It was my first day back home since starting college. A lot had changed in the last year. Not with my hometown but with me. I had left as a 17-year-old boy and had now returned as an 18-year-old man. In the city, I was living on my own, had a part-time job and was studying. Even the government recognized I was an adult: I had a driver's license. So here I was, on my summer vacation, walking down the main street with my father, desperate for him to acknowledge how mature I was. When his recognition failed to appear, I took matters into my own hands. “Dad,” I said casually, “I'm thirsty. Let's go for a beer.” It was the first time I'd ever mentioned beer in front of my father, let alone ask him to drink one with me.

    He turned to me with a curious expression on his face. “A beer? Well, 1 guess you're old enough now. Let's go to Sailors' Bar. It's where my cousin Tom, your uncle, used to drink. You remember him, right?”

    I had only some vague recollection of my uncle. He was the black sheep of the family. We didn't talk about him much. What ever happened to Uncle Tom, Dad? I haven't seen him in years,” I said as we continued towards the bar.

     “Neither have I, unfortunately. He was a good kid once. But things changed,” my father said mournfully. As a boy, he explained, there had been no better-behaved boy than Tom. But after leaving school, he moved to the city and fell in with bad company. He started going out every night, drinking in nightclubs and playing cards. Soon he lost everything and had to beg his mum to pay his debts. She agreed on condition that he returned home.

    My dad took a deep breath and continued his tale. "Things settled down for a while. He married a lovely woman, gave up his bad habits. But it didn't last. He was soon back to his old ways. He couldn't resist. He was at Sailors, Bar almost every night. His poor mother died of grief and shame. His wife followed her soon after.

     “What ruined him was alcohol He told me once, when a man begins drinking, he never knows where it'll end. ‘So', Tom warned me. ‘be cautious about your first drink!'

     “He went from bad to worse. Last year Tom sent me a letter saying he had been found guilty of stealing, and sent to prison for ten years.”

    Dad finished talking just as we reached the front door of Sailors' Bar. “Anyway, here we are. Let's go in,” he said. But understood. I put my arm around my father and said, “I'm not thirsty anymore, Dad. Let's go home.”

    It had been some time since Jack had seen the old man. College, career, and life itself got in the way. In fact, Jack moved clear across the country in pursuit of his dreams. There, in the rush of his busy life, Jack had little time to think about the past and often no time to spend with his wife and son. He was working on his future, and nothing could stop him.

    Over the phone, his mother told him, "Mr. Belser died last night. The funeral is Wednesday." Memories flashed through his mind like an old newsreel as he sat quietly remembering his childhood days.

    "Jack, did you hear me?"

    "Oh, sorry, Mom. Yes, I heard you. It's been so long since I thought of him. I'm sorry, but I honestly thought he died years ago." Jack said.

    "Well, he didn't forget you. Every time I saw him he'd ask how you were doing. He'd reminisce (回忆) about the many days you spent over 'his side of the fence' as he put it." Mom told him.

    "I loved that old house he lived in." Jack said.

    "You know, Jack, after your father died, Mr. Belser stepped in to make sure you had a man's influence in your life." she said.

    "He's the one who taught me carpentry. I wouldn't be in this business if it weren't for him. He spent a lot of time teaching me things he thought were important… Mom, I'll be there for the funeral." Jack said.

    Busy as he was, he kept his word. Jack caught the next flight to his hometown. Mr. Belser's funeral was small and uneventful. He had no children of his own, and most of his relatives had passed away.

    The night before he had to return home, Jack and his Mom stopped by to see the old house next door one more time, which was exactly as he remembered. Every step held memories. Every picture, every piece of furniture… Jack stopped suddenly.

    "What's wrong, Jack?" his Mom asked.

    "The box is gone." he said.

    "What box?" Mom asked.

    "There was a small gold box that he kept locked on top of his desk. I must have asked him a thousand times what was inside. All he'd ever tell me was 'the thing I value most'." Jack said.

It was gone. Everything about the house was exactly how Jack remembered it, except for the box. He figured someone from the Belser family had taken it.

    "Now, I'll never know what was so valuable to him," Jack said sadly.

    Returning to his office the next day, he found a package on his desk. The return address caught his attention.

    "Mr. Harold Belser" it read.

    Jack tore open the package. There inside was the gold box and an envelope. Jack's hands shook as he read the note inside.

    "Upon my death, please forward this box and its contents to Jack Bennett. It's the thing I valued most in my life." A small key was taped to the letter. His heart racing, and tears filling his eyes, Jack carefully unlocked the box. There inside he found a beautiful gold pocket watch. Running his fingers slowly over the fine cover, he opened it.

    Inside he found these words carved: "Jack, Thanks for your time! Harold Belser."

    "Oh, My God! This is the thing he valued most…" Jack held the watch for a few minutes, then called his assistant and cleared his appointments for the next two days.

    "Why?" his assistant asked.

    "I need some time to spend with my son." he said.

    If American waterways had ever been voted on the yearbook, the Buffalo River could easily have been named Ugliest. It could be hard to find hope there. It took decades for public perception of the river to shift. But activist citizens, who collaborated with industry, government, and environment groups never gave up on their polluted river—the Buffalo River gradually went from being considered a lost cause to a place worth fighting for. And by now the cleaned—up water is one of Buffalo's biggest attractions.

    By the 1960s, the river was seen as one of the worst sources of pollution pouring into the Great Lakes. The Buffalo River had caught fire many times. The surface had an oily layer, and any fish caught there were not eatable.

    The waterway's fate started shifting in the mid-1960s. Stanley Spisiak was a local Polish—American jeweler by day, but by evening he was the kind of guy who'd chase down dumpers(垃圾车)he spotted on the Buffalo River. By 1966 he found himself winning the National Wildlife Federation's “Water Conservationist of the Year” award. And before long he got a nickname:“Mr. Buffalo River.” But there was only so much he could do—the river was still declared biologically dead in 1969.

    Jill Spisiak Jedlicka is his great-grandniece. She picks up where he left off by directing the river's protector organization, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper. Professor Schneekloth and seven friends founded the organization as an all-volunteer nonprofit in 1989, after organizing the first river cleanup that year. Today the group employs 27 full-time workers and has helped oversee the Buffalo River's $100 million restoration.

    So far, the Buffalo River's water quality has restored, but it is still an ongoing issue, as sewage(污水)can overflow into the river after storms. Habitat restoration continues as well; fish and plantings are still being sampled to measure how well it's gone.

    You've heard the old advice that skipping meals is a sure-fire way to ruin a weight loss plan, but a new study presented this week at the annual Obesity Society Meeting in New Orleans suggests that perhaps we've overlooked the benefits of selective fasting. According to the research, eating during a smaller window of time each day and skipping your evening meal could have a positive health effect.

    The study concluded that overweight individuals who ate during the day and fasted during the evening reported fewer hunger swings and burned more fat at night, WebMD reported. However, although this diet plan results in more fat burned in the evenings, it did not seem to increase fat burning overall. Due to this, at this moment it's still unclear as to how this eating schedule can affect general weight loss.

    "At this point, we are not sure whether or not total fat burning is increased," study lead author Courtney Peterson told Medical Daily in a recent email." We will need to do a larger study to find out for certain whether or not time-restricted feeding improves fat burning."

    Still, although the results do not indicate a clear association between nighttime fasting and weight loss, they are still important for the world of nutrition. For example, Peterson told Medical Daily that she was surprised to find that participants did not report being hungrier than average, or have above-average swings in hunger levels, despite fasting daily for 18 hours.

    "So we overturned the belief that fasting for longer period each day when the same number of total calories are eaten makes a person hungrier, "wrote Peterson.

    While the effects of fasting and time-restricted feeding have been studied and proven to work in a rodent(贴齿动物)model, research on human subjects is still in its early stages. For this reason, Peterson explained that it is far too early to say, with factual evidence as backing, that time-restricted feeding will improve weight loss in humans. Still, Peterson explained that practicing this eating behavior does have obvious benefits, such as reducing overall food intake, and suggested that practicing time restricted eating a few times a week could be both practicable and healthy.

    "It could be used for short-term goals or longer-term goals，"concluded Peterson." As far as we know，it is safe for adults，although pregnant women and children should not try it."

    This morning my family and I went to a friend's home to help her get things back in order. She was one of the unfortunate people whose home was recently destroyed by a tornado(龙卷风). One side of her home fell off and the roof was gone over a large part of the house. Torrential rain fell the rest of the night and all of the next day following the tornado, creating even more damage to her belongings. The home is a total loss. Still, there is much that is valuable, and our job today was to help her sort through the remain and find anything with actual value that she may want to take with her.

    My husband helped to move furniture and other things to the storeroom while our two younger children helped clean up the yard. My oldest daughter and her boyfriend helped as well, and my another daughter with me swept up all of the areas of debris, sorting it for things that are important. We worked systematically, clearing the main living space first, then moving on to the kitchen, laundry area, then the master bedroom.

    By the time we were done today, though there was no denying the home had met with disaster, we had gone far to restore order from the loss that had been there before.

    My thought in entering the day was that our friend, who had been having trouble sleeping, was being affected by that loss negatively. I hoped that if we could restore order, she would finally start to feel some sense of peace and her mind would quiet and allow her the much-needed rest she so deserves.

    She posted on Facebook just a little while ago that for the first time she was sleeping at night. For me, what a wonderful and deeply meaningful way to begin the New Year!

    For many of us, summertime means road trips to the beach or mountains, or at the very least some additional dust and bird poop on the exterior of our vehicles. The extra dirt leads us to do one of two things: wash our car in the driveway or head to the car wash. But which choice is better for the environment?

    The main concerns with either choice are the amount of fresh water being used and the types of chemicals used to remove the dirt. Both of these concerns can be closely monitored when washing the car at home, says Katy Gresh, spokeswoman for the Southwest Region of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. She advises car owners to put aside a set amount of water for the entire wash. "It's just like brushing your teeth," she says, "You don't want to leave the water running of more than you need for the job." But even following this advice comes with an environmental risk: Washing your car in the driveway or street flushes the dirty water into storm drains.

    John Schombert, executive director of 3 Rivers Wet Weather, his organization works to educate the public about storm sewers (下水道) and water runoff, keeping this untreated water from entering the Allegheny region's waterways. "We ask people to, consider washing their cars on lawns or other permeable (透水的) surfaces where the water gets absorbed," Schombert says. "Soil can break down and help filter (过滤) those things," Schombert says. "Storm sewers are not made for waste disposal." Even when car owners use natural soaps to wash their cars, which Schombert says are probably ineffective at breaking down grease anyway.

    The commercial car wash down the street knows full well the rules regarding wastewater in storm sewers. According to the International Carwash Association (ICA), professional car washes must use water reclamation systems. These mandated processes not only keep the dirty water out of storm sewers and regular water treatment systems, but they also work to reduce water usage at commercial facilities.