead of preparing to listen to a lecture from an old woman who had few kind words for her students and made them work harder than all the other teachers combined.

Then Ms. Yates started to speak: “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here. I haven’t seen many of you since your graduation, but I have followed your careers and enjoyed your victories as well as crying for your tragedies. I have a large collection of newspaper photographs of my students. Although I haven’t appeared in person, I have attended your college graduations, weddings and even the births of your children, in my imagination.”

Ms. Yates paused and started crying a bit. Then she continued: “It was my belief that if I pushed you as hard as I could, some of you would succeed to please me and others would succeed to annoy me. Regardless of our motives, I can see that you have all been successful in your chosen path.”

“There is no greater comfort for an educator than to see the end result of his or her years of work. You have all been a great source of pleasure and pride for me and I want you to know I love you all from the bottom of my heart.”

There was a silence over the crowd for a few seconds and then someone started clapping. The clapping turned into cheering, then into a deafening roar(呼喊). Lawyers, truck drivers, bankers and models were rubbing their eyes or crying openly with no shame all because of the words from a long forgotten English teacher from their hometown.

【推荐2】It was a cold and dark November morning several years ago. My alarm clock had just gone off but I was having trouble getting out of bed. My Dad had died a few weeks before and I found myself just going through sadness and depression. I didn't feel ready to go on without him.

My Day had been my hero growing up. He had worked so hard all of his life to provide for us. He had a temper and would sometimes yell at me and my brothers, but he also had a kindness and gentle laugh that he would share with us as well. I always knew that he loved me. Still, he had been raised in an old fashioned way and raised us that way too. I couldn't remember ever being hugged by him after I reached a certain age.

After my granny passed away, his health began to rapidly fail and within a few months brain cancer had taken him from us. I remember thinking what I would have given for just one last hug from him.

I sighed and got out of bed. I turned on the lights and walked into the hallway. I saw my son Jones walking down the hall to meet me. Suddenly, he opened his arms and gave me a huge. And just as he did I heard my Dad's voice deep inside of me say, "Joey, this hug is from me!" I cried and smiled at the same time. At that moment, in the place where heart, mind, and spirit all meet I felt loved. I felt loved by Dad. And I knew that I couldn't give up on life. I still had a lot of things left to do and a lot of love left to, share.

【推荐2】The story of a 92-year-old book lover in a village of Chongqing has touched many recently. Sun Shiquan has collected more than 7,000 books over the decades and has offered a free local library for residents for years.

He was born in Pipa village in Xiuqi township of Chongqing’s Chengkou county. Being a bookworm as a child, he read all kinds of ancient books including the Four Books and the Five Classics. In the 1950s, he became one of only a handful of local college graduates and later served as a primary and middle school teacher in the county.

Sun said he started to collect books in 1983 and gradually built a diverse collection over more than 40 years. Among his holdings is a precious set known as the Complete Works of Chinese Classics, published during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It is one of only seven copies in the country.

Wearing glasses and using a magnifying glass, Sun reads for more than three hours every day. Now he has finished reading most of his collection.

Speaking of her father, Sun Ziyu said, “My father has a habit of making notes on each book. He makes a mark whenever he stops reading so that he can carry on reading from where he left off.” Village official Liu Jiao said, “Many children in the village love to visit Sun and listen to his stories.” She said the elderly man has earned respect from the whole village. People call him “Teacher Sun” and children call him “great-grandfather”.

Sun Ziyu said her father also writes poems and prose in his spare time and enjoys reading his works to the family. She said under her father’s influence, family members take the time to read together and exchange views. That’s their favorite part. “My father has loved reading for a lifetime,” Sun Ziyu said. “Reading is his meat and drink.”

【推荐3】A second-grade education has not stopped the garbage collection Jose Gutierrez from bringing the gift of reading to thousands of Colombian children.

Gutierrez started collecting books almost 20 years ago. He was driving a garbage truck at night through the country’s wealthier neighborhoods. The thrown-away reading material slowly piled up. Now the ground floor of his small house is a makeshift (临时的) community library. It is stacked with about 20,000 books, including chemistry textbooks, children’s classics and so on.

He says books are luxuries (奢侈) for boys and girls in low-income neighborhoods such as his. New reading material at bookstores is expensive. There are only 19 public libraries in Bogota. It is a city of 8.5 million people.

“Libraries should be in all neighborhoods and on each corner of every neighborhood. But the libraries tend to be located far away from poorer areas,” says Gutierrez.“Books are our salvation (救星).”

The 53-year-old Gutierrez’s love for reading comes from his mother. She always read to her son even though she was too poor to keep him in school.“She used to read stories every night. She always provided encouragement or new ideas for what I should do,” said Gutierrez.

Gutierrez has traveled to book markets in Mexico and Chile to share his experience of starting a library. He has sent many books to other libraries around the country. That is because he does not have room for them. He says he agrees that technology allows books to be read digitally. But he prefers to read in a traditional way. “There is nothing more beautiful than smelling the ink and turning the pages,” he says.

【推荐2】On James Owen’s 70th birthday, he saw a video of himself bending the top of his body forward and raising his shoulders and back and walking slowly up to the platform where he was giving a talk. “I looked like an old man,”says Owen,who built a successful career on Wall Street. Even worse, he felt like an old man. He was about 25 pounds overweight and had trouble with his back, knees and shoulders.

Later, instead of giving in to age, Owen decided to set an ambitious five-year goal.He wanted to be pain-free, and he decided the way to get there was through exercise-even though at the time he couldn’t do a single push-up. Owen began walking though he was out of breath after five minutes. But that didn’t discourage him. He kept at the walks every day, along with some stretching. Once he had those basics down,he started lifting weights and hired a personal trainer to teach him and design a routine he could follow on his own. The last piece was finding other activities he enjoyed,which turned out to be cycling and swimming.

In less than five years, Owen was able to do three sets of 50 push-ups each and walk for miles each day. And yes,he was free of aches and pains“Aging is only about 25% genes, and the rest is lifestyle,“he says.“As long as you’re still mobile, it’s never too late to become more healthy.”

Owen used his experience to write a book called Just Move! A New Approach to Fitness After 50,in which he details how older adults can safely get off the couch and add more movement to their lives. He says,“Think of it as movement not exercise.Get started even if you walk just three blocks, which was all I could manage at first.”He adds,“The key is slow and steady progress. Not every investment pays off,but it is the best investment I’ve ever made in my life.”