#1 Stain and Odor Fighter #1 Trusted Stain and Odor Fighter: Tide PODS Ultra Oxi among laundry pacs in HE machines Consumer’s #1 Trusted laundry detergent brand in Reader’s Digest survey APRIL 2019 YOUR BRAIN’S Hidden Powers From PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.COM S E I R E MYST CRIME & HISTORY An RD ORIGINAL Really Practical Jokes From the book LIFE IS A JOKE Retirement Plans for Any Family From BANKRATE.COM RD’s Tips for Preventing Cancer By MICHELLE CROUCH Snakebite! A Drama with Teeth From OUTSIDE Introducing new Beneful Superfood Blend dry and wet recipes, made with nutrient-rich ingredients including salmon, chia seeds and cranberries for a super happy and healthy dog Learn more at Beneful.com/superfood Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A Reader ’s Digest CONTENTS 58 cover story UNSOLVED! These baffling mysteries have obsessed people for years Are the answers out there? on the cover: sergey burbona/shutterstock this page: ryan johnson by jacopo della quercia and lauren cahn 70 national interest A Lifeline in the Heartland American farmers die by suicide at an alarming rate One Iowa farmer-therapist is determined to help by debbie weingarten from the guardian and the economic hardship reporting project 78 fascinating facts 84 humor 100 drama in real life Really Practical Jokes Death Rattle Some jokes just make you chuckle, and thank goodness for them But some punch lines make you stop midlaugh and actually think by the javna brothers adapted from the book life is a joke 92 first person The Library: A Love Story The magic of these book-lined palaces filled Susan Orlean’s childhood with delight Parenthood helped her feel that bliss again There was no warning— just a silent and deadly snakebite in Yosemite And antivenom was 100 miles away by kyle dickman from outside 110 inspiration The True Feeling of Success A man reexamines his life and discovers some unappreciated moments of joy by michael graff from charlotte magazine from the book the library book Great Ocean Secrets Scientists are still searching for the truth about many creatures and features of the deep by tina donvito 84 Reader ’ Departments 20 Dear Reader Letters everyday heroes 10 “Breathe for Her” by claire nowak 13 Sign the Friendly Skies by andy simmons 10 i won! 14 The North American Scrabble Championship quotable quotes 18 George W Bush, Maya Angelou, Priyanka Chopra 20 Plan for Retirement— at Any Age by kelly anne smith from bankrate.com we found a fix 28 The Best Time to Book a Cruise, and More 13 things 32 You Can Prevent Many Cancers department of wit 36 The Doctor Is In(sane!) by simon rich from the book hits and misses april 2019 | rd.com from left: matthew cohen (money) jason varney (surrell) how to © Pfizer 2018 WAIT? ADVIL LIQUI-GELS ARE PROVEN FASTER AND STRONGER ON TOUGH PAIN THAN TYLENOL® RAPID RELEASE GELS ® ® W H AT PA I N ? Use as directed All trademarks are the property of their respective owners Reader ’s Digest Contents 44 Humor 16 Life in These United States 42 Laughter, the Best Medicine 48 All in a Day’s Work 91 Laugh Lines news from the world of medicine 44 Exercise Boosts Memory, and More i am the food on your plate 50 Eggs by kate lowenstein and daniel gritzer everyday miracles 54 A Wingman for Life The Genius Section 99 Humor in Uniform 116 Teach Your Brain New Tricks by eric haseltine fro psychologytoday.co 120 Brain Games 124 Word Power 128 Photo Finish by jen mccaffery your true stories Send letters to letters@rd.com or Letters, Reader’s Digest, PO Box 6100, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1600 Include your full name, address, e-mail, and daytime phone number We may edit letters and use them in all print and electronic media Contribute your True Stories at rd.com/stories If we publish one in a print edition of Reader’s Digest, we’ll pay you $100 To submit humor items, visit rd.com/submit, or write to us at Jokes, 44 South Broadway, 7th Floor, White Plains, NY 10601 We’ll pay you $25 for any joke, gag, or funny quote and $100 for any true funny story published in a print edition of Reader’s Digest unless we specify otherwise in writing Please include your full name and address in your entry We regret that we cannot acknowledge or return unsolicited work Requests for permission to reprint any material from Reader’s Digest should be sent to permissions@tmbi.com Get help with questions on subscriptions, renewals, gifts, address changes, payments, account information, and other inquiries at rd.com/help, or write to us at customercare@rd.com or Reader’s Digest, PO Box 6095, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1595 april 2019 | rd.com the voorhes fotoyakov/s 57 Lucky Charms and Quirky Kids UNLOCK AN ANCIENT WORLD WITH THE GRAND MASTER ADVENTURE OF AN INTERNATIONAL MYSTERY LONG-BURIED SECRETS A SERIES OF UNSOLVED CRIMES NUMA® DIRECTOR DIRK PITT must unravel the secrets of an archaic enigma that threatens everyone and everything he knows—most importantly, his own family START READING AT PRH.COM/CELTICEMPIRE ON SALE NOW CUSSLERBOOKS.COM • AUDIO AVAILABLE CLIVECUSSLER Now in paperback DEAR READER O n our 20th anniversary, Susan and I headed off for a few days to a lovely valley about an hour away We didn’t know much about the town, but that was fine Our goal was really just to renew our faith in each other We began by stocking up at the quirky Village Market in Glen Ellen, California Within minutes, friendly locals spotted us and started chatting in the aisles with charming tips You gotta hike to Jack London’s house Oh, dinner at the Fig Café Hours later, having followed their yellow brick road all day, we walked, delirious, back from dinner to our creekside inn “I think I could live here,” Susan said It turns out that Glen Ellen’s contagious spirit was not our passing illusion In October 2017, the Nuns Fire april 2019 Art and Jill Dawson, in front of the trailer a neighbor set them up in after the Nuns Fire bore down on this town near Santa Rosa An astounding 183 of Glen Ellen’s 750 or so homes burned down Among them was Jill Dawson’s place, just across the creek from the inn to which we had returned the next anniversary, and four more in turn I called Jill after reading her family’s story She sounded just like the spirited, generous type Susan and I have loved meeting in Glen Ellen After the fire, she told me, her family’s prospects for staying in the town looked b l e a k Bu t re s i d e nt s mobilized on Facebook and in the Village Market to brainstorm how to house one another from top: christopher chung/the press democrat ap/shutterstock mike mcgregor A Nice Place Survives Reader ’s Digest The NICEST PLACES in AMERICA 2019 from left: don douglas/alamy stock photo candia baxter/shutterstock nominate your nicest place Glen Ellen was my idea of Hearing of their plight, a place with special people some neighbors who even before the 2017 fire barely knew the Dawsons up and placed two Reader’s Digest’s annual search is getting bigger is amazing The kindness new trailers next to their and better: We’re looking thing, it’s still huge here.” house, which hadn’t for the 50 Nicest Places, In kicking off our burned, for Jill’s family one in every state Your annual Nicest Place “Their name is the town could be profiled in in America search, let Fosters, and I tell them, our pages! Learn more at Glen Ellen be just one ‘You just can’t help it,’” rd.com/nicest example So many cities, Jill says, laughing at her own pun Jill and her husband, Art, workplaces, churches, schools, and have lived in one of the trailers for a other locations thrive because, well, year while sorting through how to re- “the kindness thing, it’s still huge.” build They are only two of the many Please take the time to go to rd.com/ residents who were able to remain nicest to tell us about one you love close thanks to their neighbors’ self- Thank you! lessness “I’m grateful for little Glen Ellen,” Jill says “The amount of pas- Bruce Kelley, editor-in-chief sionate people and grassroots efforts working to keep this place supportive Write to me at letters@rd.com Back on the Kids’ Menu Me: Can I see the dessert menu, please? Waiter: No Not before you finish your vegetables @nroutehq (yaron melman) rd.com Reader ’s Digest n search of some kind of closure, the following September, Garrett and I revisit the bridge where I was bitten This time we’re joined by Robert Hansen, who edits the journal Herpetological Review, and Rob Grasso, a Yosemite park ecologist We find the pair, dressed in safari gear, flipping over rocks and logs with a rake Garrett and I strap on protective Kevlar chaps, as though we’re preparing to disarm a car bomb Hansen rolls his eyes when he sees us “They don’t want to bite you,” he says, then wades deeper into the oak trees, where he thinks he has heard the high-pitched zzzt of a baby snake’s rattle We’re here because the snakebite did more than scar my ankle I feel I fine physically but have been consumed with an unfamiliar sense of vulnerability To be snakebit also means to experience a period of bad luck, which is what I’ve lived through since the ordeal Shortly afterward, our dog Mud got hit by a car He survived, but weeks later we had to put down our other dog, 13-year-old Lucy A friend sustained a severe concussion while we were biking Another broke his neck skiing Yet another lost his dad to a stroke Plenty of good happened too That I lived comes to mind Waking up to Bridger every day My parents bought a house near our home in Los Alamos to be closer to us But I felt broken Fear was no longer My family kept me company in the hospital, camping out in the parking lot every night and cheering my incremental progress with me as I recovered DAYS LATER 108 april 2019 Drama in Real Life thrilling—just scary and everywhere At night, I’d grab Turin in my sleep because, I insisted, she was falling and I needed to catch her I struggled to walk in the woods without seeing something slither “Maybe you just see the world like the rest of us always have,” one friend suggested Maybe, but I miss my old optimism Instead I feel sad, grateful, dazed I want to know whether I did something wrong to deserve my fate Maybe I violated some rule of nature unknown to me Maybe the bridge would reveal answers only the herpetologists can interpret Rattlesnakes, Hansen tells me, emerge in spring hungry, spend their summer hunting, and head back to the same den in the fall to breed Hansen and Grasso suspect that I was bitten after stumbling onto a den during spring emergence Finally we reach the bridge, the exact spot where I was struck I’d always thought of rattlesnakes as the gentleman’s viper—considerate enough to warn you before they bite Mine never rattled I ask Grasso why, and he says he’s not sure Because the creek had been flooded at the time, he posits, the snake’s senses might have been overwhelmed by tremors of rushing water shaking the bridge It was probably hunting and unaware of me until I stepped into its field of vision and boom! “I’m surprised you lived,” Grasso I was thrilled to be out of the hospital My leg was still black and yellow and badly swollen I needed help to walk But I was alive! DAYS LATER says Which I hear as “You’re lucky to be here.” “That ledge there, that’s my best guess,” Hansen says, pointing to a shadowy overhang located about 30 feet up a slab of sloping granite, where he imagines the den might be Garrett turns to me “Want to check?” “Yeah,” I say, trying to sound bold When we reach the ledge, I peer into a dark crack and see a mouse skitter across the base of the opening, but no snakes And I feel very lucky indeed outside (june 2018), copyright © 2018 by kyle dickman, outsidemagazine.com rd.com 109 INSPIRATION The True Feeling of SUCCESS A man reexamines his life and discovers some unappreciated moments of joy By Michael Graff from charlotte magazine I was having coffee this morning with a dear friend who’s going through a difficult time at work In one of those moments that make you wonder who’s winding the clock of life, my phone buzzed while we were sitting there It was an e-mail from my old friend Ryan, and all I saw was the subject line: “Success.” 110 april 2019 | rd.com illustration by Shout Reader ’s Digest Reader ’s Digest Some 17 years ago, Ryan and I were sportswriters at “competing” small newspapers in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley We had about a half dozen high schools, a Division III university, and a summer baseball league in our coverage area In that lava-hot turf war, we somehow became friends We’ve kept in touch, but it’d been a few months since we’d talked when this curiously timed e-mail arrived He said he was preparing a speech for the next week He’s now a project manager for a research firm near Washington, and the speech he was going to give was titled “How Do You Define Success?” I’ve contributed to a publication called Success, so he turned the question to me: “How you define success?” I thought of my coffee conversation and typed this: Hey, man, Good to hear from you again And good timing Your e-mail came in just as I was chatting with another friend, who’s going through one of those rough spells at work I wish I had better advice What a broad question! You know, after I left the Shenandoah Valley, my next job was in Rocky Mount, North Carolina I made $22,500 a year—and this was 2005, not a generation ago The two other sportswriters on staff, Travis and Jeff, were in their mid-20s too Honestly, we’d come to Rocky Mount to leave Rocky Mount We 112 april 2019 MAYBE SUCCESS ISN’T MEASURED IN ACHIEVEMENTS OR “BEING HAPPY WITH WHO YOU ARE.” spent our time talking about what life must be like at a “real” newspaper We griped about our shop and drooled over the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer What resources they had! Writers who covered only one team and didn’t have to lay out pages or proofread box scores Talk about living the dream If we could just get to one of those places! Then we could go somewhere else! Travis, Jeff, and I bonded over our desire to part ways We ate dinner together, went out to cover our games, and came back to help send the final pages to the printer by our 1:30 a.m deadline On the best nights, we’d grab the news editors and copy editors and play Wiffle ball in the parking lot until a.m., laughing and joking until almost sunrise Inspiration We all left there within a year, as intended Travis eventually landed a big-time job covering the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he now has a New York Times bestselling sports book about baseball Jeff became one of the most well-known NASCAR writers in the country, with almost 200,000 Twitter followers Now he’s got his own media company that’s doing quite well In 2017, Jeff and I went to a Charlotte Knights game, and he said something about Rocky Mount that I won’t forget “I didn’t appreciate it then, but honestly, when I look back, it’s probably the best time I’ve ever had in my career.” What is success? Buddy, I don’t know On those late nights, it was making good contact on Travis’s curveball Now it’s running a tenth of a mile farther than I did last week Or the sound of a storm door latching shut after I install it myself Or the morning Laura said yes More than a year ago, I wrote a story and no readers yelled at me about it, which these days is a success But nobody said anything nice either, so is it a failure? I don’t know College students ask me for advice every now and then, if you can believe it Maybe that’s success But last night an editor at a publication I’ve been dying to write for replied to a pitch with the murderous words “This just isn’t the right fit for us,” and I scanned job boards for a new line of work Maybe it’s beyond work, though In June 2018, my dad visited and made it the whole weekend without falling while transferring to his wheelchair That’s a victory To another person, though, success might be a senior discount on McDonald’s coffee, or a night sleeping on a bench without getting wet, or the last meeting with a parole officer You get the point Maybe success isn’t measured in achievements, or “being happy with who you are,” or any of the clichés in self-help books on this matter Goals and personal peace are selfish markers, and I don’t mean to imply selfishness is a bad thing, not at all Selfishness is the axis of humankind, from cavemen to astronauts to saints on earth Individual accomplishments bring community accomplishments bring worldwide accomplishments But all of the accomplishments in the universe may not leave you feeling successful, right? I’m rambling here, I know But the point is, maybe success is a smaller calculation, something more like what Jeff hinted at Maybe success is having the wherewithal to be grateful at the precise moment you have something to be grateful for Thank you for writing, old friend Mike charlotte magazine (july 3, 2018), copyright © 2018 by michael graff, charlottemagazine.com What RD readers consider signs of success? Turn the page to find out rd.com 113 Reader ’s Digest Inspiration FROM OUR READERS: How Do You Define Success? Going to bed with a clear conscience, knowing I’ve been kind to all in the past 24 hours —Yvonne Bodnar dorr, michigan +++ If you’re a student who aced an exam after studying for it, your hard work made a success for you A day without drinking as a person in recovery is a success As a parent, watching your children thrive can be a success Success is relative to whatever may be at hand —Melissa Everett Berger fort worth, texas +++ When you’ve achieved inner peace despite life’s hardships and imperfections —Nafia Tariq ferndale, washington +++ Paying all your bills on time —Janie Archer griffin, georgia +++ When a student comes in at the beginning of the year saying “I can’t” and leaves in the spring doing the “I can” like he’s been doing it all his life —Judy Cheek wheelersburg, ohio +++ In the words attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, “[Success is] to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.” THAT is success to me! —Trisha Gonsalez jacksonville, florida 114 april 2019 | rd.com Using your God-given gifts to their full potential to enrich the world Some can cook a perfect pot roast, some can sing songs that bring tears to your eyes, and others can build beautiful tables All valuable, all blessings, and all examples of being successful at spreading your own unique type of joy in this world —Alicia Webster ennis, texas +++ Retiring early —Fausto Pestana pembroke pines, florida +++ The most successful people I know are those who are called “friend” by all who know them because they are loving, kind, supportive, and generous with their time and talents —Rebecca Friedrichs west des moines, iowa +++ Completing one thing each day that will be a help or a blessing to another —Jerry Reece wichita, kansas +++ Success is sometimes defined in wealth, but it’s more about character Those who are most successful live happy lives and have happy relationships I am envious of those who can say they never said a bad word about anyone—people whom everybody likes and admires —Karen Walla gilbertsville, pennsylvania ADVERTISEMENT CONNECTIONS: Your link to values and insights each month Look for it on Blu-ray™ and Digital TM & © DC Comics © 2018 WBEI Chronic Neck or Back Pain? See how a less than 1-inch incision can give you relief Visit LaserSpineInsitute.com to find out if you’re a candidate for our minimally invasive procedures THE GENIUS BRAIN NEW TRICKS Exercising these four talents is a good reminder that, even on a bad day, your built-in computer is awfully powerful By Eric Haseltine from psychologytoday.com 116 april 2019 Reader ’s Digest T he average person’s brain contains 86 billion neurons and trillions of synapses All those brain cells mean your mind can so much more than you think—such as these seemingly impossible feats the noun project (icons) Memorize Anything Say I asked you to memorize this list of ten words: ladybug, comb, oatmeal, lawyer, coal, stamp, knife, worm, bell, lettuce You’d normally have to repeat them in your head many times before you achieved 100 percent recall Even after accomplishing the tiring feat, a few hours later, you’d probably remember only two to three words from the beginning and end of the list That’s because of what cognitive psychologists call the primacy and recency effects: Information at the beginning and end of a series interferes with recall of information in the middle of a series This difficulty stems from the limitations of our verbal memory; the linguistic portion of our brains, where we store arbitrary lists of words, has limited storage However, our visual brains have vastly more storage than our linguistic brains Thus, when you store information visually, as opposed to linguistically, you can recall it much better And that’s the secret to remembering the ten words above Instead of repeating the words in Photographs by Matthew Cohen your head, convert them to images— and not just any images, but extremely vivid pictures Then visualize your house and mentally place the image of each object on the list in a different room or distinct location, such as a closet, within the house For instance, place a very large ladybug—say three feet in diameter to make it really vivid—where the welcome mat would lie by the front door Then deposit a large orange comb on the floor just inside the front door Continue to place each successive object on the list throughout your house, preferably in the order you would take someone on a guided tour When you’re done, take another stroll through your home and “see” the objects you’ve left in different places You should have no trouble visualizing each and every object— and thus, each and every word You can use this same trick to memorize strings of numbers, letters, symbols, or anything else Just convert what you’re memorizing into something meaningful; for example, the number might be represented by an image of you and your spouse Move Things with Your Mind Tie a two- or three-foot piece of string (or dental floss) through the handle of a coffee cup and dangle the cup in front of you, keeping it as still as you can Then, using only your mind, will the cup to sway forward rd.com 117 Reader ’s Digest and back After 20 to 30 seconds, you will see the cup start to move forward and back Then, again using only your mind, order the cup to stop Repeat the exercise, this time willing the cup to sway left and right like a pendulum No, you can’t literally move things with your mind But this experiment— which feels eerily like telekinesis— proves that your unconscious exerts extraordinary control over your muscles, causing them to contract in subtle ways that produce tiny but precise motions that move the cup Although you probably weren’t aware of which muscles you contracted to cause the cup to sway, your body knew what to through a process called implicit memory, in which your brain files away enormous amounts of information unconsciously, such as which muscle groups will cause which kinds of subtle motions Perhaps such unconscious movements are what gave rise to the concept of telekinesis in the first place Navigate in the Dark Bats navigate in the dark by listening for the returning sound they create from ultrasonic clicks, chirps, and tones We all have an inner bat that can also echolocate Find a long stick or pole with a hard tip (metal is ideal) and a friend to spot you, then go to an uncarpeted area of your house Close your eyes and tap the stick in front of you, as blind people Observe that you can get 118 april 2019 WE HAVE AN UNCONSCIOUS ABILITY TO SENSE SOMEONE IS BEHIND US a rough sense of the presence of large nearby objects, and even their distance, just by listening to the clicks If you’re like most sighted people who this for the first time, you will just “know” when you are getting close to a wall or a large object without knowing exactly how you know This “knowing without knowing how” is another example of implicit memory But if you listen carefully to the clicks of your stick, you’ll start to notice that a click made from tapping the The Genius Section floor a few feet from a wall has a hollow quality because of slight echoes that immediately follow the original click of contact The echoes from the stick tapping the floor follow too quickly to distinguish as distinct replicas of the original click, but they add slightly to the original click sound nonetheless If you tap the stick closer to the wall (within a few inches), the click will have a somewhat higher pitch Some people report that clicks right next to the wall sound “deader” because they contain fewer echoes and overtones See Behind You Sound shadowing is a close cousin of echolocation It lets you sense when someone—or a large something, such as a predator—is right behind you, even when that someone (or something) makes no sound Stand with your eyes closed on a carpeted surface (or another sounddeadening surface, such as grass or beach sand), and have a friend sneak up behind you so that you don’t hear his or her footsteps, breathing, or clothes rustling The experiment works best when you have a conspicuous sound source, such as a radio, located about ten feet behind you to create background noise As your friend approaches from behind, even though you can’t see or hear him or her directly, you should be able to “feel” the person’s proximity by the sound shadow that he or she casts—the way the person blocks the sound If you pay close attention to the sound shadow, you’ll perceive it has two parts: a slight lowering of volume and a deadening of echoes of the radio noise off surfaces behind you These two effects become increasingly obvious as the person gets closer to you Our unconscious ability to sense that someone is behind us may have given rise to that overworked phrase in thrillers and mysteries: “She felt someone watching her.” Although the perception of sound shadows, like echolocation, is yet another example of implicit memory, it may also have a hardwired survival component that helps us fill in a large blind spot behind us that predatory animals (and nasty humans) could otherwise exploit psychologytoday.com (june 2018), copyright © 2018 by eric haseltine Mazel Tov! I’d like to think that halfway through Nicole Kidman’s last name, there’s a tiny bar mitzvah @justinshanes rd.com 119 Reader ’s Digest BRAIN GAMES Word Sudoku medium Complete the grid so that each row, each column, and each threeby-three frame contains the nine letters from the black box below A hidden nine-letter word is in the diagonal from top left to bottom right (It may contain repeated letters.) J P H M I T J P M I E H P I H J L E I G T M G I T G G P L EGHIJLMPT E J L H E G I T J E P P H J H L E easy Erik bought some identical brass buttons for a jacket, each for the same price It just so happens that if you add two to the number of buttons he bought, you get the price of each button in cents If he spent a total of $4.83, how many buttons did he buy? 120 april 2019 buttons: marcel danesi Buttons The Genius Section School Supplies medium You need to acquire at least six pencils, six pens, and six erasers for $5.20 or less If the packages listed below are the only combinations that are available, which you take? You can buy more than one of the same package A Two erasers for 70 cents B Four pencils, one pen, and two erasers for $1.30 C Three pencils, four pens, and three erasers for $3.20 D One pencil, three pens, and two erasers for $1.90 E One pencil and five pens for $2.30 Three-in-One easy Using all the letters listed below only once, can you find the names of three spices? school supplies: darren rigby a-to-k fit-in: fraser simpson aaaccdegimmmmnnnnoortu A-to-K Fit-In I G B D A difficult Insert the letters A to K, one per square, so that no two letters in consecutive alphabetical order touch, not even at a corner Five letters have been placed to get you started For more Brain Games, go to games.rd.com For answers, turn to page 127 rd.com 121 ADVERTISEMENT Family Vacations Visit Anchorage, Alaska Canadian River Cruising Experience the natural beauty and rich history of Canada’s rivers aboard an intimate and nostalgic replica steamboat Travel safely and comfortably on calm waters for 4, 5, 6, nights Surrounded by spectacular natural spaces, wildlife and glaciers, and filled with urban appeals, Anchorage is the best of Alaska, all in one place Visit StLawrenceCruiseLines.com or call 1.800.267.7868 VisitAnchorage.net Don’t take the same old journey Be somewhere genuine Be somewhere amazing Be changed playanydaygetawaycation 800.828.4244 Call for your complimentary Getaway Guide visithendersonvillenc.org For More Information Visit RD.COM/TRAVELTIPS ... publish one in a print edition of Reader’s Digest, we’ll pay you $100 To submit humor items, visit rd.com/submit, or write to us at Jokes, 44 South Broadway, 7th Floor, White Plains, NY 10601 We’ll... because its head is white, not bald —Ellen voie Waupaca, Wisconsin april 2019 As a volunteer Chicago Greeter, I take visitors on walking tours to show off our great city I try to give them tidbits... waiting to read how everyone thinks the bald eagle got its name from the appearance of being bald due to its white head In fact, the Celtic word bal means “white patch.” The bald eagle got its