On a hot Sunday in July, Carole Wade took the mic at a Dallas senior living facility where my mom lives. I happened to be visiting for the karaoke event, and the list of residents who couldn’t wait to put their stamps on their favorite tunes was so long, the event had to be extended. ABBA’s “Mamma Mia,” David Lee Roth’s “Just a Gigolo,” you name it, they sang it. When it was Wade’s turn, the microphone was brought to her table. She took it in her hands as though it was an extension of her fingers as the music cued up. Then, as she began to effortlessly sing “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, the room got still. Frozen. All eyes were on her, and most of those eyes were wet. The lyrics, so beautifully fitting: “Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’‘Cause I’ve built my life around you.But time makes you bolder,Even children get older,I’m getting old too.” A man sitting at our table took notice of how emotional I had become. He leaned over to say, “Never stop feeling the music.” I had the honor of chatting with Wade, who at 85, has been singing nearly her whole life. She got started in the business as a backup singer in Elvis impersonator groups in Dallas and surrounding areas. In and out of bands, playing Deep Ellum clubs and local hotels, she shares, “I’ve been singing since I was a small child. I’ve loved music all my life.” View this post on Instagram How her band came together As luck would have it, she was at a jam session when she started harmonizing with other musicians. They would soon form her most recent band, Psychedelic Oatmeal. They officially stopped playing gigs when she was in her 70s, but they remain close. (She notes her bandmates were all much younger.) Carole and her band mates. Photo credit: Carole Wade They covered classic rock tunes from Stevie Nicks, The Eagles, Janis Joplin, and Led Zeppelin. Songs like “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Seven Bridges Road,” and “Whole Lotta Love.” She laughs that most of the men in the band couldn’t hit those Zeppelin high notes made famous by Robert Plant, so she took on the challenge, with great success. They even branded themselves at gigs, making little Ziploc bags of oatmeal and glitter, which they would throw to the audience at shows. That is, until a club owner asked them to stop, as the oatmeal was mixing with spilled drinks, “creating goo.” Rare footage of Psychedelic Oatmeal. Wade makes clear that music is her therapy. “If you’re down on a certain day, it will bring you up.” She has lived a full life, with two grown sons who are both excelling in life. But music, and the friends with whom she makes it, brings her that extra piece of joy and purpose. Why music matters so much for seniors Michael Hatcher, the Resident Services Director at The Reserve at North Dallas (the senior facility in which this event was held), has seen firsthand how music soothes seniors. It reconnects them to their purest selves, no matter how hazy their memories might become. Hatcher shares, “They remember the music, and the time. It’s a vessel for anyone of age. It can be used to bring someone out of the deepest sun-downing and back to life.” A man sings “Just a Gigolo” at The Reserve karaoke day. @cdk213 Senior living karaoke! Fabulous! #seniorlivingcommunity #justagigalo #dallas ♬ original sound – Cecily There is much research to support this. Bannerhealth.com quotes music therapy coordinator Tammy Reiver for Banner Hospice in Phoenix: “Music holds the power to increase dopamine levels (happy hormones), decrease symptoms of depression and pain, and improve a person’s quality of life. Pleasing music plays an important role at every age, but for aging adults, the benefits are even greater.” As for Wade? She jokes that she and a few other musicians at the senior home have plans to start their own band. She certainly has the chops for it, and the fans. This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated. The post 85-year-old woman in senior home brings down the house with Fleetwood Mac ‘Landslide’ cover appeared first on Upworthy.

Bullying is never okay, but it’s arguable that some bullying situations are more egregious than others. So it’s no wonder that when people saw a video of a group of teens making fun of a kid with terminal cancer for wearing a police officer uniform, the reaction was swift disapproval. However, the kid himself responded with a maturity that had his bullies apologizing to him for their behavior. Devarjaye (DJ) Daniel (@devarjaye) is an honorary police officer with hundreds of agencies around the country and wears his uniform proudly. In a video that went viral, a group of teen girls were shown mocking him at a gas station for the way he was dressed. The footage captures the group demeaning Daniel while making mocking expressions, laughing, and making vile comments. They danced around him while he holds his face in his hands, which both DJ and his father called “disturbing,” and even yelled “Arrest us!” with complete disrespect. DJ’s dad, Theodis, was talking to someone at the station when he saw what was going on. He stepped in to intervene, but the father and son chose a more educational response than an aggressive one. Theodis recalled choosing not to act impulsively. “We are used to all the frantic behavior, so it wasn’t anything we aren’t accustomed to. Every time they see him in his uniform, he gets a lot of laughs; some of them may ridicule him and make jokes about him. A lot of times, he doesn’t want me to intervene; he’d rather just do it himself,” he told the Houston Chronicle. View this post on Instagram DJ’s own response said it all DJ, too, chose a more mindful approach, not letting the bullying hurt his feelings. “Really and truly, I’m like a 40-year-old and I don’t have feelings like that,” he told Fox 26. In the video, he made no impulsive moves, choosing to remain calm and silent. Instead, DJ responded by letting the teenagers learn his story. He became a cop to teach people to stand up for themselves and he did just that. DJ and his dad patiently explained to the girls DJ’s cancer diagnosis and his 13 surgeries that have caused his scars. By the time they left the gas station, the girls were treating DJ with respect and even calling him “Officer DJ.” Theodis told the Houston Chronicle that he received a call from an unknown number after the video went viral and Houston community activist Candice Matthews shared DJ’s story on social media. The caller said they were involved in the video and wanted to apologize for their part in it. View this post on Instagram His story didn’t stop there It just goes to show how far a little kindness and education can go. Since the bullying incident, DJ has been honored by even more police precincts. He was invited to be an honorary member of the Secret Service by the president at a joint session of Congress and has been sworn in as an honorary member of other federal law enforcement agencies as well. While some have chosen to bully DJ and his father for political reasons, the father-son duo have continued to focus on DJ’s interest in police work and his ongoing cancer treatment. As this young cancer warrior demonstrates, not letting bullies get to you and focusing on educating them instead of getting back at them can sometimes make a positive difference for everyone involved. This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated. The post Kid with cancer bullied for police uniform gets his teen bullies to apologize appeared first on Upworthy.

Nostalgia is all about remembering how things were in the “gold old days.” But sometimes, upon further reflection, some things really sucked in the past despite how rosy our colored glasses made them look. Boomers and Gen Xers are reminiscing on the things they really don’t miss from the 1980s and 1990s. Over on Reddit, member pizzagamer35 posed the question to Boomers and Gen Xers: “What is something you do NOT miss from the 80s-90s?” Boomers and Gen Xers had plenty of throwback experiences and products they are happy to never come across again. These are 30 of the most nostalgic responses from Boomers and Gen Xers about things they don’t miss about the ’80s and ’90s. Not everything deserves the throwback “Long distance phone bill.” – gohdnuorg “Having to wait until after 7pm or whatever so you could call your long distance friends because it was free after that.” – raz0rbl4d3 “Answering the landline and having no idea who’s calling. Just raw, unfiltered anxiety.” – Fit-Interview-3886 “Not having GPS.” – recrysis “Smoking or non smoking and still be in the smoking section.” – Less-Lengthiness4863 “Using those Noxzema pads to burn and dry out my pimply face. It had a smell, too.” – poizon_elff “Waiting for JPGs to load one line at a time.” – timmayd “Those hair ties with the two giant plastic beads on them that EVERY mom used to tie up their daughter’s hair in pigtails. God forbid she lose her grip on one while she was already ripping your soul out through your scalp.” – Honey-Badger-90 “Third degree burns from metallic seat belt fasteners.” – JLMTIK88 “Not being able to use the internet if someone needed the phone line to be free.” – Joshawott27 These answers cast a wide net “Satanic panic.” – Historical_Spot_4051 “Buying a CD and realizing all the songs suck, except for one, maybe two.” – 11B-E5 “Batteries and flashlight bulbs. Holy crap they were crap. I still remember seeing the little LED light on our shitty car radio and asking dad what kind of light that tiny dot was. He told me it was a diode and diodes kinda ‘last forever’. I immediately wondered why the hell we weren’t developing that tech.” – snoozieboi “Shoulder pads.” – Thin_Apartment_8076 “Ordering pizza by calling the restaurant and yelling your order to a guy in a noisy kitchen. Missing an episode of your favorite TV show (or forgetting to tape it if you had a VCR) and not being able to see it until summer reruns, or maybe never.” – Imaginary-List-4945 “Terrible contact lenses.” – MandatoryMatchmaker “To contribute something small: manual computer defragmentation. It took several hours and you couldn’t do anything else.” – rena-vee “Pay Phones that gave you limited talk time.” – Aggravating-Iron9804 “Gym class. Boys were expected to know how to play sports. My dad taught me how to fix tractors and cut firewood, but he didn’t teach me sports because no one ever taught him. The gym teacher didn’t teach us sh*t. When we f*cked up or didn’t know what to do, the jocks would laugh and the teacher would join in the fun.” – Fluffy-Cupcake9943 “The ‘heroin chic’ body type.” – Heartbreak_Star “Panty hose.” – Kitty-haha “Aqua net=hair that absolutely did not move! And you could see little hairspray bubbles .” – IAmTheBlackStar1979 “Having to rewind VHS tapes like it was a part-time job.” – Repulsive_Corgi_6187 “Waiting by the radio for your song to play so you can record it on tape.” – mycrml “Serial killers. They just can’t exist at the same level anymore. Plus we got all the lead out of stuff. So now people are 100% normal. 100%.” – PrimeNumbersby2 “Manual roll up/down windows in cars.” – Human-Average-2222 “Carpeted bathrooms. someone shared a bunch of pictures of them on some nostalgia account and i could smell the pictures through my phone .” – GoblinHeart1334 “Busy signal on the phone.” – crjconsulting What is something you do NOT miss from the 80s-90s? by inAskReddit Nostalgia has its limits, apparently At the end of the day, it’s easy to romanticize decades we didn’t have to live through the messy parts of, or conveniently forget the parts we did. Aqua Net and busy signals make for good jokes now, but nobody’s actually lining up to relive third-degree seat belt burns or a landline ringing with zero clue who’s on the other end. The ’80s and ’90s gave us plenty worth missing, but this list is proof that some things are exactly where they belong: in the past, and nowhere near a comeback. This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated. The post Boomers and Gen Xers share 28 things they don’t miss from the ’80s and ’90s appeared first on Upworthy.

Sometimes you have to spend money to save money, and people who live a budget-conscious, frugal lifestyle have perfectly mastered how to do it. In a Reddit post, member jul_on_ice posed the question: “What’s one small upgrade (under $50) that saved you more money than you expected?” They continued, “Talking about small wins that compounded over time over one thing that made a drastic difference. Frugality is often about not spending but sometimes investments can pay off. Maybe something that made work easier. Made life better. Made you more comfortable. Or something bought once that replaced lots of things you once had to spend on.” Small purchases, big long-term payoff Fellow frugal people had lots of money saving hacks to share. These are 28 things that frugal people spent less than $50 on that have saved them lots of money. “Vacuum sealer. I’m single and most shopping/recipes are four or five meals for me. Often I would have food waste because I no longer wanted the food after the third meal. Now I cook, have the leftovers I want, and vacuum seal the rest in portions. Keeps the food fresh and saves room in my freezer.” – mercfan3 “Don’t rent the modem/router combo from Comcast. Just buy your own.” – Dove_of_Doves “A couple of incredibly mundane purchases that I should have made years earlier: having extra sets of measuring spoons (~ $3 per set) makes cooking so much easier; a digital cooking thermometer (~ $15); and a tire inflator that plugs into the car’s cigarette lighter ($35) so I can top up the tires at home, rather than trying to find a place with a working air hose. ETA: A french press ($20) and electric kettle ($25). Have used the same french press for more than a decade, and get better tasting coffee without buying filters or K-cups. An electric kettle is surprisingly useful.” – Taggart3629 “$9 3-cup rice cooker.” – CeleronHubbard “Popsicle molds. I live in the desert and we eat so many popsicles. Making them myself has saved money and they’re healthier.” – Adventurous-Fig-5179 “Dropped cable, kept internet only. Pay for separate Netflix and Disney and all total we save $35 a month over the cable bundle. We did not watch 90% of the channels included. Definite win for us.” – GarudaMamie “Adding an over-the-air antenna. Is a great addition to cutting that “cable tv” cord. It is much easier than you think.” –williamtrose367 “We got a renter friendly bidet and it has saved us SO MUCH in toilet paper usage.” – Specific_Wait_8006 “We went with cloth diapers when the kids were little it saved us a bunch and kept a bunch of garbage out of the landfill. Once they were potty trained we were able to sell a lot of them.” – Responsible-Charge27 “Maybe not a quantifiable dollar amount of a change, but I switched my mindset from “Unitaskers are bad” to “Unitaskers are acceptable if they do the 1 thing better than anything else”. Example: Those plastic pulled pork meat claw things are not better than a fork for the task of shredding meat, but a good mandolin slicer is much faster and probably safer overall than a knife, and rice cookers can cook rice exceptionally well, even if that’s all they do.” – Ryutso “Needles and threads. You can fix anything material with small rips or tears. I’ve extended the life of clothes, bags, and kids stuffed animals by years.” – baldbutthairy “I know this sounds crazy, but realizing I could buy more than one of something (e.g. bath mats, reading glasses, chargers, etc.) I had to really work on changing my thinking around this due to past financial challenges.” – SomeTangerine1184 From the kitchen to bed and bath, and beyond “Second hand slow cooker. Money saving meals made from cheap tinned foods: daal, chilli, casserole, soups.” – Ambitious_Ad1844 “Anything like this is usually an inexpensive household repair that I waited too long to do. Replacing loose door handles, fixing a leaky faucet, repairing the drip line from my A/C. Little cheap things that just made my life… better.” – gogomom “My aeropress has been a ridiculously good investment. It’s much more portable than a french press. I have it with me now while I’m travelling and I can access a good cup of coffee using the hotel kettle.” – mrjasong “I am a freezie human and nowhere is that more apparent than on airplanes. So I had this ‘warm fuzzy’ vest for wearing on the plane with a tougher outer fabric and a soft fleecy inner. I paid a seamstress to add an invisible zipper to one of the seams on the inside of the vest and now the gap in between the fleece inner fabric and the tougher outer fabric is what in the 1920s would be called a ‘passthrough pocket’ or modern hunters might call it a ‘game pocket’. But you know what else? It’s now my personal item and I wear it on the plane, Scott-e-Vest style, but cheaper. And now because of that, I can fly more budget airlines because I have less luggage-as-in-bags.” – heinfamousj “The jury is still out, but I recently made the switch to rechargeable AA batteries. I’m optimistic this will save me money as I use AAs in my camera flashes and go through a lot of them. It’s not a purchase, but rather a process that I think is going to help a lot. I put everything on my 2% cash back credit card and pay it off at the end of the month. Recently, to get a better handle on my daily spending, I decided on what my monthly credit card bill goal should be. Divide that number by 30 and I get my daily spending goal. I then created a spreadsheet and track how much I spend each day and have a column with a running total for over/under. It’s motivating to look and see ‘Hey, I’m $XXX under budget so far for the month.’ The daily goal is high enough to account for things like gas in my truck, haircuts and groceries.” – No_Blueberry_8454 “Yearly paper planner. No more missed rendez-vous or deadlines, no more late fees. I tried going digital, but it doesn’t work for my ADHD brain. I just snooze the reminders and forget about it. Until it’s too late. So I went back to paper, and it’s worth the $12-ish per year to me.” – Duck__Holliday “Bought a dead battery Dyson vacuum on Facebook market. Did the Ryobi battery upgrade. Got cheap 8ah Ryobi battery off ebay. Got a cheap Ryobi battery Charger off facebook market. Total all was about $50-60 and it works great.” – antsam9 “Dying my hair at my hairdresser rather than at home. No more stains from the home dye. No wrecked towels, clothing or hair.” – JoyCrazy “If you drink a lot of soda or sparkling water, a Soda Stream can help you save. Just the CO2 canisters comes out to about $0.11 for 12 ounces vs paying about $0.50 per can of store bought soda. What gets you are the syrups… that can bring the price up to $0.40 ish per 12 ounces. So to be extra frugal, you could make your own fruit syrups and skip the store-bought stuff. Make a simple syrup (one part sugar, one part water; boil on the stove) and add lemon or lime or orange juice or whatever… I’m sure there are recipes all over the internet. And boom, homemade La Croix. It’s an investment to start, but saves over time.” – Drooly_Cat_1103 “Somewhat location dependent but if you are in a dry climate like me and rely on humidifiers running 24/7, buy a cheap water distiller on Amazon (I think mine was like $60 but close enough, you might even find one under 50 if you look/wait for a sale). Distilled water gets pricey, but not using distilled water will junk up your humidifier with minerals which is both a bitch to clean and can eventually cause problems with the function. Save yourself the trouble. Also useful for steam cleaners, mixing your own cleaning sprays from concentrates, misting bottles, etc. At least if you have hard water, anything where you are repeatedly putting a lot through a very small line, distilled is preferred to prevent mineral buildup.” –ilanallama85 “I got a Walmart+ membership (got it for $49, it renews at half off the $99 at anniversary). I get free shipping, so when I need something small (like shampoo), I don’t need to run to the store. I’ve used Walmart+ so much more than I ever used Amazon Prime. It costs less, and I find I buy less random crap with Walmart+ than Prime.” – sbinjax A quality purchase over the cheap fix “Three inexpensive manual coffee makers: Bialetti Moka Express pot, Bodum French Press, and V60 pour over. Bought all 3, virtually new, at the thrift shop for under 20 total about 5 years ago. The Bialetti makes an espresso-like cup, the Bodum is rich and strong, and the V60 makes a softer, smoother cup of coffee.” – zeitness “Not sure this will ever meaningfully ‘pay out’ on the investment, but a timer switch for the bathroom fan. I have ADHD and benefit from as many “set it and forget it” items as I can possibly get. Now I can set the fan, have a shower, walk away, and it’ll turn itself off after a decent airing-out, and I don’t end up walking by the bathroom 4 hours later like ‘how long has the fan been on??’ Less electricity used, less wear and tear on the fan, less conditioned air lost. Is it more savings than the amount I spent? Probably not for a long time. But it feels better!” – Kitchen-Owl-7323 “A shutoff valve to go above the shower heads in my kids’ bathroom’s so I can limit the flow. We have high water pressure and my kids universally put the faucets at max flow. I used the valves to cut the flow in half. The water pressure is still great but now they use half the water and the hot water now lasts through all six of our showers. I haven’t calculated the savings but I know we are using much less energy in water heating and much less water.” – nottherealme1220 “A $30.00 pair of very high quality sharp scissors bought at a sewing machine store 20 years ago freed me forever from paying for haircuts. One YouTube video showed me how to trim & maintain – done. My brother bought a clipper set for $20.00 at the same time and does his own cuts. All that money gets plunked into savings!” – VulcanGreeting “i switched from some fancy expensive work boots id been wearing to some 18 dollar shoes with 10 dollar insoles i got at walmart. i added the extra insoles on top of the existing ones for extra comfort. this saved me however how much i would have spent for my foot pain that was nearing bad enough to warrant medical attention. these are seriously the most comfortable shoes i have ever owned, i even wear them outside of work, on hikes, just going out on a wet day. over a year in and the extra insoles might need replaced in a few months but the shoes and their original insoles (the ones on bottom) are holding up perfectly. I’m in a better mood at work now too.” – cccameronnn What’s one small upgrade (under $50) that saved you more money than you expected? byu/jul_on_ice inFrugal The small stuff really does add up At the end of the day, none of these purchases were flashy or expensive, and that’s exactly the point. A $9 rice cooker, a cheap bidet, a set of measuring spoons, these are the kinds of things that are easy to overlook precisely because they’re so unglamorous. But frugal living was never really about deprivation. It’s about noticing where a small, smart purchase quietly saves you money every single day without you having to think about it again. Sometimes the best investment isn’t the big one. It’s the $12 planner or the $18 pair of shoes that just makes everything else a little easier. This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated. The post Frugal people say these under $50 upgrades saved them more money than expected appeared first on Upworthy.

A viral video has been making the rounds lately that shows a giant (and extremely bizarre) ship opening up at its middle and dropping a metric buttload (that’s the official term) of cinderblocks directly into the ocean. The video is fascinating, so much so that I was certain it was AI-generated at first. After all, what kind of ship can part down the middle like that? Turns out, the video is real! The ship is called a split hopper barge and is often used to transport and deliver dredged soil. Dumping concrete like this looks like the world’s worst case of littering, but in actuality, the concrete blocks serve an important purpose that benefits sea life of all varieties. But how? Dumping concrete block in the ocean. Soon coral and algae will take root on them and help them create a reef. pic.twitter.com/IgEiMb3HhP— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) July 24, 2025 The cinderblocks of life For answers, look no further than the GARP, that’s the Grenada Artificial Reef Project (also known as the Grand Anse Artificial Reef Project or GAARP). With coral reefs under threat and disappearing all over the world, the team behind the project came up with an interesting solution they wanted to test out. In 2013, the scientists placed four concrete pyramids (basically, cinderblocks stacked together into something of a tower structure) in a barren part of the Caribbean Sea. The location was just off the coastal beaches of Grenada. View this post on Instagram In just 3 months, the pyramids had attracted tons of marine life. The block pyramids gave shelter to the animals who otherwise had nowhere to hide, nest, or feed in this part of the water. “An initial growth of algae and colourful encrusting sponge was soon followed by a varied range of invertebrates. These included feather duster worms, lobster, crab, and urchins. Excitement developed as we started to see a range of juvenile fish including squirrel fish, goat fish, grunts and scorpionfish,” says the official website. After a year, word must have spread among the fish, because the simple concrete blocks transformed into “buzzing diverse communit[ies] of marine life.” At around 18 months, things started to get really exciting. Stony and brain corals, described as the “building blocks of coral” began to appear on the pyramids. Over the following 10 years, the project has exploded with more and more coral growing on the blocks and more fish and other sea life moving in. “Each subsequent year more pyramids have been added to increase biomass. GARP is becoming a balanced ecosystem, home to over 30 species of fish, 14 different kinds of corals and many of the invertebrates and algae you would find on a naturally occurring reef.” Today, there are upwards of 100 pyramid blocks in the location. Other, similar projects are taking place in waterways all over the globe. This isn’t the only project like it GARP/GAARP isn’t the first or only project of its kind. Concrete has been shown again and again to make an excellent shelter for marine life and a perfect launching pad for new coral growth. People have tried other materials before, to varied results. One such project off the coast of Florida in the 1970s utilized millions (!) of old tires in an effort to create new fish habitats. Called the Osborne Reef, the effort is now considered a major ecological disaster as storms and sea currents have tossed many of the tires around, washing them ashore and even damaging otherwise healthy natural reefs nearby. Talk about a backfire. Major clean up initiatives to undo the damage are still underway. Specialized concrete structures are heavy enough to stay put in rough conditions and are one of the few things that can withstand years and years of being battered by rough, salty seawater without degrading. Why coral reefs matter so much Coral reefs are disappearing around the globe at an alarming rate. Physical damage, both natural and manmade, along with pollution, coral harvesting, global warming, and bleaching wreaks havoc on natural ecosystems under the sea. Coral reefs aren’t just there to look pretty. They dampen waves and currents before they hit land, reducing erosion and protecting people who live on the coast. Reefs are home to a huge variety of marine life who use it for shelter and finding food. And, finally, they’re amazing destinations for scientific discovery—new species and even medical treatments are being discovered on reefs all the time! All that and the very existence of coral reefs may be in jeopardy, according to the EPA. This alone won’t fix everything There’s no easy fix to this grave problem. Natural coral reefs take thousands of years to grow and mature. So, even with all the cinderblocks in the world acting as growth platforms, it would be impossible for us to replace all the coral we’ve already killed or destroyed. Saving our oceans must be a multi-faceted effort, with initiatives that combat pollution and rising sea temperatures in addition to creating artificial reefs. But projects like GARP/GAARP are an awesome start. They may not save the planet all on their own, but if you ask me, those fish look pretty darn grateful for their new home. This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated. The post Scientists left cinderblocks in a barren part of the sea. 3 months later they were ecstatic. appeared first on Upworthy.