【推荐1】Last year, around Labor Day, I read a “Happy Ad” in our local newspaper. There was a lady in a local nursing home for the aged, who was celebrating her 90th birthday and her family wanted everyone to know about it. It said that if you wanted to drop her a line, here was her address. So I did. I found a birthday card and dropped her a short note, wishing her a happy birthday.

A week or so later, someone knocked at my front door. I opened the door and found a middle-aged man standing on my doorstep. He introduced himself as the son of this woman to whom I had sent the card. He explained that he just wanted to drop by in person and thank me for sending such a nice card to his mom. Apparently, like many older folks, she did not receive much mail and was quite excited to receive mine. I just didn’t know what to say. I told him it was my pleasure and that I hoped his mom had enjoyed her birthday.

That year, I did not send out any Christmas cards, except to this lovely old lady in the nursing home. I just told her that I was thinking about her and hoped that she had a nice holiday. I sent her a holiday card and also a couple of notes in between. I just thought she might like to have someone write to her, to get some mails.

She passed away a couple of months ago. I never met this lady, but I did keep her and her family in my thoughts. I dropped them a line of sympathy. I hope that my few little notes were enough to brighten a couple of her days here on earth.

【推荐2】When 8-year-old Lilly Bice of Diamondhead, Mississippi, heard families in Texas lost everything because of Hurricane Harvey, she wanted to help.

Her parents, E. J. and Melissa Bice, were discussing going to Houston to help the recovery efforts. She overheard their conversation and decided she was going to gather a pile of toys to donate to the children whose belongings(财物)had been destroyed in the floodwaters.

“We went through Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago so we know the heartache and the loss of everything,” her dad, E. J. Bice, told ABC News. “We were discussing it and she just went to her room and started grabbing her own toys and putting them in a bag.”

Among the pile of toys she was donating was one of her favorite dolls, along with a handwritten note that is pulling at heartstrings.

“Dear Little Girl, I hope you like my new doll and her things,” the note read. “Take good care of her and have fun. She was a good friend to me and will be a great friend to you.”

His daughter’s kind action encouraged E. J. Bice to head to Houston Friday with a group of friends to serve food to the victims who had lost their homes. And he’s taking some precious cargo(货物)with him.

“The doll is coming with me,” he said. “I’m kind of nervous. I don’t know who to give it to.”

Lilly’s mom, Melissa Bice, said even though her daughter wasn’t around to experience Hurricane Katrina, her daughter is an “old soul” who understands the suffering people in Texas are experiencing.

“She understands more than an 8-year-old child normally does,” said the proud mom. “She’s always been a giving child. She’s really into presents and making things for people to make them happy.”

【推荐3】I was born with a disability (残疾). When I started to go to school, my classmates were always teasing about it. I told them I’d fallen as a baby and cut my lips on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. By seven, I was sure no one outside my own family could ever love me or even like me.

And then I entered the second grade, and Mrs. Leonard’s class. She was round, pretty and sweet, with shining brown hair and warm, smiling dark eyes. Everyone loved her. But no one came to love her more than I did.

The time came for the annual hearing tests given at our school. I was hardly able to hear anything out of one ear, and wasn’t about to show yet another problem that would single me out as different. So I cheated.

During the hearing tests, each child would go to the door of the classroom, turn sideways, close one ear with a finger, and the teacher would whisper something from her desk, which the child would repeat. Then the same thing was done for the other ear. I had discovered in kindergarten that nobody checked to see if the untested ear was being fully covered, so I only pretended to block mine.

My turn came. I knew from previous years that the teacher whispered things like “The sky is blue.” or “Do you have new shoes?” I turned my bad ear to her, covering the other with my finger, and gently backed my finger out enough to be able to hear. I waited, and then came the seven words that changed my life forever: “I wish you were my little girl.”

【推荐2】Fifty-two species of birds in the USA were studied. Most were different kinds of songbirds. These birds reproduce in cold areas of North America, so they migrate (迁徙) to spend their winters in areas south of Chicago.

The study found that over the 40-year period, the average body size in all 52 species fell by 2.6 percent. Leg bone length dropped by 2.4 percent. The one area of growth was the wingspan, which increased by 1.3 percent. The researchers said the wing growth likely happened to permit the birds to continue flying from one part of the world to another according to the season.

Brian Weeks is a biologist at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. He helped lead the research. He told the Reuters news agency that climate change seems to be changing both the size and shape of these species.

Dave Willard works with Chicago’s Field Museum, which was in charge of measuring all the birds. He said nearly “everyone agrees that the climate is warming, but examples of just how that is affecting the natural world are now just coming to light. ”

The study provides new evidence of worrisome developments for North American birds. A study published in September documented a 29-percent drop in the bird population in the United States and Canada since 1970. The study said this represented a net loss of about 2. 9 billion birds.

“We had good reason to expect that increasing temperatures would lead to reductions in their body, based on previous studies, ” Weeks added. “The thing that was shocking was how consistent it was. I was incredibly surprised that all of these species are responding in such similar ways.”

The researchers plan to continue studying the Field Museum data in an effort to find additional evidence. They will also further examine the idea that an individual’s physical development can change to fit changing environmental conditions.