My father was always a good gardener. One of my earliest memories is standing without shoes in the freshly tilled soil, my hands blackened from digging in the ground.

    As a child, I loved following Dad around in the garden. I remember Dad pushing the tiller(耕作机) ahead in perfectly straight lines. Dad loved growing all sorts of things: yellow and green onions, watermelons almost as big as me, rows of yellow corn, and our favorite — red tomatoes.

    As I grew into a teenager, I didn't get so excited about gardening with Dad. Instead of magical land of possibility, it had turned into some kind of prison. As Dad grew older, his love for gardening never disappeared. After all the kids were grown and had started families of their own, Dad turned to gardening like never before. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, he still took care of his garden.

    But then, the cancer, bit by bit, invaded his body. I had to do the things he used to do. What really convinced me that Dad was dying was the state of his garden that year. The rows and rows of multicolored vegetables were gone. Too tired to weed them, he simply let them be. He only planted tomatoes.

    For the first few years after he died, I couldn't even bear to look at anyone's garden without having strong memories pour over me like cold water from a bucket. Three years ago, I decided to plant my own garden and started out with just a few tomatoes. That morning, after breaking up a fair amount of soil, something caught the corner of my eye and I had to smile. It was my eight-year-old son Nathan, happily playing in the freshly tilled soil.

    As a young boy, I sometimes traveled the country roads with my dad. He was a rural mill carrier, and on Saturdays he would ask me to go with him. Driving through the countryside was always an adventure: There were animals to see, people to visit, and chocolate cookies if you knew where to stop, and Dad did.

    In the spring, Dad delivered boxes full of baby chickens, and when 1 was a boy it was such a fun to stick your finger 'through one of the holes of the boxes and let the baby birds peck on your fingers.

    On Dad' s final day of work, it took him well into the evening to complete his rounds because at least one member from each family was waiting at their mailbox to thank him for his friendship and his years of service. "Two hundred and nineteen mailboxes on my route." he used to say, "and a story at every one. " One lady had no mailbox, so Dad took the mail in to her every day because she was nearly blind. Once inside, he read her mail and helped her pay her bills.

Mailboxes were sometimes used for things other than mail. One note left in a mailbox read. "Nat, take these eggs to Marian; she's baking a cake and doesn't have any eggs. " Mailboxes might be buried in the snow, or broken, or lying on the groom:. bat the mail was always delivered On cold days Dad might find one of his customers waiting for him with a cup of hot chocolate. A young wrote letters but had no stamps, so she left a few button on the envelope in the mailbox; Dad paid for the stamps. One businessman used to leave large amounts of cash in his mailbox for Dad to take to the bank. Once, the amount came to 8 32,000.

    A dozen years ago, when I traveled back to my hometown on the sad occasion of Dad's death,  the mailboxes along the way reminded me of some of his stories. I thought I knew them all, but that wasn't the case.

    As I drove home, I noticed two lamp poles, one on each side of the street. When my dad was around, those poles supported wooden boxes about four feet off the ground. One box was painted green and the other was red, and each had a long narrow hole at the top with white lettering: SANTA CLAUS, NORTH POLE. For years children had dropped letters to Santa through those holes.

    I made a turn at the comer and drove past the post office and across the railroad tracks to our house. Mom and I were sitting at the kitchen table when I heard footsteps. There, at the door, stood Frank Townsend, Dad's postmaster and great friend for many years. So we all sat down at the table and began to tell stories.

    At one point Frank looked at me with tears in his eyes. " What are we going to do about the letters this Christmas?" he asked.

    "The letters?"

    'I guess you never knew. "

    "Knew what?"

    " Remember, when you were a kid and you used to put your letters to Santa in those green and red boxes on Main Street? It was your dad who answered all those letters every year. "

    I just sat there with tears in my eyes. It wasn't hard for me to imagine Dad sitting at the old table in our basement reading those letters and answering each one. I have since spoken with several of the people who received Christmas letters during their childhood, and they told me how amazed they were that Santa had known so much about their homes and families.

For me, just knowing that story about my father was the gift of a lifetime.

    “Asia's Challenge 2020” Essay Prize

    DESCRIPTION

    What is the most important challenge facing Asia over the next decade? Why? What should be done about it?

The best answer in 3,000 words or less will win a prize of 2,500. Two runners-up will be awarded prizes of 1,000 each. These three prize winners will be invited to Singapore for an expenses-paid awards ceremony. The winning articles will be posted on Time.com.

    PURPOSE

    The main purpose of the essay prize is to generate fresh ideas for tackling key challenges to Asia's continued competitiveness and development, as well as encourage young professionals to make an impact on public policy and business in Asia.

    SELECTION CRITERIA

    The essay will be judged according to creativity, innovation, rigor of research and writing, as well as achievability of idea. It can be focused on one or more areas relevant to Asia, such as macro-economics, business, international relations, trade and investment, education, healthcare, urban development, science and technology, and energy and the environment. The essay must be written in English. It should not have been previously published in English in a publication with broad international circulation.

    CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS

    The candidate authoring the essay must be under 32years of age as of December 31, 2010. The candidate must be an Asian national.

    SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

    The essay should be submitted electronically to prize@asiabusinesscouncil.Org. by August 31, 2010. Prize winners will be announced in September 2010.

    The submission should contain the candidate's full name, nationality, and month and year of birth. The essay should include a title and word count.

    Patients with light or moderate depression can be successfully treated by swimming with dolphins, researchers said on Saturday.

    The study was carried out in Honduras, including patients who were thought by the doctors with light of moderate depression coming from the United States and Honduras.

    For two weeks, half of the group swam and snorkeled (潜泳) with dolphins for an hour a day. At the same time the other half group carried out the same type of water activities, but with the absence of dolphins. Researchers want to find out the influence of water and the natural setting.

    All the study volunteers didn't continue to take any drugs or psychotherapy ( 心理治疗) at least for weeks before the start of the study and did not take any drugs during the study, said the researchers from the division of clinical Psychiatry at t e the University of Leicester Medical School.

    By the end of the study, those people who swam with the dolphins had a greater average reduction in their depressive symptoms than those who did not.

    The researchers noted that the study supports the theory of biophilia, which thinks that human health and well-being depends partly on the human connection with the natural world. The findings appeared in the issue of the British Medical Journal.

    Coming from the Greek, biophilia means “love of life”, and it has been developed by biologists to reflect the humans' natural tendency to connect with nature and animals, leading to interactions and positive emotions that result in psychological treatment.

    Qibao Ancient Village

    Qibao, located in the center of Minhang District, Shanghai, is a village with a history of one thousand years. In the village, wine and tea are served on old-fashioned square tables together with long benches, long-mouth copper pots and flat-end chopstick used. The most famous snacks in old Shanghai are square pastry, rice wine and steamed salted pork in wine.

    Telephone: 021-21087225

    Entrance Ticket: 45 yuan per all-in-one ticket (preferable price of 30 yuan is available now), covering almost all tourist attractions inside the village.

Jinshan Village of Farmer Painting

    Villagers skillfully make good use of folk arts such as printing and dyeing, embroidery (刺绣), wood carving. They take the various folk customs and the busy scenes of labor of villagers in the lower Changjiang valley as the theme of paintings and create farmer paintings in a simple style.

    Telephone: 021-57355555

    Entrance Ticket: 30 yuan/person

    Merry Countryside Tour in Zhonghua Village

    The village provides tourists with accommodations, tours, chess, cards, fitness and entertainment through renting out separate farmhouse and sells tourist products and agricultural by-products related to the merry countryside tour.

    Telephone: 021-57395433

    Entrance Ticket: Free

    Pudong Lingkong Agric Gardening

    It is one of Shanghai countryside tour scenic spots, which features art of teapots, crop plantation and export. The Geological Science Popularization Hall stores up tens of thousands of rare stones collected all over the world.

    Telephone: 021-33935557

    Entrance Ticket: 50 yuan /person

    A Safe Personal Alarm

    MOST EFFECTIVE DEFENSE

    Loud: 125dB ear-piercing (刺耳的) panic alarm that scares away attackers

    Proven to be more effective than pepper spray as a defense tool

    Also commonly used by seniors to call for help in case of falling

    SUPER EASY TO USE

    Simply pull the pin, and this ear-piercing alarm will work for up to a half hour of continuous sound

    Plug the pin back in to stop the alarm.(Can be re-used over and over again)

    Easily attaches to keys, purses, backpacks or belts

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