It wasn’t all bad
■ In June 1968, Capt. LarryTaylor, now 81, rescued four American soldiers serving in Vietnam, and this month, 55 years later, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military award. Along with his co-pilot, then–1st Lt.Taylor was flying a Cobra helicopter when he was called out to rescue four men who were surrounded, landing under fire to bring other soldiers home. “When duty called, Larry did everything,” President Biden said at the award ceremony, and “he rewrote the fate of four families for generations to come.”
■ Erlend Bore, a 51-year-old Norwegian man, bought a metal detector earlier this year to take on his walks, a hobby he started after his doctor recommended some exercise.The last thing he expected was that the device would help him unearth the most important gold artifacts found in Norway since the 19th century. Going out on a search in August, Bore heard the device beep just as he was about to retire for the day. The source: three rings, nine pendants, and a group of 10 gold pearls dating from around A.D. 500. According to Norwegian law, the treasure is national property, but he will still receive a reward. “At first I thought it was chocolate coins,” said Bore.
“It was totally unreal.”
■ When Mary Foss Starn, now 92, was working at an Iowa egg-packing factory in 1951, she and her co-workers decided to write their names and addresses on some eggs to see if anyone would write. Foss Starn got no response until last month, when her daughter Jacque Ploeger saw a Facebook post about an egg with her mother’s name. John Amalfitano wrote that a neighbor gave him the egg two decades ago, and he kept it in a cabinet until he decided to post about it in a Facebook group about weird finds. “I finally have my pen pal,” Foss Starn said, “and it only took 72 years.”