It wasn’t all bad
■■ A feisty 103-year-old from Massachusetts beat Covid-19—and then cracked open a cold beer to celebrate. Jennie Stejna spent nearly three weeks battling the virus and at one point seemed close to death. When her granddaughter’s husband asked Stejna if she was ready to go to heaven, the Polish-American matriarch replied, “Hell, yes.” But just days later she woke up and proclaimed, “I’m not sick!” A nurse handed Stenja a Bud Light, her favorite brew, when she tested negative. “She is legendary,” said grandson Dave Stejna.
■■ A 9-year-old boy with cerebral palsy and autism has raised $100,000 for charity by completing a marathon on his street in northern England. Tobias Weller, who uses a walker to get around, originally intended to raise funds for Sheffield Children’s Hospital and a cerebral palsy charity by doing a 1 kilometer sponsored walk in the local park. But he then decided to up his ambitions and complete a marathon. At the start of his challenge— which took 70 days—Tobias could walk a maximum of 164 feet a day, but toward the end he was walking half a mile each day as his neighbors and family cheered him on. “Every bit of it,” he said, “has been totally awesome.”
■■ Deirdre Taylor always wanted to say thank you to the New York City fireman who rescued her from a burning building when she was 4 years old. She moved with her family to Virginia soon after the blaze and spent years trying to track down her hero: Eugene Pugliese. Taylor, now 40 and a nurse, recently returned to New York to pitch in during the pandemic. At NYU Langone Hospital, Taylor asked a group of visiting firefighters about Pugliese. “Oh, Gene,” replied one, who gave her his number. A couple of hours later, the two were chatting on the phone. “You’re a hero, too,” Pugliese told her.