My color television has given me nothing but a headache. I was able to buy it a little over a year ago because I had my relatives give me money for my birthday instead of a lot of clothes that wouldn’t fit. I let a salesclerk fool me into buying a discontinued model. I realized this a day later, when I saw newspaper advertisements for the set at seventy-five dollars less than I had paid. The set worked so beautifully when I first got it home that I would keep it on until stations signed off for the night. Fortunately, I didn’t get any channels showing all-night movies or I would never have gotten to bed.

Then I started developing a problem with the set that involved static(静电) noise. For some reason, when certain shows switched into a commercial, a loud noise would sound for a few seconds. Gradually, this noise began to appear during a show, and to get rid of it, I had to change to another channel and then change it back. Sometimes this technique would not work, and I had to pick up the set and shake it to remove the sound. I actually began to build up my arm muscles(肌肉) shaking my set.

When neither of these methods removed the static noise, I would sit helplessly and wait for the noise to go away. At last I ended up hitting the set with my fist, and it stopped working altogether. My trip to the repair shop cost me $62, and the set is working well now, but I keep expecting more trouble.

A month after Hurricane Katrina, I returned home in New Orleans. There lay my house, reduced to waist-high ruins, smelly and dirty.

Before the trip, I’d had my car fixed. When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill, she noticed my Louisiana license plate. “You from New Orleans?” she asked. I said I was, “No charge,” she said, and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet. The next day I went for a haircut, and the same thing happened.

As my wife was studying in Florida, we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off a mortgage (抵押贷款) on our ruined house. We looked at many places, but none was satisfactory. We’d begun to accept that we’d have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while, when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kennedy in California. He’d read some pieces I’d written about our sufferings for Slate, the online magazine, and wanted to give us (“no conditions attached”) a new house across the lake from New Orleans.

It sounded too good to be true, but I replied, thanking him for his exceptional generosity, that we had no plans to go back. Then a poet at the University of Florida offered to let his house to me while he went to England on his one-year paid leave. The rent was rather reasonable. I mentioned the poet’s offer to James Kennedy, and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months.

Throughout this painful experience, the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity. It’s almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance.

An 8-year-old therapy dog(治疗犬) named Moose was among the graduates at this year's virtual graduation ceremony at Virginia Tech — and this good boy has a lot to celebrate．

Moose, who came to Virginia Tech in 2014, received an honorary doctor's degree in vet medicine, the university said．He is one of four dogs who work at the school's Cook Counseling Center, serving as working therapy animals and ambassadors for merrtal health awareness．

The Labrador retriever has aided in more than 7,500 counseling sessions(心理治疗课程) and over 500 outreach events in his six years at Virginia Tech, according to his owner Trent Davis, the coordinator of animal-assisted therapy and a counselor at the center．

Recently, Moose has faced a challenging few months after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer just a week after his birthday in February．The pup began radiation, chemotherapy and other therapies and has been given a positive result．

In 2019, the cute pup was honored with the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association's Animal Hero Award, an honor given to an animal that has performed “a heroic act of service or provides daily outstanding service for humans．”

“Moose loves you if you're super smart, and he loves you if you got an F．He loves you if you've been in the hospital, and he loves you if you're a sports star,” Davis said of the honor．“Moose doesn't care if you have a mental health concern．He doesn't care if you got an A or a B or if you didn't get into college…That's got a magic to it．”

When Moose isn't working, he enjoys swimming, playing a classic game of tug of war, and most of all, eating．