Someone to sit next to me

[Valin]

Jewish world Review

Garrison Keillor 

Dec. 7, 2018

There's so much good news. Gorillas appear to be thriving, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, and there are about 361,919 of them, twice as many as had been believed.

Humpback whales, who were nearly hunted out of existence in the 19th century, are making a comeback in the seas off Antarctica: the birth rate is on the upswing, according to a recent study. (The animals are the size of a school bus and have a life expectancy similar to ours.)

And a study at the University of Michigan shows that people who work out even 10 minutes a day tend to be more cheerful than those who don't.

This is science, people. This isn't fake news. These conclusions are based on actual facts established through observation by people who can count. What I learn from this is that it brightens your day to skip the front-page stuff about Washington and focus on science. Someday I expect to find a study showing that 75-year-old men who rode school buses as children have a longer life expectancy. That's me.

I rode a school bus for six years, 12 miles each way morning and afternoon, on a highway in Minnesota, cornfields to the west, the Mississippi to the east. I stood at the end of a gravel road, a gawky kid with wire-rim glasses, wearing second-hand clothes, knowing there would not be an empty seat because mine was the last stop.

(Snip)