It wasn’t all bad
■■ A 15-year-old from Jacksonville, Fla., found he could give old machines a new life for kids who couldn’t afford a computer. When Christopher Kilpatrick was interning with the electronics recycler Urban Mining this summer, he had an epiphany: Why not take some of the retired machines that Urban Mining got from businesses and refurbish them instead of ripping them into salvaged parts? The teen refurbished 20 desktops and donated them to the nonprofit Big Brothers, Big Sisters. “I like the feeling I am making a difference,” said Kilpatrick.
■■ At 103 years of age, Dorothy Pollack decided to check an item off her bucket list: a frog tattoo. Pollack had been living in a retirement home, but her grandson pulled her out when he found he couldn’t even take her out “for a burger and beer” on her birthday. “After being in Covid-19 prison, I thought it was time to start living again,” Pollack said. So earlier this month, Teresa Jones, her grandson’s girlfriend, took her to a tattoo parlor in Muskegon, Mich., as a celebration of her newfound freedom. After getting inked, Pollack hopped on the back of Jones’ friend’s motorcycle to check off another aspiration. The next goal on her list? Skydiving.
■■ Shortly after doing a news segment for Tampa’s WFLA Channel 8 in June, Victoria Price received an email from an out-of-state viewer who noticed a lump on her neck. “Please have your thyroid checked,” wrote the viewer. “Reminds me of my neck. Mine turned out to be cancer.” Price was tempted to dismiss the email, but her boyfriend urged her to see a doctor. As it turns out, Price had papillary thyroid cancer. Last month, Price underwent surgery to have her thyroid and 19 cancerous lymph nodes removed before it was too late. “I just want to thank her from the bottom of my heart,” Price said.