Q: Chuck was thirteen when he came home from the hospital. He came home not because he was getting better but because he wanted to be with people he knew and loved when he died. I came by the house to visit him and his family several times a week during his treatment. On most of my visits, Chuck was very weak. But the last time I saw him alive, he was awake. "I have got something for you." He pulled out a piece of crumpled paper from under his pillow. "I want you to give this to my mom and dad after I die. You'll know when it's right, I guess, won't you?"

"What is it?" I asked. "It's a list of all the fun we had, and all the happy time when we laughed." I almost gasped in great surprise.

"Like what?" I asked quietly, trying to regain my calmness.

"Like the time when Mom, Dad, Chrissie, Linda and me were dressed up as fruits and Dad was driving us to a costume party. Dad was a bunch of grapes and I was an apple, and the others were different things like bananas and pears."

And a policewoman _ for speeding. When the policewoman came up to the car, she looked and started laughing so hard that she could hardly stand up. And we all started laughing and she said, "Where are you all heading -- a salad bar?" Dad said he was sorry to be speeding, but his kids were getting so ripe that they were starting to draw flies. And she laughed till she had to take off her dark glasses and wiped tears from her eyes."

Chuck laughed and so did I. The list was full of laughing and fun. What a wonderful gift, I thought.

1. thirteen
2. to die
3. a piece of crumpled paper
4. a list
5. all the fun he had with his family
6. when they dressed up as fruits
7. speeding
8. she laughed
9. "Where are you all heading -- a salad bar?"
10. because his kids were getting so ripe that they were starting to draw flies

Numbered questions:
1. How old was Chuck when he came home from the hospital?
2. Why did he want to come home?
3. What did he give the person in the story?
4. What was written on the paper?
5. What was on the list?
6. What was one of the times he had fun with his family?
7. Why did his family get pulled over?
8. What was the policewoman's reaction to the costumes?
9. What joke did she tell?
10. Why did his dad say they were speeding?

Q: My mother-in-law, Dorothy, is showing me the red notebook that's almost as precious to her as my husband's baby pictures. Inside the notebook is a list of the books she has read since 2007. For some people waking up in the middle of the night is a terrible thing. But for my mother-in-law, that time is a gift. At 87, she is getting the education she never had by working her way through great literature. She has now read close to 100 books, including every single novel by Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Henry James and Thomas Mann.

My mother-in-law discusses her passion with the enthusiasm of a young girl, although she can also be a very tough critic, writing "VG' for " very good" in the margins next to her favorites. So far, only a handful of books have received the top prize.

Born in Ridgefield, Conn, Dorothy was the youngest daughter of an Italian gardener. She taught herself English by reading The New York Times. Eager to come to Manhattan, she became a nurse, married a dentist and spent the next several decades keeping the house and raising a family. In her later years, she put her nursing skills to good use by taking care of my father-in-law, who had lung cancer. There were many trips to the emergency room in the middle of the night and then a long hospital stay. She stayed awake to watch over him for 15 hours a day. Always a light sleeper, she developed sleeplessness as a result of the stress.

It worsened after he died. Deeply sad and lonely for the first time in her life, she began waking up around 2am. Julian and Sylvia, the elderly couple next door suggest she read literature. And so Julian, a great lover of literature, became her "professor", providing books from his large library. Suddenly

turned onto a world of amazing characters.

1. Ridgefield, Conn
2. The New York Times.
3. Dentist.
4. Nurse.
5. Lung cancer.
6. 15.
7. Yes.
8. Stress.
9. Red.
10. A list of the books she has read since 2007.
11. Close to 100.
12. Yes.
13. VG.
14. No.
15. Around 2am.
16. Julian and Sylvia.
17. Julian.
18. Literature.
19. Yes.
20. Italian.

Numbered questions:
1. Where was Dorothy born?
2. What did she read to learn English?
3. What was the profession of the man she wed?
4. What was her profession at this time?
5. What disease did her father-in-law have?
6. How many hours per day did she attend to him?
7. Did she develop sleeplessness?
8. Why?
9. What was the color of Dorothy's notebook?
10. What's in the notebook?
11. How many books has she read?
12. Has she read ones by Jane Austen?
13. What abbreviation does she use for "very good"?
14. Does she give that rating to a lot of books?
15. After he father-in-law's death, what time did she wake up?
16. What were her neighbor's names?
17. Which one of them gave her books?
18. What did he love?
19. Was he thought of as her professor?
20. Of what nationality was the gardener mentioned?

Q: The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA; 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.) is one of the few dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s, and serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation." The U.S. Supreme Court found that "the plain intent of Congress in enacting" the ESA "was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost." The Act is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

One species in particular received widespread attentionthe whooping crane. The species' historical range extended from central Canada South to Mexico, and from Utah to the Atlantic coast. Unregulated hunting and habitat loss contributed to a steady decline in the whooping crane population until, by 1890, it had disappeared from its primary breeding range in the north central United States. It would be another eight years before the first national law regulating wildlife commerce was signed, and another two years before the first version of the endangered species act was passed. The whooping crane population by 1941 was estimated at about only 16 birds still in the wild.

1. 1973
2. Yes
3. the whooping crane
4. Unregulated hunting
5. habitat loss
6. 1890
7. the north central
8. another eight years
9. another two years
10. about only 16 birds
11. Yes
12. The Endangered Species Act
13. 1973
14. December
15. 28
16. The U.S. Supreme Court
17. Yes
18. the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
19. the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
20. NOAA

Numbered questions:
1. What year was the Endangered Species Act instituted?
2. Were there many laws such as this passed in this time period?
3. What animal received lots of attention?
4. Name something that caused their population to decline?
5. And what else?
6. What year did is vanish from its main range in the U.S.?
7. In what section of the U.S.?
8. How many years passed before first national law concerning regulation of wildlife commerce was instituted?
9. How much additional time before an act concerning endangered species was enacted?
10. What was the number of whooping cranes in the wild in 1941?
11. Did a President enact a certain law associated with endangered species?
12. What was it called?
13. In what year was it made law?
14. What month?
15. What day of the month?
16. What court made a finding about the ESA?
17. Were federal agencies involved in carrying out the act?
18. Name of one of them?
19. And the other?
20. What abbreviation is it known by?