Spencer Lee

"On a peaceful Sunday afternoon in June 1961, just months after leaving the presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower was tending his vegetable garden at his Gettysburg farm when he noticed a young couple had gotten their car stuck in the mud on the rural road bordering his property, and without hesitation, this 70-year-old former Supreme Commander grabbed a rope from his barn, trudged through the muck in his overalls, and spent forty-five minutes helping them push their beat-up Chevy back onto solid ground. What makes this moment so beautifully human is that the couple—newlyweds Tom and Susan from Ohio driving cross-country on their honeymoon—had absolutely no idea they were being rescued by the man who'd led the Allied forces to victory and served two terms as President, and Eisenhower never mentioned it, just introduced himself as 'Ike, the farmer next door' and asked about their travels while hauling on the rope with mud splattered all over his work clothes. When they finally got the car free, Eisenhower's wife Mamie appeared with a thermos of lemonade and homemade cookies, inviting this bewildered young couple to sit on their porch and rest, and for an hour they chatted about marriage advice, good fishing spots in Pennsylvania, and the best route to California, with Ike telling stories about his own road trips with Mamie decades earlier. It wasn't until Tom and Susan stopped for gas twenty miles down the road and showed the attendant a photo they'd taken with 'the nice farmer who helped us' that someone gasped and said, 'That's President Eisenhower!'—and the couple nearly fainted realizing they'd just shared lemonade and marriage tips with one of history's greatest leaders who'd treated them like old friends rather than starstruck strangers. Tom later wrote Eisenhower a letter thanking him for the kindness, and Ike responded with a handwritten note: 'The pleasure was all ours—Mamie and I love meeting young people starting their adventures together. Remember: a good marriage is like farming, it takes patience, hard work, and the wisdom to know some days you're just going to get muddy. Stay happy. Your friend, Ike.' What absolutely destroys you is understanding that Eisenhower could've enjoyed celebrity retirement, could've had staff handle every inconvenience, but instead he chose to be simply *Ike*—a neighbor who helped strangers, a farmer who got his hands dirty, a man who measured his worth not by past glory but by present kindness, proving that true greatness is what you do when nobody's watching and nobody knows your name.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio at UFC in Miami tonight as diplomatic negotiations with Iran fail (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AFP via Getty)

Remote learning days in response to weather seems like a bad idea; just have snow days and make it up later as usual.

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One out of four New Yorkers voted against digitizing maps.

Territorial claims in Antarctica