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“I was so incredibly upset because, more than just the value of the ring, it had sentimental value,” she told KCTV.
The next day, Darling returned to the spot where the homeless man was begging the day before. Squatting down next to him, she asked him if he had found anything valuable.
“She squatted down like you did like right there and says, ‘Do you remember me?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I see a lot of faces.’ She says, ‘I might have gave you something very valuable.’ I said, ‘Was it a ring?’ And she says, ‘Yeah.’ And I said, ‘Well, I have it.’” Harris told the KCTV reporter, whose camera was...
Asked about why he decided to return the valuable diamond ring, Harris said his religious upbringing has had an effect on him.
“My grandfather was a reverend. He raised me from the time I was six months old and thank the good Lord, it’s a blessing, but I do still have some character,” he said.
And returning the ring was not Harris’ first act of kindness: the homeless man recalled several ‘lost and found’ stories, including one in which he found a retired Raiders’ Super Bowl ring and walked to the athlete’s hotel to find him and return it. Although returning the valuable items means he’s giving up the chance ...
When Harris returned the Super Bowl ring several years ago, he received a free three-night stay in an upscale hotel and a “hefty reward”. When Harris returned Darling’s ring, she immediately emptied her wallet, giving all of her cash to the homeless man to thank him for returning her ring.
Harris’ act of kindness has given Darling a renewed faith in humanity, since she never expected to get back her ring.
“I think in our world we often jump to like the worst conclusion, and it makes you realize that there are good people out there,” she told KCTV.
And while many might assume that homeless people steal money out of desperateness or hold on to anything valuable they might find, some of them defy the low expectations. Dave Talley, a homeless man from Arizona, in 2010 returned a backpack that contained $3,300 in cash to a student who had forgotten it at a train stat...
In both instances, not a penny was taken, and those who lost the cash were unexpectedly surprised to have it returned.
There are people--often from aristocratic and cultured backgrounds--who go to Africa to seek, in the wild and primitive country, a release from the cossetted confines of Europe. What they really seek is the primitive side of their own nature, and very often they find it.
From earliest times, those in search of their shadows were drawn more often to Kenya, because there, in some of the most spectacular and beautiful scenery in the world, Arab mingles with African to make a spicy brew of races, cultures and religions.
Isak Dinesen is the most famous of these spiritual adventurers, and her exquisite memoir "Out of Africa" most hauntingly captures the loveliness and grandeur of East Africa. The eloquence and wisdom of this book is heightened almost unbearably (or at least to those of us who suffer the same affliction) by the longing f...
Kuki Gallman's autobiography, "I Dreamed of Africa," is set in much the same terrain as that immortalized by Dinesen. Gallman was born near Venice; as a little girl she watched the swallows departing for Africa and longed to migrate with them to the land of our earliest ancestors.
Unfortunately, the first sections of the book are leaden and uninspiring. We learn of Gallman's life before Africa: a brief marriage, followed by divorce; the birth of a son, Emanuele, and two near-fatal car accidents. The last accident (which she shared with a man she was later to marry, Paolo Gallman) crippled her fo...
Here, Gallman the writer finds her wings. She whirls us across open savannah dotted with acacia trees, untouched cedar forests and pale hills lapped by lagoons and sleeping islands, blue with waterlilies.
It is the mid-'70s, still a time of safaris, big-game hunting and legendary white hunters--a time when game was so prolific that it was unimaginable to think it would ever end. Both this memoir, and "Starlings Laughing," which is set in Botswana, show the devastation of that dream.
The Gallmans have a vast ranch at Laikipia, in a region that stretches from Mount Kenya to the Great Rift Valley. Here, cattle and sheep graze freely with the wildlife and are rounded up at nightfall to protect them from leopard and lion. Here, one meets buffalo and elephant on an evening stroll, and can nip off in a s...
On the coast (where once Arabs collected slaves and spices), the air is hot and humid, overripe with the scent of jasmine, frangipani and mango. In palm-lined villages, people of Italian and French extraction dine on Neopolitan food served by red-fezzed servants in villas reminiscent of home.
The Europeans living here-- having retired from large estates in the highlands--have an overripe quality too, as they down pink gins at the club and remember the good old days: the fading intoxication of a life of too much ease and beauty that went quickly to rot.
All this comes vividly to life in "I Dreamed of Africa." Not so the people closest to the author, who are sketchy and insubstantial. Gallman views the men in her life in romantic and mythical terms: as warriors, hunters, princes. They are frequently light of foot, bronzed of cheek and golden of hair. The book as a whol...
Then the tragedies begin. It seems that all her life the author surrounded herself with sad or spiritual men who, one way or the other, were intent on fleeing this world. Gallman's husband, before his fatal car accident, had made plans for his reincarnation and given instruction for his funeral.
After Paolo's death, Gallman's son begins to sidle closer and closer to self-destruction, by means of a dangerous passion for snakes. It is only after the death of her son that the author--earthbound, practical, intent on not knowing--suddenly turns and the book swells with her transformation. At last, facing the angui...
Gallman creates a memorial for her dead by starting a foundation to preserve the endangered wildlife, land and people of her adopted country. She has learned that to live deeply, one must find the ability to connect fully with the earth and the people on it; in doing so, Gallman transcends her personal sorrow.
The writer of "Starlings Laughing" experiences much of the same sorrow but no trace of illumination. June Vendall Clark was taken to Africa as a small child, after her parents left India. Her father had been a consulting engineer to a maharajah and, in 1928, he took his wife and child to Bulawayo, in what was then Brit...
Clark begins the life of a frontier child, learning from her father how to survive a veld fire and what to do when a snake strikes. She is not allowed to play with other children, so she learns early how to manage loneliness and isolation.
She is sent off to convents, where she is disliked for being a swot and for speaking English in hard, clear tones. Her accent repels the other girls, whose stamped-out vowels distinguish them as Colonials--a fate her parents wish her to avoid at all costs.
It is a pity that these childhood impressions, so inarticulately expressed, are passed over as if the author is unaware, even in retrospect, of how deeply they have affected her life.
At 17, she escapes from home by running off with the first man who kisses her. She and her husband, Robert Kay, buy 300 acres of land in the Matopo Hills. These hills, lying between Bulawayo and the Limpopo River--untouched by the glaciers of the Ice Age--are made up of the oldest granite in the world. The Kays buy a s...
The Rhodesian way of life in the '50s does not endear itself to a reader. It was a shallow, feckless existence: The men were drunks, cads and fornicators; the women--loose and lazy, subservient in their marriages--often were ruthlessly indifferent to their children, who were herded into boarding schools a mere 15 miles...
Clark tells us she is a woman who "gritted her teeth, breathed deeply and got on with it." She certainly can be both courageous and resourceful--as in the time she spends the night up a tree outwitting a wounded lion. Yet this is a woman who allows her philandering, unemployable husband (who is not above filching her e...
The author begins a new life as foster mother to a succession of orphaned bush creatures. While she is not sentimental about their chances of surviving, she wheedles and coaxes them back to life, carrying waifs in her shirt and letting little lions sleep on her pillow. She even chews and regurgitates raw dove meat for ...
While her love is being lavished on wild creatures, her sons are in boarding school and her 15-year-old daughter has run away to live with a friend, not to be seen again for years. The relationship with her daughter never is resolved; one readily understands her daughter's brisk summation of her mother: "June's always ...
Slowly, the hideous cruelties being inflicted on animals by hunting parties become unacceptable to the Kays, and they galvanize the local tribes--who live off the land and depend on game for their food and livelihood--to create the first African-sponsored game reserve.
When this project is accomplished, Clark finds herself emotionally and financially bankrupt. At long last, the masochistic marriage comes to an end and the author leaves Africa for England and a new life.
What we are hearing in both these memoirs are the last sad strains of the Colonial song before it fades into oblivion. We Colonials have had our say. One hopes that new voices--stronger and more authentic for having been born and bred in Africa--will continue to grow in range and power.
Without doubt, there will be among them one with a pitch as high and clear as Dinesen's, who will speak of the old, elusive mysteries in this new, emerging continent.
Iowa’s youngest Baby Boomers are turning 50 this year and the Hawkeye State has one of the nation’s largest populations of elderly residents by percentage.
Jodi Olshevski, a corporate gerontologist, says a new survey shows most drivers who are now between the ages of 50 and 68 see themselves staying behind the wheel for many more years.
Olshevski has some tips for older Iowans who are still driving and want to keep that independence.
Besides keeping your car in good shape, Olshevski suggests it’s also important to keep yourself in top running order.
Familiarize yourself with the many features of the vehicle which can help to strengthen your ability to drive and also, consider taking a refresher course in driver’s education.
Olshevski is executive director of the Hartford Center for Mature Market Excellence, based in Hartford, Connecticut.
Where's the Cutler Outrage Now?
It's all smiles for Jay Cutler and Chicago right now but conditions in the Windy City have been known to get a little windy for Bears quarterbacks.
Remember when, after Jay Cutler was not-so-talkative -- he gave abrupt, simple, boilerplate quotes and refused to explain the Bears loss in much detail -- Jim Mora said Cutler "didn't get it?"
Remember when Mike Martz said Cutler was disrespecting Lovie Smith? Remember when a certain local Chicago Tribune writer pleaded with someone in the Bears organization to "say something" to Cutler, before his attitude derailed the Bears season -- before it was too late?
In the past two weeks, Jay Cutler has played very well. He hasn't been perfect, but he's been better than average. His completion rate since halftime of the Packers game -- the last 10 quarters -- is the highest of any quarterback in the NFL. Most importantly, the Bears have won both games, in no small part thanks to C...
The silence is defeaning. What happened to Jim Mora? Where's Mike Martz? What then -- is Cutler not a cancer anymore?
That certain Tribune columnist stands by his belief that someone needed to say something to Cutler, even inventing, apparently out of whole cloth, the notion that someone did say something as a reason for why Cutler's playing so much better. Right. Since Cutler hasn't exactly been bringing the house down in his presser...
Maybe here's what happened. Maybe Jay Cutler had a bad game. Actually, to be more accurate, a bad half. Then, being the skilled quarterback that he is, he got over it quickly and started playing to form. And now that he's playing well and the Bears are winning, guess what? Jay Cutler's not a bad guy anymore! Woo-hoo!
This happens every year in Chicago, and it needs to stop. One game is one game. A few terse quotes are just that. Jay Cutler is neither a saint nor a sinner, a bum or an All-Pro, based on one week. Let's give him a season to prove his worth, huh? And in the meantime, let's stop trying to parse every little thing. Let's...
“It's absolutely terrible,” said Monroe High School boys bowling coach Eric Pillette.
The Monroe High School bowling teams were scheduled to host their first home meet of the season Wednesday at Nortel Lanes.
The boys and girls practiced Tuesday, then they stored their balls, shoes and bags at Nortel.
Everything went up in smoke with a massive fire that destroyed the iconic bowling center.
“It’s absolutely terrible,” said Monroe boys coach Eric Pillette. “We were preparing for a match today. They kids had all of their equipment there. It’s a total loss for us.
The excitement of the first day of a new season quickly faded into dismay for the Trojans.
It was difficult for Meagher to process the information at first.
Nortel has been the home lanes for the Trojans since they started fielding a team.
Ray was quickly able to find a new place for Monroe’s home matches at Monroe Sport Center.
But the bowling team was left without any equipment with another match scheduled for Monday.
Ray checked with the Michigan High School Athletic Association which said it would be permissible for Monroe to start a GoFundMe page to replace the destroyed equipment. As of Tuesday morning, Ray was still waiting for approval from the school administration to take that step.
Monroe Sport Center’s Shane Held is a major supporter of high school bowling. He spent three years as coach of Ida’s high school team. The Jefferson and Dundee teams call the Sport Center home.
Held quickly volunteered Sport Center to host Monroe’s home matches. He also spent a lot of time Tuesday trying to organize efforts to get the Trojan bowlers new equipment.
He is confident that the community will step up for the high school bowlers.
Modern sunscreens are highly developed and provide more protection than ever before.
There are some common myths and misconceptions surrounding sunscreens that people should be aware of before buying their next bottle.
Understanding the truth about sunscreen can help people use sunscreen correctly.
UVB rays are most likely to cause sunburn while UVA rays are more likely to cause wrinkles. Sunscreen can protect the skin from both UVA and UVB rays.
Understanding sunscreen myths requires a basic understanding of UVA and UVB light. They are both forms of ultraviolet (UV) light that can affect the skin after exposure.
UVA light has a longer wave that penetrates into the thickest layer of skin, called the dermis. Unprotected exposure to UVA rays can lead to skin aging, wrinkles, and a suppressed immune system.
UVB rays have a shorter wave and are most responsible for sunburn, which is the burning of the top layer of skin. UVB rays can play a key role in developing skin cancer, and frequent sunburns may cause permanent damage over time.
We look at 12 common misconceptions about sunscreen.
Many people believe that sunscreen is only necessary when their entire body is exposed to sunlight, such as when at the pool or swimming in the ocean. Ultraviolet light is still harmful to exposed skin, no matter how much of it is exposed.
Some people also believe that sunscreen is not necessary on cloudy days because the sun does not feel as strong as usual. The truth is that anytime the body is exposed to light from the sun, it is exposed to UV rays, even if it is an overcast day.
The lower arms and face are common areas to leave exposed throughout the day, which may increase their risk of sun damage. It is best to cover the exposed skin with sunscreen and consider other protective methods, such as wearing a hat.
Vitamin D is a vital nutrient for human health, and the body makes it easily through exposure to UV rays. Sunscreen, however, blocks UV rays. So, in theory, using sunscreen 100 percent of the time would prevent a person from getting the proper levels of vitamin D.
However, sunlight can penetrate clothing, sunscreens lose their effectiveness over time, and it is likely a person will forget to put sunscreen on every time they see the sun.
Many scientists and dermatologists suggest that just 5 to 30 minutes of sun exposure per day can create the proper amount of vitamin D in the body.
This myth comes from an older study done on oxybenzone, one of the active ingredients in many sunscreens. Rats exposed to oxybenzone experienced serious negative side effects.
However, as a research letter posted to Archives of Dermatology points out, the levels of exposure this study reached to produce health problems in the rats were extremely high.
Their calculations demonstrated that these results were unattainable in humans, even those who use sunscreen regularly and liberally.
The researchers noted that after 40 years of oxybenzone being an ingredient in sunscreens, there are no published studies that demonstrate toxic effects in humans caused by absorbed oxybenzone.
People with dark skin are still at risk of sunburn and skin damage. Taking precautions, such as wearing sunscreen, is always recommended regardless of skin color.
Some people believe that those with more melanin in their skin do not need to use sunscreen. This is because melanin acts to diffuse UVB rays and may protect against sunburns, to some extent.
While people with darker skin are more protected from the sun, they should still use a full spectrum sunscreen. UVA damage is not blocked by melanin in the same way and can lead to premature skin aging and wrinkles.
Melanin will also not protect the skin from extreme sun exposure, such as spending long hours in the sun unprotected. People with darker skin are also not protected against skin cancer.
One study noted that skin cancer survival rates were lowest in people with darker skin, including African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders. These results indicated a need for better screening and awareness of the risk of skin cancer.
Some people believe that they should use tanning beds to get a quick tan before summer comes, or before exposing themselves to a lot of sun, such as when on vacation.
Tanning beds use high concentrations of UVA light to darken the skin quickly, whereas the sun includes both UVA and UVB light.
Exposing the body to high levels of UVA light from a tanning bed creates a temporary tan that will do very little to protect the skin from sun exposure and sunburns caused by UVB light.
While it is true that makeup may provide a little protection from the sun, it is not much and is not a replacement for a good sunscreen.
Makeup should be seen as an additional layer of protection, not the only layer of protection.
It can be tempting to think that a layer of sunscreen makes the body invincible to the sun. Many people who wear sunscreen believe this allows them to stay protected throughout the day, even if much of the skin is exposed.
The truth is, covering up the skin is much better protection than sunscreen. A long-brimmed hat and clothing will protect the skin better than any sunscreen.
Sunscreen will protect the skin from most light rays, but some will still reach the skin. This means it is still possible to get a tan while wearing sunscreen.
Sunscreen helps protect against UVA and UVB rays, but it may not protect the body completely. It is still possible to get a tan while using sunscreen, even when someone applies it multiple times throughout the day.
A tan is the body's natural protective response to UV exposure. To avoid a tan, it is best to apply sunscreen and cover up with a hat and long clothing.

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