Joris Brinckerhoff ‘82 was a new Peace Corps volunteer, hitchhiking along a dusty road in Costa Rica, when a dilapidated land cruiser pulled up beside him and changed the course of his life. . .

On a rainy afternoon in late April, Mary Pat Rowland ‘74 is pulling a tray of pumpkin muffins out of the oven when Jack, 17, and Jacob, 13, come bursting through the door, followed a few minutes later by their younger brothers . . .

It’s hard to know exactly when a puffin chick will be ready to fledge–and nearly impossible to witness–but if you happen to be spending the summer on one of the few uninhabited islands off the coast of Maine where these seabirds nest, . . .

From on board the M/V Thomas Laighton, cutting through the coastal waters near Portsmouth, the rocky islands seem at first an apparition, a thin gray line shimmering under the summer sun. They take shape slowly, rising from the sea, nearly barren, scrubbed clean by the wind. . .

In the middle of a hot night on the outskirts of Baghdad, Sgt. Zack Bazzi rumbles along in an M1114 Humvee. He scans the terrain, studies the shadowy buildings nearest the road, watching for signs of trouble. . .

On a sunny day in mid-July, Will Halby climbs off a bright red bus on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, lugging a full-grown man on his back. Halby looks as if he belongs on a California beach riding the waves. Long-haired, tan and lanky, he wears a rolled bandanna around his forehead just above his shades—the perfect surfer dude. . .

On a small farm in the hills of western Massachusetts, Yukio Dioma bends over a giant cauldron, steam rising and curling around him in a wispy shawl. He is scooping brown rice—340 pounds of it—onto two ten-foot mixing tables, the first step in the traditional art of making miso.

When Christan Elwell met his future wife, Gaella, at a macrobiotic cooking class in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1976, the two could not have imagined that their common love of healthful eating would shape their future. . .