December 19, 2011; Source: Pioneer Press | In the Twin Cities area, someone has been slipping $1,000 at a time into Salvation Army kettles. It has happened six times at different locations, and the bell ringers are assuming that it is the same person doing it each time, because in each case the bills have been carefully folded into quarters. Another donor dropped in a cashier’s check for $23,000. Still, the campaign is less than halfway to its $11.4 million goal this year.

And in a related first-person story, as I rode up the escalator at Penn Station last week I heard strains of the electric slide above me. Emerging onto the street I saw two young men in their late teens doing the dance to attract people to the kettles. Way to go in mixing that image up a little.—Ruth McCambridge