One day in 1973, tired of arguing with people about his beliefs and actions, John Francis stopped speaking. His silence lasted for 17 years.

Francis had already earned a reputation as a bit eccentric by the time he decided that talking didn’t serve his goals. Two years earlier, after the collision of two tankers in San Francisco Bay caused a massive oil spill, he had stopped using all forms of motorized transportation. Occasionally he biked or sailed, but mostly he traveled on foot as a form of environmental protest. He called himself the Planetwalker.

But what was the point, people would ask.

The year 2014 was not a good one for Bill Rea, a musician and teacher on the Outer Banks.

First he lost his day job as a banker. “It happens,” he says with a shrug. “Banks get sold; people get let go.” Still, it wasn’t easy. He received other job offers but decided to take some time off.

On a trip to the grocery store one afternoon, he impulsively grabbed a carton of fried chicken. He ate it all—and felt worse than he’d ever felt in his life.

Six years ago, during a time when my life had completely lost its luster, I met a clerk at a Wawa convenience store who understood the healing power of happiness. Actually, I suppose I never really “met” him.  I simply had the good fortune to go through his checkout line.

The ripening Winesap had a beautiful pinkish cast to its skin, a shine that promised good eating—and a long-legged, fierce-looking insect clinging to it. An assassin bug that could inflict a nasty, painful bite.

We were absolutely thrilled.

This year Jeff and I have sworn off using chemical sprays at our five-acre orchard in the Virginia mountains. We’ve been moving in this direction for several years but until now hadn’t gotten up the nerve to go completely chemical free.

Finding assassin bugs all over our apples made us whoop with joy—literally. These lanky, scary-looking creatures eat Japanese beetles, which last year caused serious damage to our trees.

I am teaching a little boy to read.

That is, I am hoping to teach a little boy to read.

The first sentence expresses what I envisioned when I signed up last spring to work as a volunteer tutor with young Latino students.

The second reflects reality.