One night in early autumn, with the swampy ground of the Nature Preserve papered with fallen leaves, I was hunkered down to examine a dead snake about a foot in length whose color I thought might in life have been green, when, as I stood, I felt something brush the top of my head.

NEWYORKER: Wakefield

The students found a poisonous snake once, but it was already dead.

NEWYORKER: The Sanctuary

"When my parents were my age, their parents were dead and they were having fun white-water rafting down the Snake River and here I sit -- two houses down, " said Jones.

CNN: Caregiver lives rerouted yet enriched by aging parents