Lost and found

David Zucchino (Los Angeles Times): Charlotte, N.C. — Tom Elliott spoke first. For days, he had been debating what to say when he finally met the mother of the man whose death had saved his life.

Elliott, 63, had once been tethered to an oxygen tank, too weak to walk to his mailbox, as a result of lung and pulmonary diseases. Now, as he stood stiffly in a hospital conference room this month, Elliott squeezed the hand of Carolyn Glaspy.

"I'm the lung recipient," he said finally.

Glaspy fought back tears. At the same Charlotte hospital 11 months earlier, her son, NFL wide receiver Chris Henry, 26, had been declared brain dead after being thrown from the back of a pickup.

-eddie

Classics

Ashley Powers (Los Angeles Times): Las Vegas — Jeanette White gripped five quarters with dirt-stained fingers and plopped them into a boxy video-poker machine named Fortune 1: Clang! Clang! Clangclangclang!

The machine's glowing screen, with graphics evoking the antique arcade game Pong, wished her "GOOD LUCK." She pressed some buttons - tap, tap - and ended up with a pair of eights and another of kings.

She was rewarded with the satisfying sound of a win: Clinkclinkclinkclinkclinkclinkclink!

The Eastside Cannery, a hotel-casino east of the Las Vegas Strip, has earned White's loyalty - and a notable amount of publicity - by recently dedicating part of its gaming floor to classic slots - those that actually use coins.

Maybe 15 percent of U.S. casinos, mostly in older and smaller markets, still offer the throwback games, according to the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers.

The Cannery's 50 poker, keno and reel-spinning machines belch nickels and quarters. They also personify a fading era, a Vegas of glittery showgirls, smoky gambling halls and 99-cent shrimp cocktails.

Now shrimp are pricier, and showgirls rare.

-eddie

You, the butcher

Ariel Kaminer (The New York Times): She was a beautiful bird, a Bourbon Red turkey whose rich brown feathers were flecked with white, and she had spent her days roaming free around an organic farm that overlooked the Hudson River. But as I stood watching her, she did not seem happy. Instead, with her almond eyes downcast, her subdued manner suggested a kind of forbearance.

Perhaps she sensed I was not there to make friends. In truth, I was there to kill her.

-eddie

A tragic ending

The Columbus Dispatch: A procession of three white hearses traversed rural roads to a wildlife area yesterday, signaling a somber and startling end to a desperate search that had consumed Knox County for a week.

Encased in garbage bags, the bodies of a mother, her 11-year-old son and a family friend were pulled from the bottom of a hollow tree in a forested section of the Kokosing Lake Wildlife Area north of Fredericktown.

-eddie

In one moment

Elizabeth Rubin (The New York Times): Three years and three weeks ago. Dusk was falling fast on the Korengal Valley. We were crouched on a shrub-laden plateau some 8,000 feet up in the mountains. The soldiers were exhausted and cold. We’d been sleeping in ditches for five nights. Insurgents were everywhere.

We could hear those insurgents on the radios saying things like: “They are all the way on the end at the top sitting there.” Pfc. Michael Cunningham, a deadpan Texan, said, “That is so us.”

Actually, it was much of Battle Company of the 173d Airborne Brigade, which was spread across the mountains — First Platoon around Honcho Hill, watching over Second Platoon in a village below called Landigal. And the Taliban were itching to hit us again.

-eddie

Target slips away

Richard Rueslas (Arizona Republic): As a dog in war-torn Afghanistan, Target survived an explosion set off by a suicide bomber she had fought off, potentially saving dozens of soldiers' lives. But Target could not survive her time in the care of Pinal County's Animal Control division.

Target, brought to the San Tan Valley area southeast of Phoenix by a soldier who befriended her in Afghanistan, was accidentally euthanized Monday morning.

-eddie

More Mayo

Rick Bragg (Gourmet): I always wondered where the magic came from.

It being my mother’s mashed potato recipe, I just assumed it was love.

I have had them in a thousand meat-and-threes, spooned out by ladies in hair nets and orthopedic shoes, and in a thousand perfect bistros, dusted with parsley or parmesan.

None were as good as hers, conjured in her battered pot in the pines of Alabama.

I asked her secret.

“Just butter, milk, salt and pepper,” she lied.

-eddie

Memento

Lane DeGregory (St. Petersburg Times): PINELLAS PARK — It was still dark when Robin Goddard pulled into the Lowe's parking lot. Still raining.

She cut the engine in front of the garden center. Squinted through her windshield at the sooty sky.

It hadn't rained in weeks. Why did the downpour have to come today, of all days?

But by the time Goddard got her videocamera ready, by the time her mom, daughter, granddaughter and the rest of the entourage showed up, the first rays of dawn streamed through the dark clouds.

The rain stopped.

"What did I tell you?" asked Goddard's boyfriend, beaming. He lugged his demolition saw past her, set it on the curb. A worker from Lowe's walked out and shook his hand.

"You ready to do this?" asked Carl Sass, who oversees the store's maintenance. "You sure this will work?"

Goddard's boyfriend nodded. She turned on her camera.

Everyone crowded around the curb.

In the curved corner of the far end, in faded paint, was the perfect print of a tiny hand.

-eddie

The Loser

Dan Barry (The New York Times): MOOSIC, Pa. — The epic song of the sports bar’s television chorus, of glorious Republican conquest and crushing Democratic defeat, was helping those gathered for an election night victory party to prepare for its awkward opposite. Then came word that the guest of honor was about to arrive.

“Start cheering when he comes in,” a woman in charge said. With smiles wide, the would-be celebrators applauded the white-haired Democrat as he entered, and trailed after him as he made his way to a lectern bathed in the hot, harsh lights of impatient cameras.

It took a moment. But finally, Paul E. Kanjorski, 73, the dean of Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation, who, for a quarter-century, has represented Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and the towns and hollows beyond, said the words that instantly signaled concession to his Republican opponent, Lou Barletta:

“About 15 minutes ago...”

-eddie