On March 14, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic (新冠疫情) forced 57th Street Books, in Chicago, to close its doors. The store wouldn’t reopen for nearly a year and a half. During that time, director Jeff Deutsch was worried. Customers couldn’t come to the shop. His main advantage over online business had gone overnight.

Deutsch said he and his team were lucky. Customers stepped up. They offered gifts and support. “There was something very beautiful in the way our community came together,” he said. “We really supported one another’s businesses,”

Similar stories played out over the past two years in cities and towns around the country. Though independent bookstores were forced to close during the pandemic, many found ways to connect with and help their community.

Anne Holman is co-owner of the King’s English Bookshop. It’s in Salt Lake City, Utah. She said the store put books outside for reading and started doing a lot of events online. Other stores set up bookselling hotlines, and improved their tools for e-business.

Some bookstores did events that went more than bookselling. They offered COVID testing. They collected food for people in need. “Having an independent bookstore in your community is almost like a town square,” said Samira Ahmed, an author of books for young adults. “It’s an important place to build community.”

11-year-old Adele Sorkin, a fan of 57th Street Books, is on its Young Readers Advisory Board. Members receive early copies of books in exchange for writing reviews. “I think of the bookstore as a cookie jar (罐子),” Adele says. “It’s something special and fun that is always there for you.” Jeff Deutsch sees a bright future. “If we reimagine bookstores and do our best to support them,” he says, “then bookstores can thrive (兴盛).”

Mayor Day called me that morning, his voice full of an urgency I’d never heard before. “These Chinese big people are coming to our town and I need you to prepare something really special for them. I’m relying on you, Adrian. The whole town is. This could be just the thing to put us over the top.”

“Okay, I’m on it,” I said. I’m a caterer (酒席承办人), and for years I’ve done all the mayor’s events for Thomasville, Alabama, our little town of 4,099. He likes everything I make, but I knew exactly what he wanted this time, banana pudding, his favorite.

It’s my mama’s recipe. It was her desserts that she was known for. Mama cooked her banana pudding on the stove. Hers was thick and cream-colored, not dark yellow like the other ladies made. I remember practicing in the kitchen when I was a young girl. Mama showed me how to make banana pudding properly. “Good job, Adrian,” Mama would say. I was so proud when I finally got mine just right, the way she did.

For months Mayor Day had tried his best to persuade some Chinese businessmen who ran a copper company to build their new plant in Thomasville, but our little town didn’t have the land they needed. “We are leaning toward Houston or Lamar,” the company representative told Mayor Day. “There is nothing personal, just business.”

“Wait! What about Wilcox County?” the mayor asked. Wilcox, just east of us, was one of the poorest counties in the entire United States and had got plenty of land. There hadn’t been any kind of plant built there since the 1970s.

“But that’s not your county,” the company representative said. “Why are you lobbying (游说) for them?”

“Because if you build in Wilcox County their economy will grow and so will Thomasville’s. Besides, there’s something to be said for loving your neighbor, isn’t there?”

The representative agreed to visit Wilcox County before the final decision was made. All the top leaders would come and have lunch in Thomasville, lunch that I cooked. And for dessert, the dish the mayor hoped would sweeten the deal. Banana pudding with 300 jobs riding on it, I knew it had to be perfect, like Mama’s.

The luncheon was held at the Thomasville Civic Center. Next to each plate I’d placed a little cup of pudding. I looked on anxiously as the Chinese businessmen eyed the dessert. Were they curious or sickening? One of the men pointed at his cup and said something to the translator. I couldn’t hear his answer but the businessman still looked puzzled. He took a spoon, inserted it into the pudding, then put barely a taste to his lips. For a moment there was no reaction. Then he smiled, a grin that went from ear to ear. The rest of the businessmen started eating their pudding, one bite after another. In seconds all the cups were empty.

One of the businessmen looked toward me and said something to the translator, who waved me over to the table. “Excuse me,” he said. “Is there more? More …” he searched for the word, “… pie?” I brought out all the banana pudding. Even last cup was finished. By the time the men put down their dessert spoons they’d reached an agreement. They needed to know more about Wilcox County. There would be another meeting, another lunch.

“And we will have again the banana pie?” one of the leaders asked.

Mayor Day didn’t miss a beat. “Absolutely,” he said. “Adrian’s lunches always come with banana pie.”

And a few months later, when it was announced that the plant would be built in Wilcox County instead of Houston, everyone joked that the decision had come down to one thing. Mama’s been away for a few years now, but I like to think she’s up in heaven, looking down on that new copper plant going up in Wilcox County, and saying, “Good job, Adrian.”

There’s not a lot of mountain climbing happening in Minnesota. But it was his growing up in Detroit Lakes — visiting national parks with his family — that set Eddie Taylor up to join the first all-Black team of climbers training to take on Qomolangma next year. “I ran track in high school and I ended up going to Colorado and walking on the track team,” Taylor said during a conversation with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer. “Being out here next to the mountains, there’s lots and lots of climbing, lots of mountain areas and lots of rock climbing.”

Taylor is now a high school science teacher and track coach in Colorado and is training with a new group of nine Black climbers who hope to climb Qomolangma next spring. Led by experienced climber Phil Henderson, there are five other Black men on the team with Taylor. Abby Dione and Rosemary Saal finish off the group of nine as the two Black women climbers on the team.

It was a chance meeting with Henderson, the leader of the adventure, at a dog park in western Colorado that set Taylor up for this next adventure. “There’s not a lot of Black people out there in that part of Colorado,” he said. “I was walking my dog and we just ran into each other. We started to chat. And then we actually went ice climbing later on that day and ran into each other again.”

Of the 10, 000 climbers who have climbed Qomolangma, only 10 were Black, Taylor said. The team hopes to not only increase those numbers next year but increase awareness and access ( 接触的机会) to the outdoors for people of color.

“I visited national parks and I learned to ski ( 滑雪) at a young age, but I think that’s not typical for other climbers of color. Just to help inspire that next generation and to show that things are possible for people in our community makes it worth it.”