Steven Hansen
Childhood Heroes? Best Day Ever? Record those Family Stories
Unlike weddings and funerals, Thanksgiving is the one occasion each year solely designed to bring family and friends together for the...
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Steven Hansen
Oct 92 min read
700+ Neighbors Nosh, Connect at City’s Longest Table
A potluck lunch was held in Chelsea last Sunday and 700 or so neighbors showed up! It was the third annual “Longest Table” party in New...
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Steven Hansen
Jul 302 min read
The Strangest Radio Station in the World
A red button is blinking on the aerial Google map of Worcester, England, where the image of a large medieval-looking church is located....
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Steven Hansen
Jun 301 min read
Iceland, Maine Most Peaceful Places
The latest Global Peace Index has rated Iceland the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008, followed by...
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Steven Hansen
Apr 2912 min read
Where Could You Live Your Best Life?
There’s a new style of wanderlust afoot these days. A real urge that many people feel to go to new places and have different, meaningful...
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Steven Hansen
Apr 11 min read
Short Film Rates 5 Out of 5 Barks!
“Ollie” (2022) is the feel-good story of a yellow lab caught up in the confusing circumstances of the early days of the Covid-19...
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Steven Hansen
Jan 222 min read
What Are These Strange Beauties?
Stunning white hellebores (Helleborus niger) have been pushing up through the snow in northern climes these past few weeks. This is not a...
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Steven Hansen
Dec 21, 20233 min read
A Quacky Swedish Holiday Tradition
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon of every December 24 for the past 64 years, seemingly everybody in Sweden drops whatever they are doing,...
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Steven Hansen
Nov 20, 20231 min read
A Stunning Documentary About Love and Music
In a world where everything is disposable, four dedicated artisans toil away every day to keep 80,000 well-used, public school musical...
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Steven Hansen
Oct 22, 20235 min read
What’s On the Menu? 165 Years of Dining Out
A weary traveling salesman who found himself disembarking the New Haven train at Grand Central Terminal in the late afternoon of...
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Steven Hansen
Oct 10, 20232 min read
Everyone Has a Story to Tell
“I want to find out what makes people live the way they do and I want to share that with everyone so that we may all learn and grow from...
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Steven Hansen
Sep 25, 20234 min read
What Can You Do Better than Anyone Else?
Everyone has a gift. Something they can do better than anybody else they know. Whether it’s an inborn talent like being able to read a...
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Steven Hansen
Sep 10, 20232 min read
‘This Makes Me Cry for Joy…!’
“I feel like this is the best page on Instagram hands down!” “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” If you feel like joy-scrolling for a few...
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Steven Hansen
Aug 7, 20234 min read
Up in the Sky! Look! It’s Supertalls!
New so-called “supertall” skyscrapers are springing up around the world, redefining the skylines of major cities and challenging the...
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Steven Hansen
Jun 23, 20232 min read
Meet the Green Lady of Brooklyn
Summer has risen over New York City gently, gliding on the wings of a delicate springtime. Temps have been mercifully mild. Blue skies...
488 views1 comment
Steven Hansen
Jun 6, 20232 min read
Mystery Solved! The Case of the Gorgeous Medical Bills
“I like to make people happy,” says Emily Margolis. Even complete strangers, apparently. A few years ago, Melody Morrow of New York City...
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Steven Hansen
Mar 20, 20232 min read
World's Happiest Place to Live 2023: Finland
Finland has been named the happiest country in the world for six years in a row – 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. That honor was...
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Steven Hansen
Mar 5, 20232 min read
This Town Has the Best Water in the World in 2023
The finest tap water in the world comes from a place in Canada named – appropriately – Clearbrook. That neighborhood of Abbotsford,...
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Steven Hansen
Jan 18, 20237 min read
Best-of-the-Best Pizzerias in the U.S. 2023
Napoletano Gennaro Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in the U.S., on Spring Street in New York City’s Little Italy in 1905 -- and it's...
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Steven Hansen
Dec 24, 20224 min read
'Our Best Christmas ever...'
Our daughter was a 2-month-old baby and had recently come home from the hospital that Christmas. My husband and I had a lot of hospital...
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Steven Hansen
Dec 8, 20224 min read
Tucker Grant: Merchant of Joy
Before we’ve even finished clearing the table and packing up the Thanksgiving leftovers, the Christmas tree sellers are putting the final...
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Steven Hansen
Nov 14, 20222 min read
Ginkgo “The Living Fossil” Tree
City folks, especially in New York and Philadelphia are quite familiar with ginkgo trees, not only because of their exotic fan-shaped...
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Steven Hansen
Oct 30, 20221 min read
World’s Biggest Jack-O-Lantern Carved on Friday
Got 11 hours? Grab a Starbuck’s Trenta (their largest size at 31 oz.) Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino and sit back to enjoy watching the video...
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Steven Hansen
Aug 4, 20223 min read
The Remotest Island in the World
Next time you feel like really getting away from it all, why not sail on down to Tristan da Cunha? It’s the remotest inhabited island on...
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Steven Hansen
May 29, 20228 min read
“Recalculating… Enjoy Your Trip!”
Thank ye tech gods for inventing GPS, and the Google Maps lady whose calm and confident navigation gets us where we need to go!...
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Steven Hansen
Apr 28, 20228 min read
Great Passageways
We are always moving. Crossing passageways from point A to point B, beginning to end, winter to spring, border to border, good to bad,...
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Steven Hansen
Mar 12, 20221 min read
7 Minutes of Joy: Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary
One of the most amazing natural wonders of the world is the annual migration of the beautiful orange and black Monarch butterfly (Danaus...
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Steven Hansen
Feb 23, 20222 min read
World’s Booklovers Open 125,000 Miniature Libraries
Traverse City, MI Small town ideas sometimes turn into stunning worldwide movements. Long before the popular tiny house trend, were the...
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Steven Hansen
Jan 19, 20222 min read
Really Underground Book Reviews
Any book that can hold the attention of a New Yorker riding a jam-packed subway car that's screeching and lurching through the bowels of...
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HA Staff
Dec 8, 20212 min read
Heart to Heart Stories: A Real Secret Santa Delivers
Not enough years ago, I was sitting outside my second story apartment on the stairs outside my door. It was late on Christmas Eve. My son...
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Steven Hansen
Dec 1, 20213 min read
Gather Around the Storytelling Radio
One big lesson we learned early on in the pandemic was how much we missed being together with other humans in those everyday social...
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Steven Hansen
Oct 25, 20212 min read
Caution: Buying Art May Be Addictive
For less than the price of a pack of cig’s, you can own an original painting by a noted artist. Or a piece of handmade jewelry, a...
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Steven Hansen
Sep 9, 20211 min read
A New Ritual is Born in Denmark
The stunning new public library building in Aarhus, Denmark, seems to float above the shining sea of the city’s revitalized waterfront....
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Steven Hansen
Sep 6, 20213 min read
142 Days on the Appalachian Trail
In early spring of 2018, St. Louis-area business attorney Evan Schaeffer decided it was time to go outside and take a walk in the woods –...
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Steven Hansen
Aug 16, 20211 min read
Banksy’s Summer 'Spraycation'
Sure, he’s subversive, political, and anti-art-establishment, but England’s mysterious and often-maddening street artist Banksy can sure...
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Steven Hansen
Aug 9, 20211 min read
8 Minutes of Joy: Firefly Sanctuary
Follow adventure traveler Mike Corey into the Magic Forest near Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala, Mexico, to see one of the most amazing sights of...
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Steven Hansen
Jul 12, 20211 min read
Concrete Zen Moments
When you see a fire hydrant or mailbox or trash can magically highlighted by waves of concentric painted ripples, you do take notice --...
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Steven Hansen
Jun 30, 20213 min read
Old School Cool
Maybe you think about it once a year – that first blistering day in June that catches you off guard, before you’ve put the AC units back...
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Deena Ebbert
Jun 22, 20211 min read
Heart to Heart Stories: Going Home
Home. You can go back home, no matter what the tropes say. You can have laughs and yummy food and good conversations and hugs. You can...
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Steven Hansen
Jun 9, 20212 min read
There are Nests in These Library Branches!
One thing we’ve learned to appreciate over the past year is the nurturing need to nest. Not just the act of staying safe and healthy at...
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Steven Hansen
Jun 2, 20211 min read
Heart to Heart Stories: A Father's Love
Nate, a high school student in Michigan at the time, sent this letter to FCKH8.com, an activist organization for gay youth, who posted it...
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Steven Hansen
May 19, 20212 min read
The Boy Who Can’t Stop Doodling
“My favorite things to doodle are monsters, aliens and food,” says 11-year-old Joe Whale, aka “The Doodle Boy,” the creative wunderkind...
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Steven Hansen
May 13, 20211 min read
55 Seconds of Joy
When Omarr K. Rambert, a recent UCLA School of Law graduate, found out on January 8 that he had passed the California Bar Exam, he was...
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Steven Hansen
May 11, 20212 min read
Uncorking Messages from the Past
Singer-songwriter Clint Buffington didn’t write Jim Croce’s 1973 hit “Time in a Bottle.” He wasn’t even born yet. But it could easily be...
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Happiness Archive Editor
Apr 30, 20211 min read
Sidewalk Splendor in a Flash
For the past six years, the floral design team of Lewis Miller has installed startlingly beautiful “flower flashes” on street corners,...
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HA Staff
Apr 27, 20211 min read
2:25 Minutes of Joy: Trumpet Giveaway
“To all the youth in New Orleans, Bring me a gun and I’ll give you a trumpet, no questions asked. I’m doing this until I run out of...
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Steven Hansen
Apr 17, 20211 min read
Tim Takes the Reins, Technically
If you don’t know about Tim Tiller, you’ve missed out on one of the few honest-to-goodness treats to come out of an otherwise dark...
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Steven Hansen
Apr 12, 20211 min read
Pink See-Saws at Border Wall Win Design Award
The “Teeter-Totter Wall,” which bridged across the border wall at El Paso, TX, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, for a brief 40 minutes, has won...
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Steven Hansen
Apr 6, 20212 min read
Heart to Heart Stories: A Moment of Comfort
I was on the 15L bus in Denver, Colorado, on my way home from work. The 15L was the East Colfax bus, meaning it didn't serve the fancy,...
51 views1 comment
Steven Hansen
Mar 21, 20211 min read
3 Minutes of Joy: Barn Sanctuary
Dan McKernan quit his job at a tech company in Texas and moved back to the 140-year-old family farm in Michigan to start an animal...
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