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A woman reunited with her beloved cat she thought had died in catastrophic fire

After two months, Aggie was miraculously found among the rubble close to her former home.

cat reunited with owner

Images courtesy of TikTok/@carolynkiefer1

Aggie is getting the treatment she needs.

Losing your home and belongings in a house fire is devastating enough, but losing a pet that you can't find before you're forced to evacuate is even worse. No one wants to say goodbye to a beloved pet even under normal circumstances, but to lose them in a fire is too tragic to think about.

So, imagine getting a call that your pet you thought had perished along with your home has been found alive.

Katherine Kiefer got that call from Westside Animal Shelter in Los Angeles two months after her home was destroyed in the Palisades fire. The 82-year-old had been at a radiation treatment appointment for lung cancer the morning of January 7, 2025, when the fire reached her neighborhood. Katherine's daughter Carolyn told Upworthy that Aggie had fled as the family gathered belongings and pets to evacuate while fending off the fire with hoses. They searched and searched, but finally they had no choice but to flee without her.

"Telling my mother that we had not found Aggie was devastating," Carolyn says. "We had failed. The next morning we were able to drive into the Palisades and saw we had lost our home. It felt like a warzone and it seemed impossible that Aggie would have been able to survive such a firestorm. The following two months have been very dark for my mother. Losing the home was painful but losing Aggie made it especially heartbreaking. My mother told me that when she was having a hard time with her cancer treatment and felt down she would remind herself, 'at least I have Aggie.' Now, she was gone."

But she wasn't. Aggie was miraculously found among the ash and rubble near their former home in early March and taken to Westside Animal Shelter, where workers scanned her microchip. Carolyn says the family thought the call from the shelter was a scam at first, but once they confirmed the chip number they knew Aggie really had survived. The shelter had sent Aggie to ChatOak Animal Hospital 40 minutes away for treatment, and Katherine got to reunite with her there.

"I have never seen my 82 yr old mother move so fast and be so impatient," says Carolyn.

Watch:

@carolynkiefer1
My mother is reunited with her beloved, Aggie. #palisadesfire #cat #reunited #rescueanimals THANK YOU @LA Animal Services 🙏

"Seeing them reunited was life changing," says Carolyn. "My mother has really struggled and Aggie's survival has brought her back to life. She is completely different since learning about Aggie. She is really a part of our family and we felt broken without her."

Carolyn's video of their reunion got over five million views on TikTok, but people wanted to see the original recording without the music added. In the unedited version, we get to hear the vet tech share how sweet Aggie had been, and we hear Katherine greet Aggie with, "Hi, sweetest girl!"

Sweetest girl indeed. Oof.

@carolynkiefer1
Replying to @Spasztic.bpd😏🙃🖤🩵🧡

Aggie was suffering from starvation, anemia, a fever, and minor burns when she was brought in. She had to have some matted fur removed and received the blood transfusion, and she will receive ongoing care until she is well enough to join her family again. A GoFundMe to help cover Aggie's veterinary bills has raised over $27,000 in just a couple of days, which is surely a relief for a family already dealing with so much loss.

@carolynkiefer1
Replying to @Yas Thank you for all the support for Aggie. Gofundme link in bio. 🙏 Thank you, Sarah Garrity, DVM, DACVIM (SAIM)! #palisadesfire #cat #aggie

How do you keep pets safe in a house fire?

Everyone wants to think they would just grab their pets and go if a fire threatened their home, but it's not always that simple. Animals have instincts to protect themselves and will often hide if they sense danger, so it can be hard to find them in a fire situation.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

The American Red Cross offers these tips for giving pets the best chance of survival in case of a fire:

- The best way to protect your pets from the effects of a fire is to include them in your family plan. This includes having their own disaster supplies kit as well as arranging in advance for a safe place for them to stay if you need to leave your home.

- When you practice your escape plan, practice taking your pets with you. Train them to come to you when you call.

- In the event of a disaster, if you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them, too. But remember: never delay escape or endanger yourself or family to rescue a family pet.

- Keep pets near entrances when away from home. Keep collars on pets and leashes at the ready in case firefighters need to rescue your pet. When leaving pets home alone, keep them in areas or rooms near entrances where firefighters can easily find them.

- Affix a pet alert window cling and write down the number of pets inside your house and attach the static cling to a front window. This critical information saves rescuers time when locating your pets. Make sure to keep the number of pets listed on them updated.

However, even the best laid plans don't always go the way we want them to, and sometimes there's nothing we can do but hold out hope that our pets' natural survival instincts will save them like Aggie's did. Her tragedy to triumph story is is a good reminder of how resilient animals can be, even in the most unlikely of circumstances. Here's to a speedy recovery so Aggie can be home with Katherine where she belongs as soon as possible.

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A pianist on stage realized she'd prepared the wrong piece. Then she pulled off a miracle.

The encouraging conductor helped turn her "worst nightmare" scenario into a viral, magnificent feat.

Photo credit: Canva

Imagine showing up on stage to play a piano concerto and finding out you have to play a different one in two minutes.

You know that nightmare where you show up to the final day of class and there's a huge test and you panic as you realize you've missed the whole semester and haven't studied at all? Or how about the one where you have to give a big presentation at work and you show up totally unprepared—no notes, no visuals, no speech—and you have to wing it?

For musicians, the equivalent is showing up on stage to perform without preparation or rehearsal, which is exactly what happened to Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires when she was on stage in front of an audience of 2,000 people in Amsterdam in 1999. As the orchestra started to play, she quickly realized she was in trouble—she had prepared the wrong concerto. As the musicians played the two-and-a-half-minute intro to Mozart's Piano Concerto No.20, Pires sat at the piano in terror. She had not practiced that piece and she didn't even have the sheet music for it.

She had, however, played that concerto before, and in an inspiring feat of musicality, muscle memory, and sheer human will—along with some encouraging words from conductor Riccardo Chailly—Pires got herself centered and locked in, playing the correct concerto in its entirety, miraculously without missing a note.

— (@)

The full story actually feels even more daunting for those of us who can't sit down and pound out a piano concerto at will. It turned out that Pires wasn't even the original pianist who was slated to play at this concert. She was asked the day before to be a replacement for the pianist who couldn't perform, so she didn't have a lot of time to prepare anyway. However, she'd misheard the number of the Mozart piece over the phone and thought it was a piece she had played only a couple of weeks before. If that had been the case, she would have been fine, even with the short notice. But having the wrong concerto in mind and then not even having the sheet music for the correct one was an extra pile-on from an already high-pressure situation.

The fact that it was a general rehearsal and not the official performance wasn't much consolation, since it was an open rehearsal with a full audience. A rehearsal audience is likely more forgiving than an audience that paid top dollar for a concert, but it's still mortifying to have thousands of people expecting you to perform something you have not prepared for.

Thankfully, Pires had performed the concerto multiple times, most recently about 10 or 11 months prior, so she wasn't clueless. But perfectly recalling something you did nearly a year ago at that level and under that amount of pressure is absolutely incredible.

The conductor who encouraged her later talked about how impressive it was. "The miracle is that she has such a memory that she could, within a minute, switch to a new concerto without making one mistake," said Chailly. However, Pires insists that her memory is not exceptional at all and that she is "very, very average" among musicians.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

But it wasn't the only time this happened to Pires. "I must say, this happened to me another two times in my life. In total, three times," she told ClassicFM's Joanna Gosling. "I hope it never happens again."

Pires already gets nervous about performing, despite being a world famous concert pianist.

"I normally feel very stressed on stage," Pires said. "It's not the stage, it's not the public, it's the responsibility. I feel insecure. And that's why I'm not a stage person somehow. There is one side of me that feels okay—I feel okay with the people. But being on stage and being responsible for something can give me some panic."

As Gosling points out, if you were just listening to the performance, you'd never know there'd been an issue. But the camera on her face tells an entire story during the orchestral opening as we see her grappling with the crisis she'd found herself in. Watching the moment she decided she had no choice but to just go for it, whatever happened, is remarkable. A true testament to the power of repetition and the resilience of the human spirit, and a reminder that musicians truly are magicians in so many ways.

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Newlyweds land paid job living for free on gorgeous, uninhibited Irish island

They beat out 80,000 other applicants for the job of a lifetime.

Camille Rosenfeld; Alice Hayes

It's their dream of a lifetime.

What’s your dream job? President of the United States? A famous influencer with millions of followers and brand partnerships? A former NBA player who now cruises the airwaves with his besties, à la Charles Barkley? No? Well, what about this: Moving to a remote, uninhabited island in Ireland where there’s no running water, no hot showers, and no electricity? Sound enticing?

While that may not exactly sound like “heaven” to most folks, for newlywed couple Camille Rosenfeld (26) from Minnesota and James Hayes (37) from Tralee, Ireland, this version of the island life is exactly what they signed up for. From April 1 to September 30, the newlywed couple will become the caretakers of Great Blasket Island, a remote and uninhabited island off Ireland’s coast in the Atlantic Ocean.

stone homes near the ocean The beautiful, brutal Great Blasket IslandGreat Blasket Island

Once there, they’ll be trading modern conveniences for candlelight and the constant company of seagulls—an existence not terribly dissimilar from the one depicted in Robert Eggers’ 2019 movie, The Lighthouse—and the couple couldn’t be more delighted.

“Oh my gosh…it seems like such a dream come true,” Rosenfeld gushed to CBC Radio. “You wouldn't even think it would be a possibility. We feel really lucky that we were chosen.”

But make no mistake: this is not a vacation. Like Jack Torrance in The Shining, Rosenfeld and Hayes will become Great Blasket’s live-in caretakers, tasked with attending to the principal island of the Blaskets in County Kerry, Ireland. They will live in a small stone house on a windswept hill overlooking the gray, stormy seas at night. By day, they will run five holiday cottages and a coffee hatch for day-trippers visiting the island. “I genuinely think we will fall in with the rhythm of our new life and sense of freedom,” said Hayes, who has been to the island once before. “We won’t have the responsibilities of our jobs or day-to-day life, so it’s a chance to live a simpler life.”

“It looks like something from The Wizard of Oz”

Located about a mile off the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Great Basket Island— or in Irish, An Blascaod Mór—is a place of stunning natural beauty, where emerald hills glisten and below the cliffs lie sparkling turquoise waters. “It’s just so green, the greenest grass you’d ever see,” Rosenfeld said. “During a few weeks in the summer, there’s these beautiful purple flowers that bloom all across the fields. It looks like something from The Wizard of Oz.”

seals on beach Hello, seals Start Travel

Once a flourishing fishing and farming outpost, Great Blasket Island was previously home to a tight-knit Irish community. For centuries, residents ate wildly caught fish and rabbits and harvested potatoes. In its heyday, the island nurtured a vibrant literary culture, with voices like Peig Sayers, Tomás Ó Criomhthain, and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin immortalizing the raw beauty and hardship of life there. However, by 1953, the island’s remaining inhabitants were forced to evacuate due to dwindling numbers and the lack of emergency services there during storms. Now, the island is a living museum of Gaelic heritage and a place where wildlife thrives.

While the island may not have many humans these days, Great Blasket Island is home to a great number of marine life: Gray seals (also known as “horseheads”) are the island’s star attraction, with their short flippers and hidden ears (gray seals lack ear flaps). During the late spring, thousands of gray seals come to Great Blasket to congregate, where they can be spotted among sharks, dolphins, whales, and seabirds. “We have no fears of anything around island life, not even the large number of seals that make their home on the beaches there,” the couple said. “We will deal with any issues as they come along.”

Landing the job

Billy O’Connor and his wife, Alice Hayes (no relation to James), who own the small collection of holiday cottages Camille and James will soon oversee, first advertised the live-in position in 2020. Initially, they were awash with over 80,000 applicants. Now, for their own sake, they’ve capped the number of applications to a mere 300. To deter hopefuls looking for a pleasant holiday, Billy and Alice try to stress the grueling nature of the job: “First, we try to put them off because if anything, it is quite romanticized,” says Alice. “But during the season, it can be quite intense for the caretakers. Most people, when they finish work, go home to their safe haven and relax. But I often say to people going out there that they won’t have that. You close the half-door where you were serving coffee, and you are home.”

Camille and James, on the other hand, are excited to trade a life in the fast lane for one that's much simpler. The two met in 2021 at the Burren College of Art, where Hayes was in residency as a visual artist, and Rosenfeld was studying abroad at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she studied art and business. They’d actually applied for the caretaker position the year before, but the timing didn't work out because of their scheduled wedding.

couple, selfie by the water Meet your new stewardsCamille Rosenfeld

When they reapplied the following year, Alice and Billy were ecstatic. "When we saw that Camille and James had applied again for the positions for this year, we were delighted as they are just so enthusiastic and committed to outdoor life," says Alice.

Stewardship: A growing interest in Europe

Besides being an excellent adventure for a newlywed couple, this hands-on approach to land stewardship is part of a growing trend in Europe. Land stewardship is increasingly being recognized as a practical and rewarding tool for nature and biodiversity conservation, often found at the intersection of environmental protection and sustainable economic practices. In the United Kingdom, for example, such land trusts play a significant role in managing protected areas and sites of natural importance. Ahead of their new jobs, Camille and James reflect on the part they’ll play in this larger context. "I think both Camille and I feel that we have been living our lives on aeroplanes travelling over and back to the US and out of suitcases with no set familiarity to our lives over the past three years and longer," James explains. Camille adds: "It will provide the time to take stock, immerse ourselves in island life and start the next chapter or new book of living our lives together in one place.”

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Teacher reveals the 'really obvious' reason teens no longer read. It's not just the phones.

"Kids who read are just built different."

via Canva/Photos

A teenage boy stars at his smartphone.

Studies show that kids are spending a lot less time reading these days. In 2020, 42% of 9-year-old students said they read for fun almost daily, down from 52% in 2012. Seventeen percent of 13-year-olds read for fun daily, down from 27% in 2012. Among 17-year-olds, 19% say they read for fun, down from 31% in 1984.

It’s safe to say that modern technology is a big reason why kids aren’t reading as much. A recent report found that teenagers spend an average of 8 hours 39 minutes per day on screens, compared to 5-and-a-half hours for pre-teen children. So, it’s no wonder they don’t have any time left to crack open a book. A high school teacher on TikTok who goes by the name StillATeacher recently brought the topic up with her class, and they stopped reading for fun at the end of middle school.

“So even those who are like avid readers of the Percy Jackson series in fourth and fifth grade fall off,” the teacher says. “Honestly, there are many reasons to stop reading recreationally, like increased pressure inside and outside of school, a desire to spend more time socializing, and, of course, the phones.”

But the teacher says there’s an obvious reason “right in front of our faces”: the adults. “Adults have lowered the bar for how much you should read as a teenager so far that the bar cannot be found,” she continued. “There are many educators who have the mindset that you shouldn't teach whole books because kids just won't read them.”

@stillateacher
the literacy crisis is upon us #teachertok #teacher #highschoolteacher #englishteacher #education #literacy #booktok #creatorsearchinsights

“I've taught at schools where teaching novels is actually discouraged,” she continued. “And I have conversations with teachers in other content areas who say that they themselves never read books, that they don't think it's important for students' long-term success. All this said, it is not entirely surprising that high schoolers don't wanna read.”

How does reading benefit kids?

The significant decrease in the number of children who read for fun means that many will miss out on the incredible benefits of regularly curling up for a good book. Studies show that children who read for pleasure enjoy improved cognitive performance, language development, and academic achievement. Reading is also linked to fewer mental health problems, less screen time, and more sleep. Findings suggest that kids get the optimal benefits of reading when they do it for around 12 hours a week.

“You forgot empathy,” one commenter added. “People who read are better at empathizing because they have been able to put themselves in the shoes of others and learn about different perspectives, people, cultures, experiences.”

StillATeacher has seen these incredible benefits first-hand.

“But I'm telling you, the handful of kids I teach who do read are built different. Kids who read have stronger critical thinking skills, more success across all academic areas, and, honestly, just a stronger sense of self. Because reading helps you figure out who you are as a person,” the teacher said.

The decline in young people's reading is a serious problem that must be addressed. So, it’s terrific that the teacher used her platform on TikTok to bring it to the public’s attention. Interestingly enough, she says that TikTok is one of the few platforms encouraging kids to read.

“And honestly, thank goodness for BookTok because I think it is one of the only drivers of adolescent reading that still exists,” she concluded her post. “Isn't that sad? Like, the schools aren't doing it, TikTok's doing it. We gotta start a movement here.”

This story originally appeared last year.

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People hilariously respond to the 'What's your 5-year plan' question, inspired by Elmo

Some therapists now claim we don't even need a 5-year plan.

Photo by Reno Laithienne on Unsplash

Elmo got real on his Chicken Shop Date.

For some, little is more daunting than the question: "What's your 5-year plan?" No matter the generation, it can be anxiety-inducing at best. Sesame Street's Elmo was asked this very question by English comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg on her popular web series Chicken Shop Date.

On the show, Amelia has various "dates" where she peppers celebrities with awkward and often endearing interview questions. Obviously, Elmo was the perfect guest, though it's specifically noted on YouTube that Elmo is having a "play date" since he's only three and a half years old, of course. But when she bluntly asks him, "What's your five-year plan?" Elmo is confused. "What's that mean, five-year plan? Elmo is me." She restates, "Yeah, you need to have a plan. You need to have a five-year plan."

gif of Amelia Dimoldenberg Disappointed Amelia Dimoldenberg GIF by Chicken Shop DateGiphy

On the show, Amelia has various "dates" where she peppers celebrities with awkward and often endearing interview questions. Obviously, Elmo was the perfect guest, though it's specifically noted on YouTube that Elmo is having a "play date" since he's only three and a half years old, of course. But when she bluntly asks him, "What's your five-year plan?" Elmo is confused. "What's that mean, five-year plan? Elmo is me." She restates, "Yeah, you need to have a plan. You need to have a five-year plan."

And then Elmo becomes all of us. "Elmo doesn't really know what he's gonna do in the next five hours!"

@emil1yc
😭 #chickenshopdate

When this clip was posted on TikTok, the followers definitely saw themselves in Elmo. "Me, in a job interview," says the top commenter, with over 25,000 likes. Another writes, "I just panicked, like am I supposed to have a 5-year plan? Marriage? Do some people have a five-year plan?!?"

This person asks, "Also, isn't Elmo like 5 or 6 or something? She's basically asking him what he's gonna be doing after another lifetime." (Repliers rightfully point out that Elmo is three and a half years old in perpetuity.)

Since that clip went viral three months ago, people have been having a field day on TikTok answering the question for themselves. Many simply lip-sync with Elmo, expressing how much they relate. But TikTok user @GenX_Michelle took it a little further. In their video, we see a woman at the grocery store with a giant raven perched on her arm. The chyron reads: "When someone asks me where I see myself in 5 years."

The comments are not only supportive of the OP, but they're impressed by the grocery-shopping woman, as well. "This woman is a goddess, because you don't choose a raven, a raven chooses you."

@genx_michelle
Raven Lady of Vegas has a nice ring to it... 😉 #raven #5yearplan #ravenladyofvegas #genx_michelle #besties_chosenfamily

Many therapists and career counselors nowadays actually believe you don't need a 5-year plan, and that the very idea of them is obsolete. In Lily Zhung's article "Why You Really Don't Have to Have a 5-Year Plan" for The Muse, she cites John D. Krumboltz’s Happenstance Learning Theory, where she reports, "He posits that unplanned events are to be expected because they’re inevitable and, in fact, necessary to every career."

person in an office saying, "New plan." Plan Change Of Plans GIFGiphy

She then asks, "How many successful people actually followed a plan to get to where they were? Maybe a handful. Most were (and continue to be) superbly hardworking and just really good at recognizing and acting on opportunities that come their way."

Success, she says, comes from grabbing opportunities when they arise and being as prepared as possible for the moment. "Ultimately, the goal of career planning is not to have a step-by-step plan, but to maximize the opportunities for you to learn and to be in the right mindset to take advantage of opportunities as they come."

Zhung quotes Shonda Rhimes from a commencement speech she gave at Dartmouth in 2014: "Maybe you know exactly what it is you dream of being, or maybe you're paralyzed because you have no idea what your passion is. The truth is, it doesn't matter. You don't have to know. You just have to keep moving forward. You just have to keep doing something, seizing the next opportunity, staying open to trying something new. It doesn't have to fit your vision of the perfect job or the perfect life. Perfect is boring and dreams are not real. Just do."

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Nazis demanded to know if ‘The Hobbit’ author J.R.R. Tolkien was Jewish. His response was legendary.

J.R.R. Tolkien had no problem telling his German publishing house exactly what he thought.

J.R.R. Tolkien by Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons Joseph Goebbels by Vitold Muratov/Wikimedia Commons

J.R.R. Tolkien didn't mince words when asked his opinion on Nazis

In 1933, Adolf Hitler handed the power of Jewish cultural life in Nazi Germany to his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels established a team of of regulators that would oversee the works of Jewish artists in film, theater, music, fine arts, literature, broadcasting, and the press.

Goebbels' new regulations essentially eliminated Jewish people from participating in mainstream German cultural activities by requiring them to have a license to do so.

This attempt by the Nazis to purge Germany of any culture that wasn't Aryan in origin led to the questioning of artists from outside the country.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Nazi, Nazis, book burning, censorship, The Hobbit A Nazi book burning in GermanyImage via Wikicommons

In 1938, English author J. R. R. Tolkien and his British publisher, Stanley Unwin, opened talks with Rütten & Loening, a Berlin-based publishing house, about a German translation of his recently-published hit novel, "The Hobbit."

Privately, according to "1937 The Hobbit or There and Back Again," Tolkien told Unwin he hated Nazi "race-doctrine" as "wholly pernicious and unscientific." He added he had many Jewish friends and was considering abandoning the idea of a German translation altogether.

lord of the rings hobbits GIFGiphy

The Berlin-based publishing house sent Tolkien a letter asking for proof of his Aryan descent. Tolkien was incensed by the request and gave his publisher two responses, one in which he sidestepped the question, another in which he handled in '30s-style with pure class.

In the letter sent to Rütten & Loening, Tolkien notes that Aryans are of Indo-Iranian "extraction," correcting the incorrect Nazi aumption that Aryans come from northern Europe. He cuts to the chase by saying that he is not Jewish but holds them in high regard. "I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people," Tolkien wrote.

Tolkien also takes a shot at the race policies of Nazi Germany by saying he's beginning to regret his German surname. "The time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride," he writes.

Bryan Cranston Mic Drop GIFGiphy

Here's the letter sent to Rütten & Loening:

25 July 1938 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and
remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Nazis, Nazi, Germany The letter J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his German publishersImage via Letters of Note

This article originally appeared four years ago.

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