11 Good News Stories: Found Art; Well-Timed, Dr. Oz; Ape Vaccine

ACROSS AMERICA — A good treasure hunt is what we need. But like everything else in this past year of the pandemic — a) it’s been a year? b) it’s only been a year? or c) what is time? — this one has a few twists. It started with the curiosity piqued in a visitor admiring a piece of art by renowned American modernist Jacob Lawrence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

She was viewing Lawrence’s 30-panel work — missing five panels — depicting Shays’ Rebellion, an uprising of struggling farmers in western Massachusetts led by a Revolutionary War veteran.

It seemed familiar, triggering a memory. It looked like a piece of art the visitor had seen hanging on the wall of her elderly neighbors’ apartment. Sure enough, the piece the neighbors had picked up for a song at a charity auction in 1960 was one of the missing panels. It’s now back at The Met alongside 25 other panels.

But the story doesn’t end there.

After reading a story about the missing art on Upper West Side Patch, a nurse took a closer look at a painting that had hung on the dining room wall of her own Upper West Side apartment for about two decades. She turned it over and found a 1986 New York Times profile on Lawrence taped to the back.

This panel, called “Immigrants admitted from all countries: 1820 to 1840” and gift from the woman’s mother, had special meaning. The woman in her late 40s had immigrated to New York from Ukraine at age 18.

Now, there are only three missing panels in the Lawrence series. The nurse lent hers to The Met for a national tour of the exhibit. By Gus Saltonstall for Upper West Side Patch.

Below are 10 more stories from Patch editors across America about some other community treasures.

No Filmmaker Left Behind

Cynthia Dieckmann, who heads the video production department at West Chester East High School in Pennsylvania, has made that her motto during the pandemic. She worried the pandemic would make competitive filmmaking impossible this year because students learning from home don’t have high-quality video production equipment sitting around their home. So Dieckmann spent the winter coordinating access to the school’s equipment with families, making door-to-door equipment deliveries and teaching her students virtually. The students appreciate the extra effort, and their teacher is looking forward to seeing their entries at the Southeast Pennsylvania Teen Filmmakers Showcase. By Marlene Lang for West Chester Patch

Dr. Oz Saves A Life, And Not On TV

It just so happened that Dr. Mehmet Oz — yes, the television celebrity Dr. Oz — was passing by to claim his luggage at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey when he saw a crowd gathering around a man who had fallen to the floor. The man wasn’t breathing, and he didn’t have a pulse. A Port Authority officer rushed to his side and began CPR. Oz jumped in to offer assistance, tweeting later that “as a physician and a human being, it’s our responsibility to jump in when there’s a medical emergency” and calling on his followers to learn the CPR technique. By Eric Kiefer for Newark Patch

“I Before E …” Saved Her

Bradenton, Florida, seventh grader Michelle Lupescu acknowledges she’s “a pretty good speller,” even though she gets tripped up on the “I before E except after C” rule. She focused her study efforts on those problematic words ahead of the Florida State Council of the Knights of Columbus Spelling Bee state finals last month. It’s a good thing she did. The word that won her the state spelling title: “hygienic.” By Tiffany Razzano for Bradenton Patch

What They Did So They Can Say They Do

Joy Morrow-Nulton and John Shults are both 94. The Kingston, New York, couple fell in love during the pandemic and got engaged, but one thing — actually two things, or four things, depending on how you figure the math — stood in their way: They wanted their two-dose coronavirus vaccinations to be in their arms before they put rings on each other’s fingers. Both are now fully inoculated against COVID-19, and they’re planning a wedding later this month or in April. By Megan VerHelst for Across New York Patch

Why She’s Happy Mopping Floors

The COVID-19 lockdown separated Lisa Racine and her father, a resident of a Stillwater, Minnesota, care center. Then she went job hunting. A project manager for a printing company, she took a part-time housekeeping job mopping floors and scraping plates at the care center. It lacks glamour and prestige, but the reward is priceless — time with her dad. By Beth Dalbey for Stillwater Patch

Twitter Taste Bud Ticklers

The Godmother of sandwiches — an Italian classic pick from iconic Bay Cities Deli in Santa Monica, California, is getting some extra attention — and appetites. It's all thanks to a recent tweet thread shared by more than 125,000 people from Jonathan Kramer, who shared his picks for the tastiest sandwiches in Los Angeles priced at $10. The results? Super funny. Kramer loves The Godmother, but he also dished out advice like this: “If you live with someone, I recommend making sandwiches for each other for lunch, because a sandwich legitimately tastes better when someone else makes it for you.” By Nicole Charky for Santa Monica Patch

Addressing Homeless, Holistically

It was once a Newark, New Jersey, school teeming with students. But soon, it will be a shelter that serves one of the largest populations of people experiencing homelessness in the state. The 24/7 emergency shelter is more than a roof over the heads of some of the nearly 2,000 people struggling with homelessness in pre-pandemic Newark or beds and pillows for them to lay their heads at night. They’ll also be able to pick from a cafeteria of social services to help turn their lives around — among them transportation, counseling and case management, behavioral health services and nutrition services — as well as daily "drop in" center where people can bathe or shower, do laundry and eat a hot meal prepared in an on-site, full commercial kitchen. By Eric Kiefer for Newark Patch

1 Million Reasons To Laugh — Or Maybe Cry

Shanya Robinson-Owens, a 17-year-old senior at George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science, applied for a slew of scholarships to help pay for college. “I didn’t know if I should cry, laugh — I didn’t know what to do,” she confessed after seeing the results: scholarship offers totaling more than $1 million from 18 colleges and universities. By Megan VerHelst for Philadelphia Patch

When Great Apes Get COVID-19

That happened recently at the San Diego Zoo, where a troop of gorillas tested positive for COVID-19, a development that sparked global concern that species of great apes, which are highly susceptible to human respiratory diseases, could see their populations decimated by an infection passed on by humans. An experimental vaccine developed for animals by a veterinary pharmaceutical companies was given to four orangutans and five bonobos while the gorillas convalesce. By Beth Dalbey for San Diego Patch

Safe Harbor For Monarch Butterflies

The flight of the monarch butterfly is one of nature's most awe-inspiring migrations. Unable to survive the harsh winters in most northern climates, they travel as far as 3,000 miles to spend the winters in the mountains of central Mexico. There is plenty of peril along their journey, and if something isn’t done — and soon — these majestic flights will become a relic of the past. John Ostering doesn’t just preach the gospel of reducing the use of pesticides — a top threat to monarch survival — at his organic farm and museum; he also lives it. And monarchs have safe harbor because of it. By Eric Kiefer for Montclair Patch

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