CARLOSDAVID.ORG/GETTY IMAGES does magic. He juggles. He plays the banjo. And yet, somehow, he’s famous.” —Martin Short, actor, on The Tonight Show A young man interviews for a job at a detective agency. “I have three questions for you,” says the interviewer. “First, what’s 2 + 2?” “Four,” says the detective wannabe. “What do you do when you see a red light?” “Stop.” “Right! Now, who killed Abraham Lincoln?” “Hmmm ...” “Why don’t you go home and think about it.” The young guy goes home, where his girlfriend asks how the interview went. “Great,” he says. “I’m working my first case.” —Submitted by Mark Bowles Grand Blanc, MI your funny joke could be worth $$$. For details, go to rd.com/submit. IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT! If you’re a fan of bad literature, you’re in luck! Here are intentionally rotten first lines to nonexistent novels, from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest: And so, the two pachyderms with the same first name met, and they formed the jazz duo legend known as the Elephants Gerald. —Brent Guernsey It was only when the booming voice of the sergeant-at-arms rang out declaiming the surprising order for each and every member of the firing squad to shoot the sergeant-at-arms himself and then turn their rifles on each other, an order assiduously followed by the well-trained soldiers, that the cigarettesmoking, blindfolded Gerry Corker truly appreciated the seemingly endless hours his mother had denied him on the baseball field during his lonely childhood, instead sending him every afternoon to Crazy Barney’s School of Mimicry and Ventriloquism. —John Shafer Three bears arrived at their den to discover a yellow-haired girl sleeping, and as she was neither too hot nor too cold, neither too soft nor too hard, but just right, they ate her. —Neil Prowd The Healthy
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that lift you up lasting connections How to make Let’s Be BY Caitlin Walsh Miller rd.com | may 2023 51 COVER STORY photograph by Vicky Lam
professor at the University of Maryland and author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make— and Keep—Friends. According to sociologists, repeated, unplanned interactions and opportunities to let ourselves be vulnerable are necessary for creating bonds that turn into friendship. For many of us, today’s work-from-home reality makes those options fewer than ever. A 2021 survey by the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank, found that the percentage of Americans who say they have no close friends has quadrupled since 1990, to 12%. “We’ve never been more disconnected,” says Jody Carrington, a psychologist and author of Feeling Seen: Reconnecting in a Disconnected World. “And the greatest predictor for overall well-being isn’t how much you drink or smoke, or what you eat. It’s social engagement.” Research by Brigham Young University psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad has shown that loneliness is a major threat to longevity, on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic. People who are lonely or socially isolated have a higher risk of impaired immune function, depression, dementia and cardiac death. On the flip side, healthy friendships can help us age better, cope with stress and live happier, longer lives. Plus, happiness is contagious. A Harvard study found that when a person gets happy, their friends who live within a 1-mile radius have a 25% higher chance of feeling happier too. Researchers concluded, “People’s happiness extends up to three degrees of separation; for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends.” Here are tips from relationship experts for making and deepening friendships. reader’s digest 52 may 2023
COURTESY OF CHRISTINA PAINO AND BETTY JOHNSON Be proactive “Friendships don’t just happen,” says Shasta Nelson, a San Francisco–based expert on healthy relationships and the author of Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness. And if they do, they might not be sustainable. A study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that the belief that friendships were based on external or uncontrollable factors—luck, basically—predicted greater loneliness five years later. Be optimistic In a 2022 study, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that recipients of an unexpected communication, such as a short note or a small gift, appreciated the gesture a lot more than the sender thought they would. Not surprisingly, a positive attitude can help us make friends. But not just in the obvious way. We often underestimate how much people like us. If we assume we’re going to be liked, we become more likable— warmer, friendlier and more open. Letters Across the Pond Christina Paino, Hauppauge, New York, and Betty Johnson, Hornchurch, U.K. Christina When I was 10, in 1962, my sister’s class was doing a pen-pal project with a school in England. I was intrigued, so her teacher gave me the name of a girl there. Betty In our first letters we got to know each other, finding out about our families, our interests, our neighborhoods. Christina We’ve shared everything over the years. When her son was born, I was ecstatic. When her husband died, I cried like I’d lost a family member. After 9/11, Betty wrote me the most heartfelt, loving letter. Betty And when the London subway bombings happened in 2005, I had a very moving letter from Chris. Christina Whether something good or sad happened, sometimes I just needed to sit down and let it flow. I shared things with her that I couldn’t share with anyone else. Betty In 1971, when we were 19, Chris and her sister visited London and we finally met each other. Christina We met in Trafalgar Square. Betty had told me she’d be wearing red shoes and carrying a newspaper, so I knew her immediately. We hugged forever. Betty I never imagined when I sent my first letter that we’d still be writing 60 years later. Emailing now is wonderful; it’s as if she’s closer. Christina Our friendship is one of the great treasures of my life. CHRISTINA BETTY rd.com 53 Cover Story
COURTESY OF JEAN-FRANÇOIS LÉGARÉ Make a list Write down the names of three to five people you know but would like to be closer to, suggests Nelson. Then reach out to each of them: Send a text message, an invitation to meet for a cup of coffee, a shared photo or memory, or an article that made you think of them. See if a small gesture might spark a deeper connection. Branch out Don’t limit yourself to one close friend. “Nobody gives to you in all the ways you need,” says Nelson. Just a few good buddies can make all the difference. A 2020 Northern Illinois University study of middle-aged women found that those with three to five close friends had higher levels of overall satisfaction with life. Expect awkwardness Awkwardness isn’t a good reason to back out of a new relationship. “It’s just a normal part of getting to know someone,” says Nelson. For example, when we go to the gym and start to sweat, she says, “we don’t panic and think, ‘This must be bad for me.’ ” Recent research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University shows we tend to overestimate how awkward a first meeting will be. Gillian Sandstrom, a psychologist at the University of Sussex, England, who researches the effects of talking to Unlikely Mates Jean-François Légaré and Francis Hébert, both of Montreal Jean-François I met Francis in a bar with friends when I was 29. At first, I couldn’t stand him. He was loud and obnoxious. I left early. Francis We were like two magnets repelling each other. He was clearly annoyed by me, and the feeling was mutual. Jean-François But our paths kept crossing. We started talking, having debates about politics—which I never did with my other friends— and found we had a lot in common. We now have an honest relationship. He’s the person I can talk to about anything. I don’t agree with him a lot of the time, but you need that in your life. Francis For instance, he claims to be very fashionable, despite wearing Fruit of the Loom T-shirts. But seriously, he’s probably the one true friend in my life. Jean-François Before I met Francis, I had friends, but I had given up on true friendship. Francis and I have that kind of best friend thing you have when you’re 12 or 13. It’s like finding a brother. JEAN-FRANÇOIS FRANCIS 54 may 2023 reader’s digest
COURTESY OF CATHERINE CALMEYN AND VALÉRIE RUAULT strangers, puts it in perspective: “The other person doesn’t want an awkward conversation either.” Put the time in Making a close friend takes time—often more than 200 hours of time together over several weeks, according to an oftcited University of Kansas study from 2018. “That’s why we tell people to take a class or volunteer,” says Nelson. Repeated activities come with a built-in get-to-know-you schedule. Embrace vulnerability Vulnerability is a cornerstone of any healthy relationship. “It acknowledges that it’s OK if not everything’s great,” says Nelson. “That’s when we feel seen and known.” To start diving deeper, she suggests asking “highlight-lowlight” questions, like asking someone “What was the best part of your week?” and then “What was the most stressful?” Practice “After the pandemic, many of us forgot how to socialize,” says Franco. “Social skills are like muscles—we can work them.” In a 2022 study by Sandstrom, participants were required to talk to strangers every day for a week. And what do you know? By the end, people were less worried about being rejected and more confident they could keep the conversation going. A Paris Match Catherine Calmeyn, Paris, and Valérie Ruault, Joigny, France Catherine In 1994, I was going through a breakup and was alone for the first time in years. I already had a solid group of friends. Then I met Valérie. We worked for the same company. Valérie Our work could be stressful, but Cat and I had a good relationship from the start. We laughed a lot. She has a gift for listening, and I talk a lot, so we’re complementary. Catherine She was so sunny. I talked to her about my breakup, and she always knew what to say. Recently, my son was depressed. He didn’t want to see me. Val told me to have faith in him, that he just needed to know I was there. She would call me to say it would be OK. And it was—he was. Valérie We have nothing to prove to each other. Our trust is deep. Catherine Sometimes we don’t connect as often as we’d like, but when we do, we just pick up where we left off. CATHERINE VALÉRIE rd.com 55 Cover Story
People who make time to hang out with friends have all the luck BY Don Gillmor photographs by Vicky Lam COVER STORY
rd.com | may 2023 57 reader’s digest card illustration by Kathleen Fu
EARS AGO, I lived next door to a pessimistic older man named Steve, who told me he hadn’t had any friends since quitting his factory job 20 years earlier. The bowling league, happy hours and poker games had all withered. Steve sat on his porch all day. offset by competition. The invention of the big-screen TV hasn’t helped. And so, by middle age, we can find ourselves stranded. People move, we’re occupied with children and work. We’re tired, we’re distracted, we change. Then there’s our team mindset. A 2020 Oxford University study confirms what many guys will readily admit: Males prefer to socialize in groups rather than one-on-one. Groups are looser, less intimate. And shared activities often revolve around something—a sport, a bar, a fantasy football draft. But when the activity goes away, the group often goes with it. I reconnected with an old friend who had played professional football and I asked him if he was in touch with any of his former teammates. No, he said; when football ended, those connections did too. Without that central activity to sustain them, they all vanished from one another’s lives. Across the street was another neighbor, Werner. Weather permitting, Werner sat on a battered La-Z-Boy recliner he’d set up on his lawn. The two men, both around the same age, stared at each other but rarely talked. When Steve collapsed on his porch, Werner watched as the ambulance crew tried to revive him. I went to Steve’s funeral, a subdued event (there were just four of us, including a priest who hadn’t met him). Steve and Werner are a handy metaphor for the kind of isolation that COVID-19 has visited upon many of us, an isolation that still lingers. Though we men were heading in that direction anyway: The percentage of males with at least six close friends fell by half between 1990 and 2021, according to the Survey Center on American Life. Simply put, men are in a friend recession. Guys are gifted in the art of isolation, the result of social conditioning and 10,000 years of evolutionary forces, where cooperation has been reader’s digest 58 may 2023 | rd.com
There was a time when card games or beer-league hockey or getting together to watch the Super Bowl was a sort of guilty pleasure, a vaguely senseless masculine activity. Now we’re learning that these things, or at least the connectedness they represent, are fundamental to mental health. TWENTY YEARS AGO, I was invited to join a poker game made up of writers, a few musicians, a lawyer, a media guy. We met monthly and the game became a sort of oasis. There were literary quarrels, laughter, discussions about music and lots of stories. We didn’t socialize much outside the game. Spouses and children got a conversational nod but mostly remained in the background. That game became part of the essential fabric of my life, and it evolved with the group. We used to start at 7 p.m. with a martini and play until 2 a.m. Now there are no martinis (a lot less alcohol of any kind), and we quit before midnight. The haze of cigarette smoke is long gone. The food is better—over two decades we’ve gone from chips and pretzels to sushi and homemade tarte Tatin. Two of our original players died and one moved away, but the game remains, with new players joining, a new society forming. When the pandemic arrived, we switched to Zoom games. We downloaded a poker app on our phones and looked at those nine boxes containing our heads on our computer screens. The app dealt all nine players instantaneously, so the Zoom version galloped along much faster than the live version, where the dealer would laboriously shuffle and deal, or stop mid-deal to tell a story until someone finally barked, “Deal the damn cards.” Despite the efficiency, the app presented problems. It took all our concentration to keep track, on multiple screens, of what was going on with each other and with the game. Conversational flow and easy banter Cover Story 59
didn’t really happen. It felt like any online poker game, the kind played with anonymous strangers. Two of the guys eventually pulled out, saying they’d wait until we could get together in person. A couple of months later, when we finally reconvened for our live game after a two-year break, we rejoiced. We didn’t care that someone’s dog ate much of the food we’d put out. We didn’t mind the slow dealing, the stories and losing hands. It was just good to see everyone, to talk and to feel the comfort of the group. ISOLATION IS A COMMON FACTOR in male suicide, particularly men who are middle-aged and older. It’s one reason their suicide rates are three times higher than those of women. According to Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford University, women really do have more friends than men, and women’s relationships with their friends are more intense. Loneliness already played a role in men’s declining mental health, but the pandemic created more isolation, followed by a global spike in depression and anxiety. Many people who have been working at home are staying put. Some offices are opening up again, but not everyone is coming back, at least not full time. Those who are may find themselves in an almost empty office—often a lonelier feeling than working from home— and without the lunches with clients or after-work drinks with colleagues. Even though getting together with other men is beneficial for mental health, in my experience there are limitations to men’s groups—the biggest one being that they just aren’t conducive to discussing emotional issues. At my poker game, we celebrate one another’s successes, but we rarely acknowledge failures or vulnerabilities. This can be taken to extremes. One of our guys died of cancer without telling any of us he was sick. We thought Bert looked a bit thin, a bit tired. Then he was gone. In a 2018 article in the American Journal of Men’s Health about men’s social connectedness and mental health, the authors wrote that men often seek emotional connections outside of male groups. We look to women—wives, sisters, female friends—which allows us to maintain a “pattern of masculinity in public while seeking emotional support from women in private.” The Oxford University study that observed that men like socializing in groups also noted that women prefer to socialize one-on-one. It’s a setting more conducive to discussing fears, vulnerabilities—getting really personal. RESEARCH SHOWS THAT MEN GET MORE OUT OF MALE-FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS THAN WOMEN DO. reader’s digest 60 may 2023
Which is one reason friendships with women are the perfect complement to male friendships. I have a spouse to confide in, and a few female friends I regularly meet one-to-one for lunch. The dynamic is much different from getting together with the guys, as much as I love doing that. When I am with my female friends, we talk about our children, work, the state of everyone’s health, our aging parents. We have a glass of wine and talk for two hours, and I emerge into the afternoon light, unburdened. I like to think they do too. There isn’t much research on malefemale friendship, but the research that does exist points out one perhaps obvious fact: Men generally get more out of male-female friendships than women do. Women already have female friends with whom to share feelings and fears. All they gain from us is the male perspective, which may not always be uplifting. And there are issues with heterosexual male-female friendships, chiefly the potential for sexual tension. In a study published more than 20 years ago in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, women reported this as the least appealing aspect of having a male friend, while for men it was one of the main reasons to initiate a female friendship. The research, while not new, supports the view made famous in When Harry Met Sally…. In the 1989 film, Billy Crystal says to Meg Ryan, “Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” Ryan asks if that means men can be friends only with women they don’t find attractive. Nope, Crystal answers, saying that men want to have sex with them too. So there are risks to male-female friendships, which can of course be compounded by jealous partners (though not mine, thankfully). However, the rewards of cross-sex friendships, as researchers call them, are significant, at least for men. I’m just really glad to have both types of friendships. I can meet my female friends for a nice lunch, a glass of wine, an unburdening. Then head off to poker. Errors in International Marketing When Schweppes Tonic Water launched its product in Italy, the name was translated literally as “Schweppes Toilet Water.” Clairol introduced a curling iron called a “Mist Stick” to Germany, only to find out that “mist” means “manure” in German. Pepsi’s slogan “Pepsi Brings You Back to Life” became “Pepsi brings dead ancestors back from the grave” in Chinese. INC.COM rd.com 61 Cover Story
reader’s digest
NATIONAL INTEREST HATHAWAY PRIVATE COMES HOME BY Steve Goldstein adapted from seven days (vt) Decades after he was killed in World War II, a soldier is reunited with his family illustrations by Nadia Radic rd.com | may 2023 63
Every eye on the bus swept toward Wilma, whose face turned rigid with shock. When the bus reached her stop, she leaped out and ran into her house, where she saw the horror of affirmation in her mother’s face; Lola Hathaway had received a telegram from the United States Army. Wilma dropped her books and ran out the back door into the woods. As Wilma Hallock, nee Hathaway, recounted this long-ago memory from her daughter Starlene Poulin’s home in Williston, Vermont, where she lives, the 90-year-old widow did the same thing she had done 78 years earlier: She shook with sobs. Hallock describes her brother as “something of a daredevil” who had a tendency to “get into mischief.” “He was so tall. He used to walk me to school and taught me how to throw a fastball—which came in handy when I got mad,” she recalls. “Alwin was a good brother.” Alwin was drafted in February 1942, “as soon as he turned 18,” Hallock says. “My parents didn’t want Hitler taking over—but they didn’t want to give up their son, either.” Mother and daughter agreed that Pvt. Hathaway looked smart in his t was just another day in November 1944 when 12-year-old Wilma Hathaway rode home on the school bus in Hinesburg, Vermont. Just another day, that is, until the driver shared with the children what hed heard through the grapevine: Pvt. Alwin A. Hathaway—Wilmas older brother—was missing and presumed killed in action in Germany. reader’s digest 64 may 2023
uniform, and Hallock says he had a serious girlfriend he met in England whom he intended to marry and bring home. But he never came home. The wages of war are paid in blood, tears and body bags. Loved ones in their prime, once bursting with bravado, are sent home in flag-draped coffins. But what happens when Johnny is not marching home because he can’t be found? When, as in the case of Pvt. Hathaway, he’s presumed dead, but there is no body? For nearly 78 years, Pvt. Hathaway’s family had been denied such closure. There was agreement about the battle that claimed him and little doubt about the location where he met his end. But without a body, the rest was conjecture. A gravestone in the Hinesburg Village Cemetery dedicated to Pvt. Hathaway marked an empty plot waiting to be filled. Absent tangible evidence, the family mourned the loss and tried to move on, unaware that a little-known military agency called the Defense POW/ MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, would be looking for Pvt. Hathaway. In a sense, the DPAA can be thought of as a cross between the world’s largest missing-persons bureau and a real-life “CSI: War.” Created in 2015, the agency has as its mission the investigation, recovery and identification rd.com 65 National Interest
LILIBOAS/GETTY IMAGES (MEDALS), WARMER/GETTY IMAGES (DOG TAG) of missing military personnel from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and Middle East conflicts. More than 700 military and civilian personnel work for DPAA, doing the research and analysis required to identify the more than 81,500 service members still missing since the 1940s. “We have all of those names,” says DPAA spokesman Sean Everette. “Our historians and analysts are trying to match those names with remains found in battle sites, plane wrecks, etc.” Everette describes what are essentially archaeological excavations to recover these remains. Once the remains are secured, often recovered from battle sites and unmarked graves, they are sent to one of two DPAA laboratories—one in Hawaii, another in Nebraska—to undergo forensic anthropology. Using DNA as well as dental and medical records, and any historical information about battles they can gather, scientists try to put a name to the remains. Successful repatriation cases number “in the thousands,” says Everette. Some cases are fairly straightforward. The crash of a military aircraft, for example, usually presents investigators with a relatively confined site and the possibility of a passenger manifest. Battlefields are larger, more fluid and infinitely more complex. One of DPAA’s most challenging cases was the USS Oklahoma Identification Project. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, 429 sailors and Marines died in the bombing of the Oklahoma on Battleship Row. Only a fraction of the crew were identified at the end of World War II, so the DPAA set out to identify reader’s digest 66 may 2023
NOUN PROJECT (BLUE STARS THROUGHOUT) the hundreds who were buried as unknowns. As caskets were disinterred and opened, investigators were stunned to discover that there had been widespread commingling of remains. One casket was determined to hold 20 different individuals. By late 2021, when the project was declared completed, 361 service members had been identified from 394 sets of remains. Another early effort launched by DPAA was the Hürtgen Forest Project, with the task of identifying the remains of 200 soldiers found on the battlefield. To date, they have succeeded with 49 soldiers. The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was actually a series of battles that took place over five months beginning on September 1944, just east of Germany’s border with Belgium. Though the conflict is often overshadowed by what immediately followed, the Battle of the Bulge, it was the longest WWII battle fought on German soil and one of the costliest. Estimated U.S. losses were more than 39,000 killed and wounded. Hürtgen Forest is a 70-square-mile woodland, an ambusher’s dream, heavily sown with thousands of German S-mines, referred to in soldier’s jargon as bouncing Bettys because when triggered, they’re launched into the air and detonate above ground. The winter of 1944 was unusually cold and wet; many combatants suffered frostbite. Company E of the Army’s 109th Infantry Regiment was involved in the fighting, including 20-year-old Pvt. Hathaway. It was after one blistering encounter with the Germans on Nov. 6, 1944, that Pvt. Hathaway was reported missing in action. In a letter to Pvt. Hathaway’s parents, Maj. Gen. Edward F. Witsell, the acting adjutant general of the Army, wrote: “The record concerning your son shows that he was a member of a reconnaissance patrol operating within the vicinity of Hürtgen, which is approximately twenty-five miles southeast of Aachen, Germany. The troops within this area were subjected to an intense enemy artillery barrage and I regret to state that your son has been neither seen nor heard from since that time.” Hampering the search for Pvt. Hathaway and others were those bouncing Bettys. Even after Germany’s surrender, land mines still blanketed the area and had to be removed, a slow process that took a year and a half. His remains would eventually be recovered from a foxhole in the Hürtgen Forest in May 1946, but no one at LAND MINES STILL BLANKETED THE AREA AND HAD TO BE REMOVED. rd.com 67 National Interest
WELLFORDT/GETTY IMAGES (FLAG), CANBEDONE/GETTY IMAGES (SOLDIER) the time knew whose remains they were because no positive identification could be made. Other soldiers died in that foxhole too. After a year and a half exposed to the elements, the bodies had badly decomposed rain poncho found in Pvt. Hathaway’s kit belonged to a different soldier. Soldiers swapping items with their names on them was not uncommon, but it was a wrinkle that had to be accounted for, and it delayed identification. Ironically, it was an Army screw-up that provided a crucial clue. Because his first name had been misspelled when he was inducted—the Army wrote “Alevin,” not the correct “Alwin”—Pvt. Hathaway carried his birth certificate with him until the day he died. Nearly eight decades later it was badly decomposed, but a remnant, found on his uniform, was readable. The DPAA now had a pretty good idea whose remains these were, but they needed certainty. They contacted the Hathaway family requesting a DNA sample. Poulin and her mother provided the conclusive evidence they needed. Pvt. Hathaway had been found. Through the DPAA investigation, Hallock learned that her brother had been in a foxhole when shrapnel from a mortar round or a mine pierced his skull. Likely, the pain was as brief as the flash. “She was very emotional,” Poulin says of her mother upon learning how her brother died. “She was almost at a loss for words. She just had tears. But they were good tears, in a way, to know that.” Poulin says her mother had never completely given up on RHNK>IK>MMR LNK> MA>RK>@HG>';NM RHN AHI>LHF>=:R A>EE LAHP NI' and the remains were indistinguishable from one another. For some unknown reason, not even his dog tags were recovered. Those remains could have belonged to one of 15 missing soldiers. As a result, in December 1950, Pvt. Hathaway’s body was declared “nonrecoverable.” The remains were buried with other unknowns at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium. Some 70 years later, in 2017, a DPAA historian decided to take another look at those remains in the Ardennes cemetery. Using advanced forensic techniques, researching where in the Hürtgen Forest troops were located, and ruling out other potential matches, he detected a strong association between those remains and Pvt. Hathaway. But scientists still had to clear up some false leads before a positive ID could be made. For example, the reader’s digest 68 may 2023 | rd.com
adapted from seven days (aug. 31, 2022), copyright © 2022 steve goldstein. seeing her brother again. “I mean, you’re pretty sure that they’re gone. But you still hope that someday he’ll show up. I know I did, and I never met him.” Pvt. Alwin Hathaway’s cemetery plot is no longer empty. Under bright sunshine on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, at 1 p.m., with full military honors, he was laid to rest in the Hinesburg Village Cemetery beside his parents, William S. “Nick” Hathaway, who died in 1953, and Lola May Burritt Hathaway, who passed away in 1977. The ceremony drew veterans who wanted to pay their respects, as well as extended family. Hallock and Poulin are both thankful that their long journey is over. “My only wish,” says Hallock, her voice breaking, “is that my parents had lived to see this.” RD National Interest
70 may 2023 DRAMA IN REAL LIFE
Nick Bostic was troubled. Aimless. Then one night, everything changed. BY Nicholas Hune-Brown rd.com 71 reader’s digest illustrations by Steven P. Hughes
at the edge of his vision as Nick Bostic drove down the streets of Lafayette, Indiana. Bostic rolled past the twostory house before he could process what he was seeing. Then he slammed on the brakes. Oh my God, he thought. That house is on fire. It hadn’t been Bostic’s best night, but it hadn’t been his worst either. The 25-year-old—burly and 6-foot-3, with a messy beard that often framed a puckish grin—was still figuring out how to make his way through a life that hadn’t always been easy. Bostic had spent his childhood shuttling back and forth between his mom in Lafayette and his dad in Arkansas, with neither home providing the love and safety that he needed. If you’d asked his friends to describe him as a kid, Bostic says, they’d probably have said “a fool.” He got into trouble, acted like an idiot, tried to use humor to make friends but never quite got it right. As he got older, his troubles got more serious. Bostic began using methamphetamines. He lost friends to suicide. At times, his own life didn’t feel worth living. But over the past few years, he had started to turn things around. He’d quit hard drugs. He had a girlfriend, Kara Lewis, and was working at a Papa Johns making pizzas. If people around Lafayette had to describe him now, they might say he was a guy with a big heart reader’s digest 72 may 2023
who maybe didn’t know exactly what to do with it. That night, July 11, 2022, Bostic had had a petty squabble with Lewis and he’d stormed out of their apartment, leaving his phone behind so she couldn’t contact him. He filled up her car with gas, then smoked some weed in an auto-parts store parking lot; he liked to go there when he needed to be alone. He looked up at the stars and sat in silence for 15 minutes or so. Then he decided to head home. He was on the road back to the apartment just after midnight when he saw the house on fire. Bostic threw the car into reverse and whipped it into the driveway. Flames were climbing up the front porch, lapping at the home’s walls. Hurrying out of the vehicle, he immediately regretted not having his phone. “Hey, help, the house is on fire!” he yelled into the night. A car drove past and Bostic tried to flag it down, to no avail. He ran around to the back door, sure it would be locked. To his amazement, it swung open. Without pausing to think about the danger, Bostic ran into the burning building. it was date night for the Barretts, and in a large family, date night was important. The Barrett family was a lively bunch. They went to church on Sundays, and the five-bedroom, two-story house they rented was always full of yelling and laughter, with friends and family coming by for cookouts and sleepovers and volleyball games out back. That night, four of the six Barrett kids were at home when David, a 39-yearold assistant principal at Tecumseh Junior High School, and his wife, Tiera, went out to play darts down the street. Seionna, their 18-year-old daughter, was in charge. She was taking care of Kaleia, her 1½-year-old sister. Shaylee, 13, was in the house with a friend. And Kaylani, 6, was roaming from room to room, looking for someone to fall asleep with. Kaylani hated sleeping alone. The animated little girl was so curious and trusting that David was always worried she’d just run off with a stranger. That night she walked into Seionna’s bedroom on the ground floor asking if she could climb into bed with her big sister. But Seionna wasn’t feeling well, and she had to work in the morning. So she told her sister to go to her own room, that they could sleep together tomorrow. The next thing Seionna remembered was waking to what sounded like an explosion. Later, officials would find that the fire had started on the porch and then caused a propane tank next to rd.com 73 Drama in Real Life
their grill to explode. But in the moment, Seionna knew only that there was smoke in her room. The living room next door was on fire, and she could feel the flames’ heat on her skin. Is this a dream? she thought. Then a horrifying realization: I have to get the kids. Seionna sprinted up the stairs, grabbed Kaleia out of her crib and hurried to the next door, where Shaylee and her friend were sound asleep. “Wake up, wake up!” she yelled. When she got to Kaylani’s room, however, the bed was empty. The 6-year-old was nowhere to be found. A horrible realization hit Seionna. Kaylani sometimes liked to sleep in the living room. And the living room was on fire. the curtains were melting. That was just one of the surreal things Nick Bostic noticed as he ran through the hallway of the burning house, peering into rooms that were in flames and searching to see if anyone was home. With the ground floor seemingly clear, Bostic headed for the staircase. He had just started climbing when he looked up and saw four faces emerge from a room at the top of the stairs and peer down at him, their eyes wide. “Your house is on fire, you need to go!” Bostic yelled. The girls came pouring down the stairs, Bostic hurrying them along. They all rushed out into the fresh air where they huddled in a circle. “Is there anybody else in there?” Bostic asked. “There’s a baby in there!” Seionna screamed, referring to Kaylani. But neither she nor any of the kids knew where the 6-year-old was. Without hesitating, Bostic ran back inside. By now, the whole side of the house was in flames. The smell was foul and intense, like nothing he’d ever encountered. Black smoke was gathering at the ceiling, then billowing down toward him. The temperature was intense, a whoosh of pure heat that hit him like a physical object. Bostic went upstairs. Everything looked eerily normal, with no sign that a fire was raging so near. He searched under the bunk bed and in the closet. No kid. He searched the other upstairs bedrooms and listened intently, surprised he couldn’t hear a single cry. Kaylani didn’t seem to be on the second floor, so Bostic prepared to head back down. But the smoke was thick now—black and opaque, a curtain of poison that had climbed all the way to the top of the stairs. He lifted his T-shirt, doubling it up and trying to cover his mouth and nose, as he hesitated at the top of the stairs. Then he heard the crying from the dark smoke below. 74 may 2023 | rd.com reader’s digest Drama in Real Life
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Bostic stumbled down the stairs and into the blackness, choking on smoke. He was on a search and rescue mission, his ears alert as he tried his best to move toward the sound, arm outstretched. Then suddenly Kaylani was in front of him. Bostic quickly lifted the girl into his arms and looked for the door. But in the smoke and heat, he was all turned around. He stumbled through the burning house, trying to find the exit. Where is the front door?! Disoriented, the only things he could see through the haze were the lights leading upstairs, like lanterns in a fog. Bostic climbed back up. At the top, he tripped and fell. With the fire all around them, he thought: We’re goners. But he managed to pull himself up, Kaylani still in his arms. Bostic remembered seeing a window on the side of the house where the fire hadn’t reached, and that’s where he headed. He made it to the room and began tearing the curtains and blinds from the window. Kaylani’s ankle became entangled in a cord, so he slowed down. When the curtains and blinds were on the floor, Bostic—never loosening his grip on the little girl—punched the glass with his right hand. His fist bounced off. For his next punch, he reached back with everything he had. His fist smashed through the window, cutting up his arm as a gust of glorious fresh air filled the room. Then he quickly knocked the shards out of the frame. As the flames advanced behind them, Bostic and Kaylani looked at the open space. Below, a strip of grass lay between this house and the next one’s wooden fence. The girl peered down. “I don’t want to jump out the window,” she said. He was thinking the exact same thing. But they had little choice. The flames were inching ever closer, and the heat was intensifying. Bostic took a few steps backward. Then, without letting himself think much about what awaited them, he ran forward and threw himself out of the window. And as he flew headlong through the air, holding Kaylani tightly in one arm, he twisted and contorted his body so as to land on the other shoulder and cushion her fall. Then they hit the ground. outside, the firefighters had arrived. They hurried Seionna and the rest of the kids away from the house, which was now engulfed in flames. “Six-year-old female and 23-year-old male, possibly inside,” a firefighter called out as they rushed to put on their equipment. Then Bostic came stumbling out from the side of the house, Kaylani in his rd.com | may 2023 77 Drama in Real Life reader’s digest
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF LAFAYETTE POLICE DEPARTMENT. WXIN FOX59 NEWS. DAVE BANGERT. COURTESY OF THE BARRETT FAMILY arms. “Take her,” he yelled, the moment captured by the firefighters’ body cameras. He handed over the girl—crying, but miraculously uninjured apart from a cut on her arm—before collapsing on the sidewalk calling for oxygen. Gasping for air, the house crumbling behind him, he had only one thing on his mind: “Is the baby OK?” he asked. “Please tell me the baby’s OK.” The minutes, hours and days that followed are a blur for Bostic. He remembers the paramedics pulling the tourniquet tight around the arm he’d cut punching through the window. He remembers being wheeled into the ambulance, but he doesn’t remember being transferred to the hospital, where he was treated for smoke inhalation and first-degree burns to his ankle, leg and arm. When Bostic woke up, it was with a tube down his throat and his girlfriend by his side. In bed, he thought about what had happened. He felt that he’d just done what anyone would have done in that situation. But outside the hospital, the story of Nick Bostic was already spreading. He was a hero—the pizza man who had run into a burning building not once, but twice. A few days later, after Bostic had been released from the hospital, the Barretts invited him and Lewis to Clockwise from top left: A firefighter’s bodycam showing Bostic and Kaylani; the destroyed house; Bostic recovering; Kaylani (with red bow) and her family. reader’s digest 78 may 2023
dinner at the house where they were staying. David wanted to thank the man who had saved his family in person. The moment David saw Bostic, he started crying. “He walked up to me with his arms open and held me tightly and thanked me,” says Bostic. “All he could say was ‘thank you, thank you.’ ” That week they asked Bostic to come to church with them. And then they had him back to dinner, again and again. “I feel like God used him as a tool,” says David. “And I feel like God is using me as a tool to help him as well.” The Barretts are still pulling their lives together after losing everything they owned. The fire has brought them even closer as a family and closer to their community, which came together to shelter and feed them while they looked for a new home. Kaylani, who emerged from the fire with nothing more than a minor cut on her arm, has become delirious with a sense of fame and bravado. “She thinks of herself as a hero,” says David. “The first thing she says when she meets someone is ‘I was in a fire and I jumped out a window.’” Bostic’s burns have mostly healed, though he finds his eyes have been sensitive to light since the fire. The other changes have been far greater. Bostic and Lewis are expecting a child. And as news about his heroism spread, a GoFundMe account for his hospital bills exploded, reaching some $600,000—a life-changing amount of money. Bostic offered the Barrett family some of it to help them get their lives back on track, but David was firm. That was Bostic’s money. He should support his child, and use that gift to spend time with his family. Then he introduced the now-26-year-old to a financial adviser. When Bostic thinks about what happened, it somehow feels like both a near-death experience and a rebirth. Even though he was the one who ran into a burning building, it’s as if he was the one who was rescued. “I feel like a different person. Like I got a second chance,” he says. If in the past he’d sometimes felt like a fool, that wasn’t how he saw himself now. Life hadn’t been easy. He knew the future, too, would be difficult. “But I’m starting to find my purpose,” he says. For the first time, he’s sure he’ll figure it out. It’s the Little Things There are approximately 20 quadrillion ants on Earth. That’s 20 thousand million millions or, in numerical form, 20 with 15 zeros). Together, their mass is estimated to exceed that of all the world’s wild birds and mammals combined. THECONVERSATION.COM rd.com 79 Drama in Real Life
By the time I was a junior at Yale, in 1983, I’d already met everyone I cared to know. I was friends with most of the other gays and lesbians. I knew the theater people. I knew absolutely everyone in my major—there were only a few of us who had chosen to get degrees in Latin and Greek. And I knew a splattering of visual artists, a handful of comparative lit majors, the odd philosopher and three mathematicians. I also knew those I didn’t want to know. The jocks. And they didn’t seem to want to know me. In the 80 may 2023 illustrations by Tatjana Junker BY Will Schwalbe excerpted from the book we should not be friends It was disdain at first sight. Forty years later, they’re still best friends. INSPIRATION
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dining halls, they filled boisterous tables. They wolfed down epic platters of scrambled eggs. They wore baseball caps backward and moved in packs. The jocks and I were like planets in different orbits, circling one another but not colliding. I felt that if we did, I would be obliterated. All of that changed dramatically when I collided with one jock in particular: Chris Maxey, known to everyone as Maxey. From the start it was clear that Maxey and I should not be friends. What was less obvious was that I was much more prejudiced against him than he was against me. Everything began with a visit from my friend Tim. That’s when he told me that he was in a secret society for seniors. Had I ever noticed a granite building on the edge of campus? That was the hall where they’d been gathering twice a week all year. Now they were in the process of choosing 15 juniors to replace themselves. Those juniors would inherit the hall and would meet there throughout the coming year twice a week for dinner. “We try to bring together the 15 most different kids we can find so you’ll meet people who are nothing like you.” He asked if I would want to join. Two nights a week? With 14 kids I might not know—or might not like? Even worse, what if I liked them and 82 may 2023
they didn’t like me. I decided that I could just avoid the ones I didn’t care for. And as for their not liking me, that was easy. I wouldn’t let them get to know me. Why should I? I didn’t know Maxey was a wrestler when we met that first night in the hall along with the 13 other secret society inductees, but he was clearly some kind of athlete. I’m 5 foot 8 on a good day and I’ve always been nervous around big people. Maxey was much taller. His biceps were so large that he’d cut V’s into his T-shirt so his arms could fit through the sleeves. He had a big grin on his face and was looking around at everyone, taking everything in. The rest of us were pretty quiet, but not Maxey. He shouted hellos to all of us before bounding up to people and introducing himself. Maxey had neatly combed strawberry blond hair, a classically square jaw and a mischievous nervous energy. His pointy ears made him resemble Peter Pan and gave you a sense he was just about to pull a prank. When Maxey walked up to me and stuck out his hand, I shook it quickly. He said he’d seen me before; he remembered my crazy hair. He said it with a smile, but it sounded almost menacing. We stood awkwardly for a few minutes. Someone was trying to get my attention. Maxey smiled again and politely backed off. I talked with just about everyone in my group that night. Maxey was the loudest among us. He took up space and knocked things over, and he was drinking vast quantities of beer. He was trying way too hard, and I found it a bit much, the high-fives and the instant nicknames (mine would be Schwalbs). Whenever he went to one part of the hall, I went to another. The next morning, I had a pounding hangover. I winced as I remembered talking too much about myself with everyone. I took comfort in knowing that there was one kid who’d behaved more outrageously than I had: Maxey. I vowed that when I came back to the hall, I wouldn’t do anything to attract notice. And I would give Chris Maxey a wide berth. IN ORDER FOR ALL of us to get to know one another quickly, we were supposed to go away together for an entire weekend. I was dreading it. Seventy hours with a bunch of kids I didn’t know seemed too much. I had recently reread William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and I felt apprehensive when we arrived at the house: I knew how quickly things could devolve. The shocking thing that happened was that nothing shocking happened. We ate. We talked. We drank. I liked the other kids a lot, but Maxey still made me nervous. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him and the feeling seemed mutual. But then that last morning, as we discussed our hangovers, Maxey insisted I ride home on the back of his rd.com 83 Inspiration Reader’s Digest
motorcycle. The air would be good for me, he said. I said I thought this was a terrible idea, that I didn’t like motorcycles, but Maxey wouldn’t take no for an answer. He threw a helmet at me. “Dude,” he said, “you just got to promise me one thing. If you feel like you are frickin’ going to puke, turn your head around and try not to get me or the ’cycle.” He got on the bike and I got in back of him, worrying about the fact that I might need to wrap my arms around Maxey to keep from falling off, but also worrying that he might think I was coming on to him. However, if I didn’t wrap my arms tightly around him when it was obviously a good idea, then he might assume it was because I was afraid he might think I was coming on to him if I did. Which would have been accurate and awkward. Then there was my aversion to hugging people generally. Some people are huggers; I’m the opposite. It was all just too complicated. Then Maxey started up the motorcycle, and we roared out of the driveway. As the bike screamed down the highway, I wrapped my arms around Maxey and held on for dear life. We couldn’t talk or listen to music, but the soundtrack in my head was pure Bruce Springsteen with his “highways jammed with broken heroes on a lastchance power drive.” Maybe I was born to run after all? SUNDAY, MARCH 4, just before spring break, was a particularly dismal day that began below freezing and stayed that way. That evening, we gathered in the hall for dinner. Afterward, we headed downstairs to the pool table and television. My friend and I sat transfixed, watching MTV. Maxey was playing pool. I noticed that he was becoming increasingly drunk. He kept interrupting the game to chase Brooke, our group’s president, around the table. And she kept interrupting the game to chase him around. reader’s digest 84 may 2023 | rd.com
I was enjoying being with everyone. I had since warmed up and was pounding back beers. “You homo!” I heard Maxey shout. I snapped my head around. He was directing the insult at a straight friend who had managed a legendary pool shot. I paused. Old habits die hard. Maxey can’t have meant anything by it. I decided to ignore the remark. Then minutes later, “You are such a homo!” I caught Maxey’s eye. He looked sheepish, but he didn’t apologize. I was angry with Maxey, and even angrier with myself—for not saying anything, and for letting down my guard. When we returned to Yale from break, one of the first people I saw was Maxey. He gave me a bear hug, thumped my back, and asked how my break was. I had worked at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis hotline in New York. It was the ’80s and fear of and ignorance about AIDS was rampant, along with terrible discrimination against people who had AIDS or who were thought to have it. Whether despite his “homo” remarks or because of them, I decided I wouldn’t keep it light. I told him about the man who was sobbing on the phone because he needed to see a doctor but was afraid he’d be deported. And about the man who couldn’t find a funeral home to take away the body of his lover who was lying dead next to him. “I’m sorry,” Maxey said. Did he remember what he had said that night around the pool table? I wondered. I decided to take it as an apology. I realized I couldn’t stay mad at Maxey. Because I didn’t want to be mad at him. I wanted him not to hate me—and I didn’t think he did. I wanted him to like me—and I was pretty sure he did. “You know, I’m realizing a lot these days,” he said. “And one of the big things is that I’ve got to stop saying so much stupid crap.” Inspiration
IN THE YEARS that followed, I moved to New York with my future husband, David, whom I’d met soon after graduation. We settled in to a social routine that revolved around a handful of very close friends, as well as family and work friends—colleagues I’d met in the book industry where I was an editor and author. We were lucky to have so many people in our lives. Maxey, of course, had his own friends, from the Navy SEALs, where he’d served for six years after college, and a whole group of Yalies I didn’t know, including a few jocks I’d been so careful to avoid. But he and his wife, Pam, just didn’t have much time for socializing. They had four small kids and moved to the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, where they were opening a school. My bond with Maxey remained strong, I thought, even though we rarely found the time to talk. I was sure that if I ever was in a jam, Maxey would be there for me. And I was equally sure that if Maxey ever wanted something from me, I would give it without hesitation. That belief would be tested in May 2016, when the phone rang. It was Maxey. He dropped a bomb on me: “I have a brain tumor.” I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I’m sorry.” “The first question I asked the doctor was whether it was a colloid cyst. That’s what my father died from. But it’s not that.” “Do they know what it is?” “They think it’s an acoustic neuroma. It’s usually a growth on your auditory nerve. Not cancer, not malignant, nothing like that. But if it grows too big it can cause major problems. Mine’s pretty big already.” “I’m so sorry, Maxey. This sucks.” “Yeah, it does suck.” I realized that at this point in my life I was panicked by the thought of Maxey vanishing from it. So many times over the decades we had gone years without seeing each other or even talking. How was it that I was suddenly devastated by the thought of losing him? Maybe it’s because I sensed that Maxey held in his mind a picture of me that was better than I really was. I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be a better friend: less judgmental and less afraid. SEVEN MONTHS LATER, Maxey underwent an operation to remove the tumor. It left him dizzy at times and deaf in one ear, but all in all, it was a success. Maxey’s operation had changed our rules of engagement. I realized then that for the last 30 years of my friendship I had always felt I needed an excuse or reason to call Maxey. Now, during moments when I might have turned on the television, and Maxey might have stepped outside to fiddle with his boat, we found ourselves on the phone. For me, the phone remains miraculous in a way that electronic reader’s digest 86 may 2023
communication just isn’t. The phone brings the voice of a friend. It’s live. Email is a movie—once you get it, nothing you do will change it. A call is theater—surprising and unpredictable. What’s more, your presence is essential. Months after Maxey’s health scare, I had my own. I had shooting pains and burning in my feet, and suffered dizziness, fatigue and vomiting. I was diagnosed with a debilitating neurological condition called small fiber neuropathy. I told only a few people. And in May of 2017, Maxey and I had a very different kind of call. Maxey got right to the point. “I’m really pissed at you.” I thought he was joking. “What did I do this time?” “No, seriously, I’m really, really pissed off. Every time we talk, I ask you how you’re doing and you always say you’re fine, but I just got off the phone with Singer [a mutual friend from the secret society] and he says you aren’t fine. I’ve been asking how you’re doing, and you never say anything.” “Yeah, I’m sorry. I mean, it’s this weird thing with my small nerve fibers, and it’s p r e t t y p a i n f u l a n d makes me dizzy, and they don’t know what caused it, but it’s not going to kill me.” There was a long silence on the phone. And then he said he had to go. My first reaction was defensive: My illness was my business; I didn’t have to tell anybody anything until I was ready. But then I thought how much Maxey had shared with me over the past few months, before, during and after his possibly fatal operation. The nausea, the dizziness and the fears that he would never fully be better. He had allowed himself to be completely vulnerable with me. Meanwhile, I had trusted him with nothing. I had thought that I was being noble, keeping my less dramatic medical problems to myself. But in fact, I was being furtive and selfish. rd.com 87 Inspiration
The next day, I wrote Maxey a long email telling him the whole story about my small fiber neuropathy. A few minutes after getting my email he left a message on my voicemail. “Hey, it’s Maxey. Pam and I are going to come to New York in July. You’re forgiven if you and Singer come to dinner with us. You have to let us buy dinner. And if I ask you how you are feeling, you have to tell the truth. Sending you strength. I miss you.” A FEW YEARS LATER, I found myself sipping beers with Maxey in Eleuthera, on a dock near the school he and his wife had started. We were now both 60, and I thought it was high time to ask Maxey something I’d always wondered: “Hey, Maxey, when I rode back to Yale with you, that first weekend, and had to wrap my arms around you to keep from falling off the bike, I was worried you would think I was coming on to you. Did you worry about that?” “That you would come on to me or that you would think I thought you were coming on to me?” “Either. Both.” “Dude, I honestly just thought I’d give you a lift. You didn’t seem to like me much. I wanted you to like me.” “Well, that hasn’t changed much. You still want everyone to like you.” “I know. And you do, too.” “Maybe that’s why we’re friends.” We sat quietly watching the stars. Drinking beers. I thought back to some of the things I’d worried about over the course of our 40-year friendship. The way I’d behaved the night I met him; whether Maxey minded that I couldn’t remember the names and ages of his four kids; who had last called whom, and whose responsibility it was to get in touch; if I’d said the right thing when Maxey confided in me and if I’d confided sufficiently in him; if I was too needy as a friend or not needy enough; whether I had listened as much as I should have and asked the questions Maxey wanted me to ask; if I had shared too much or too little, been too honest or not honest enough. Ultimately, I worried whether I had been giving enough of the one thing that we have to give our friends: our true selves. That night on that dock, I realized that most of the things I had worried about for the last four decades lived only in my head, and that while it was almost certain that I was the bigger nutcase, Maxey was a nut, too. He had his own list of things he’d worried about. I also knew that all my friends carried similar lists in their heads. Maybe that’s part of the reason my friends are my friends. We care enough WE LIKE WHO WE ARE WHEN WE’RE AROUND OUR FRIENDS. 88 may 2023 reader’s digest
DAVID SINGER to spend time worrying about the ways our actions affect one another. And, of course, we enjoy one another’s company. We like the people our friends are, and the person we are when we’re around them. After decades of worry, maybe it wasn’t more complicated than that. “You know, I think you know me as well as anyone knows me, Maxey. The truth is, and I mean this, there’s not much to know.” “You know, Schwalbs, I’m pretty shallow, too. I guess we are just two middle-aged shallow guys who are pretty frickin’ lucky to be here.” “I’ll drink to that,” I said. YEARS AGO, I’d read about a University of Virginia study that sought insight into the way that friendship might help people cope with some of the less pleasant aspects of daily life. Researchers stopped students near a hill on campus and asked if they’d help with an experiment. The researchers had given heavy backpacks to the students—some of whom happened to be alone, others who were with friends. The students thought they would be asked to climb the hill. But instead, they were told to guess how steep the slope was. The students who were alone thought the hill was very steep, while those who had been walking with a friend thought it far less so and guessed it wouldn’t be arduous to climb, even with the backpacks. The study revealed something even more surprising. The longer the friendship, the gentler the slope of the hill seemed to both friends. I had done a lot of things over the years I hadn’t anticipated doing— like sharing a motorcycle with a jock who I was certain didn’t even like me. Maxey had been wanting me to go free diving with him off Eleuthera without oxygen. Without Maxey guiding me— not a chance in the world. But with my friend, maybe it wasn’t impossible. RD rd.com 89 COPYRIGHT © 2023 BY WILL SCHWALBE. PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH KNOPF, AN IMPRINT OF THE KNOPF DOUBLEDAY PUBLISHING GROUP, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC. Chris Maxey (left) and Will Schwalbe, soon after meeting in college Inspiration
POP_JOP/GETTY IMAGES (BACKGROUND) BY Vanessa Milne The answer sounds like yes CAN HEARING LOSS BE REVERSED? 90 may 2023 illustrations by Pete Ryan HEALTH
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Yet the process is fascinating. The journey of a sound from outside the ear and into the brain, which takes only milli seconds, is mind-bendingly elaborate. First, the sound waves enter each ear and vibrate the paper-thin eardrum. That vibration moves two small bones that sit behind it, which begin to dance in sync with the vibrations. Then a third bone sitting against the cochlea starts to vibrate, and things get really interesting. The cochlea is a peasized bony structure shaped like a snail shell and filled with fluid. It’s lined with tens of thousands of hair cells topped with bundles of miniature tubes called stereocilia. That vibrating third bone beats against the cochlea, like knocking on a door. The cochlea’s fluid sways, and the hair cells wave like sea anemones. That movement causes the hair cells to release chemical neurotransmitters, triggering a series of electrical messages that are carried through the auditory nerves into the auditory cortex of the brain, which translates the electrical code into meaning. The delicate stereocilia and hair cells have a limited lifespan. We start to lose our hearing because, as they’re used again and again through a lifetime of exposure to sounds at regular volume—or a shorter-term exposure to loud sounds—they can become damaged and stop doing their job. Called presbycusis, this age-related hearing loss is the most common type. If I had mild to moderate presbycusis, certain consonants would be more difficult to discern, so “Hi, Vanessa. Nice to see you!” would sound like “...i Vane…a. Nice ...o ...ee you!” A Growing Problem According to the World Health Organization, about 1.5 billion people have hearing loss, and that number could rise to 2.5 billion people—or 1 in 4— by 2050. Aside from age-related hearing loss, there are a couple of other, less common types. One type that can be “Hi, Vanessa! Nice to see you!” It feels good to hear those words when I see people I know. But I take it for granted that I have even heard that greeting—and, in fact, all other sounds. I never think about how I’m hearing things, how my brain is translating sounds into meaning. reader’s digest 92 may 2023
reversible if it’s treated early enough is sudden sensorineural hearing loss. It often affects only one ear and can happen instantly or over the course of just a few days. Possible causes include infection, head trauma and autoimmune disorders. It’s usually treated with corticosteroids, drugs that fight inflammation, reduce swelling and help your body fight off diseases. The medication is either injected directly into your ear or given in pill form. “I know many people who have had sudden hearing loss in one ear and thought it was nothing,” says Susan Scollie, who is director of the National Centre for Audiology at Western University in Ontario. It’s fortunate, she says, that there is a treatment, “but if you wait too long, the hearing loss can be permanent.” For more moderate hearing loss that happens over a longer period of time, the standard treatment is hearing aids. Although they help a lot, many people who use them report that decoding speech in places with lots of background noise is still a challenge. People with profound hearing loss can turn to cochlear implants. That’s when an electronic cochlea—a combination of a transmitter and a processor—is placed behind the ear, and a receiver is surgically inserted under the skin there. Not Just Normal Aging Is it such a big deal if we can’t hear certain sounds? Yes, as it turns out. The true impact of hearing loss has been the subject of lots of new research and is becoming clear: It’s not just an annoyance, it’s a major health issue. “For a long time, hearing loss was seen as an inevitable part of aging, and relatively inconsequential,” says Frank Lin, director of the Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But over the past decade, that’s really been turned on its head.” Researchers have connected hearing loss with other health problems. Studies have found that it can more than double the likelihood of having a rd.com 93 Health
fall, for example, and can lead to anxiety and problems sleeping. A 2020 Australian review published in the journal The Gerontologist looked at 35 studies involving nearly 150,000 people and found that hearing loss was associated with a higher risk of depression in older adults. Researchers suspect that people who lose their hearing don’t go out and socialize as much, perhaps because they have a hard time following conversations where there is background noise, and this increases feelings of loneliness. Research has shown that isolation contributes to mental illness and increases the risk of dementia, and hearing loss is strongly linked to dementia. An important 2020 report, published in The Lancet, identified 12 modifiable risk factors for dementia—and ranked hearing loss as the most significant one for middle-aged people. The reason for the link could be that people who socialize less have fewer cognitively challenging conversations. Those with mild hearing loss are twice as likely to develop dementia; moderate hearing loss means it’s three times as likely; and people with profound hearing loss are five times more likely. While hearing aids can’t reverse these things or give us the same quality of hearing we once had, they might help prevent the mental-health effects. Lin is currently running a large trial to see if using hearing aids reduces the risk of dementia, and whether or not they can help decrease the incidence of falls. The results, due around mid-2023, will tell us, for the first time, whether interventions to prevent hearing loss have reduced the risk of these other issues. Gene Therapy Other solutions are in the works. Researchers are looking at ways to help people regrow the cochlea’s hair cells and stereocilia cells to restore hearing. Some have taken inspiration from the animal 94 may 2023 reader’s digest
kingdom: When birds and reptiles suffer from hearing loss, they can regrow those cells and can hear again within a few weeks—just as our bodies regularly grow new skin cells. New hair cells in the cochlea would mean that, instead of just turning up the volume of all noise, as hearing aids do, we’d be able to hear naturally and easily pick out speech from background noise. How might this be done? By harnessing our own genes. About half of age-related hearing loss has a genetic component, says Richard Smith, a physician and director of the Molecular Otolaryngology and Renal Research Laboratories at the University of Iowa. His group offers gene testing to people with hearing loss to try to pinpoint the reason behind it, which he says provides more insights into how their hearing loss will progress. Smith is confident that in the future, genetic testing will become more common around hearing loss and that more solutions will be available for those issues, offering a personalized approach that’s different for each patient. “There’s a tremendous sense of excitement on the research side as we move forward with different types of gene therapy for hearing loss,” he says. “I hope that people recognize that in the not-too-distant future we may have options besides hearing aids and cochlear implants.” Decibel Therapeutics is one company that is working to make that future a reality. It’s trying to come up with gene-based solutions for hearing loss in adults. “The idea is that you might be able to use gene-therapy technology to regrow the hair cells that have been lost,” says Jonathon Whitton, audiologist, neuroscientist and senior vice president of clinical research and development at Decibel Therapeutics in Boston. The company is researching half a dozen gene-therapy products, three of which target hair-cell regeneration. The others tackle single-gene causes of hearing loss and protecting hearing in people about to undergo a type of chemotherapy that often leads to hearing loss. Two of the treatments have moved on to the clinical-trial phase, and others that show promise will follow within the next few years. Whitton says the advent of regenerative medicine has given scientists, health-care practitioners and patients “an emerging spirit of optimism.” Next-Gen Hearing Aids As potential innovations work their way through the clinical pipeline, better mechanical options exist now than ever DIGITAL HEARING AIDS HAVE COME A LONG WAY SINCE THE 1990S. rd.com 95 Health
before: next-generation hearing aids. Digital hearing aids have come a long way since their introduction in the mid-1990s. “We have gone from the first generation of digital hearing aids to fourth- or fifth-generation ones, and there have been a lot of improvements,” says Scollie. “Many of the improvements have been small, but they add up to a better-quality product. The single hearing aid people receive today is the technological equivalent of seven or eight hearing aids all in one.” A big improvement is the ability for hearing aids to automatically switch modes depending on the environment—changing how they would work in a quiet car listening to music versus in a crowded restaurant listening to a conversation, for example. They also have noise-reduction capabilities and microphones that change direction automatically. The newest features also include Bluetooth, which can be connected wirelessly to a phone to have a conversation or stream music. It’s easier to hear when the voice on the other end of the phone comes through both ears, says Scollie, and it’s just more convenient to have the option of using hearing aids as high-quality headphones as well. It’s also possible to log in to an app to adjust the settings of your hearing aid. A few hearing aids even do step counting, says Scollie, and she expects biometric sensors to be the next big development. This means that hearing aids would measure heartbeat and body temperature the way a smartwatch does. “Measuring some of those things in the ear is actually a more appropriate location than the wrist,” she explains. A More Affordable Option New regulations in the United States in 2022 have made over-the-counter hearing aids a reality. The United Kingdom and many countries in Europe also offer the option. This 96 may 2023 reader’s digest
means that instead of going to an audiologist and getting a hearing-aid prescription, similar to the way we get a prescription for eyeglasses, consumers can now buy these less-expensive versions without a prescription. The development comes with some caveats: What if a person’s sudden hearing loss is caused by an illness, for example, that needs to be treated promptly if it’s to be reversed? Others worry that people who buy overthe-counter hearing aids won’t get the personal fitting, adjustments and follow-up service they might need. But on the positive side, these overthe-counter products could also act as a gateway for people who might not otherwise buy hearing aids. One study estimated that more than 80% of Americans with hearing loss don’t wear hearing aids. HEARING LOSS RUNS in my family: My grandparents needed hearing aids, and my father uses them. One day I may need them too. My father’s are much more advanced than my grandmother’s, complete with Bluetooth and the ability to “tune” to different situations, like crowds. But they’re still not perfect in noisy environments. I ask Decibel’s Whitton whether he thinks it’s possible that, by the time 40-year-olds like me are in their 50s or 60s, we might be able to use medication, not technology, to treat hearing loss. “Yes,” he says, pointing out that there is growing interest from researchers trying to solve this problem. “All these companies are being built around the idea that we can get there.” RD Food Fights A recent survey of more than 1,000 Americans attempted to settle some of our most heated culinary debates. Among the findings: Almost half of us believe hot dogs are sandwiches. More than half enjoy pineapple on pizza. About 3 in 10 classify cereal as a soup. And about 4 in 10 say Pop-Tarts count as ravioli. CINCH HOME SERVICES MORE THAN 80% OF AMERICANS WITH HEARING LOSS DON’T WEAR HEARING AIDS. rd.com 97 Health
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