During this past year, I’ve had three instances of car trouble. Each time these things happened, I was sick of the way most people hadn’t bothered to help. One of those times, I was on the side of the road for close to three hours with my big Jeep. I put signs in the windows, big signs that said NEED A JACK (千斤顶), and offered money. Nothing. Right as I was about to give up, a Mexican family in a small truck pulled over, and the father bounded out.

He sized up the situation and called for his daughter, who spoke English. He conveyed through her that he had a jack but that it was too small for the Jeep, so we would need something to support it. Then he got a saw (锯子) from the truck and cut a section out of a big log on the side of the road. We rolled it over and put his jack on top, and we were in business.

I started taking the wheel off, and then, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. No worries: He handed it to his wife, and she was gone in a flash down the road to buy a new tire iron. She was back in 15 minutes. We finished the job, and I was a very happy man.

The two of us were dirty and sweaty. His wife prepared a pot of water for us to wash our hands. I tried to put a $20 bill in the man’s hand, but he wouldn’t take it, so instead I went up to the truck and gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I asked the little girl where they lived. Mexico, she said. They were in Oregon so Mommy and Daddy could work on a fruit farm for the next few weeks. Then they would go home.

When I was about to say goodbye, the girl asked if I’d had lunch.

After they left, I got into my Jeep and opened the paper bag.

5 . Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is road testing a new way to keep winter roads ice-free – by spreading on them cheese brine, the salty liquid used to make soft cheese, like mozzarella.

Wisconsin, also called "America's Dairyland," is famous for its cheese. The state produced 2.8 billion pounds of cheese last year! As a result, there was a lot of leftover cheese brine. Disposing of(处置)the brine can be expensive. So what should cheese makers do with the waste?

Normally, towns use rock salt to de-ice streets. The salt lowers waters' freezing point, causing ice to melt(融化). But using cheese brine could help both cheese producers and cities save money, while keeping roads safe. Cheese brine has salt in it, which, like the rock salt, helps lower water's freezing point.

In addition to saving money, cheese brine could also be a more environment-friendly option. Many people suspect that all the rock salt used every winter is harming the environment.

Rock salt is made of sodium chloride, the sane con-pound (化合物)in ordinary table salt. Sounds harmless, right? But while you probably add only a small amount of salt to your food, road crews spread about 20 million tons of salt on U.S. Roads every year!

The chemical washes off roads and goes into the ground. There it can pollute drinking water, harm plants. and eat away soil. By spreading cheese brine on streets before adding a layer of rock salt, Milwaukee may be able to cut its rock salt use by 30 percent.

Cheese brine has a downside too – a shell similar to that of bad milk. "I don't really mind it," Emil Norby told Modern Farmer magazine. He works for one of Wisconsin's county highway commissions and came up with the idea of using cheese brine. "Our roads smell like Wisconsin!" he said.

8 . Some high school students think it useless to receive higher education. Therefore, they choose not to go to college. If you're one of them, think again. Here are some reasons why you should go to college and receive a good education there.

Schools and universities are the first places to get knowledge. We take that knowledge later on to build our careers after graduation. More knowledge will be gained after you start working, but without education, that job will not be within easy reach. Knowledge leads to knowledge.

While limited within the walls of the educational places, we openly explore other cultures of the world! We come to know that ours is not the only culture. Other cultures have valuable things to share, enriching our own. Education also makes us want to travel and exchange with various cultures, getting more experience.

When there's a recession in the economy（经济）, those who attended college will be more likely to find a new job than those who only finished high school and have a limited skills set. The more education you have, the more chances you will get to improve the quality of your life as you have a better job and earn a higher salary.

When you're skillful and knowledgeable, you gain access to people of similar backgrounds and tastes. It means a good education leads to excellent networking. Good networking can benefit you a lot in your later life.

A good education makes you a more interesting person. You can talk about ideas and events instead of just other people and what's on sale in stores. An educated person doesn't gossip（说闲话）, having a preference to discuss ideas and listen to what other people have to say.

When a tornado(龙卷风) touched down in a small town nearby,many families were left completed ruined. Afterward all the local newspapers carried many human-interest stories featuring some of the families who suffered the hardest.

One Sunday, a particular picture especially touched me. A young woman stood in front of an entirely shattered(破碎的) mobile home, a depressed expression on her face. A young boy, seven or eight years old, stood at her side, eyes downward. Clutching(紧握) at her skirt was a tiny girl who stared into the camera, eyes wide with confusion and fear.

The article that went with the picture gave the clothing sizes of each family member. With growing interest, I noticed that their sizes closely matched ours. This would be a good opportunity to teach my children to help those less fortunate than themselves. I stuck the picture of the young family on our refrigerator, explaining their difficulty to my seven-year-old twins, Brad and Brett, and to three-year-old Meghan.

“These poor people now have nothing,” I said. “We’ll share what we have with them. I brought three large boxes down from the room upstairs and placed them on the living room floor. Meghan watched seriously, as the boys and I filled one of the boxes with canned goods and foods.

While I sorted through our clothes, I encouraged the boys to go through their toys and donate some of their less favorite things. Meghan watched quietly as the boys piled up old toys and games.

Meghan walked up with Lucy, her worn, much-loved rag doll hugged tightly to her chest. She came to the box that held the toys, pressed her round little face into Lucy's flat, painted-on-face, gave her a final kiss, then laid her gently on top of the other toys.

“Oh, Honey,” I said.” You don’t have to give Lucy. You love her so much.”

Meghan nodded seriously, eyes filled with held-back tears. "Lucy makes me happy, Mommy. Maybe she’ll make that other little girl happy,too.”

The boys had watched,open-mouthed,as their baby sister placed her favorite doll in the box.

I looked my children for a long moment.