Hi everyone, it's Anne.

This may sound kind of weird, but I'm not entirely the same person that I was before the pandemic began.

None of us are. And I mean that literally. The kind of adapting we've all had to do has rewired our brains.

The question is, how?

And could it possibly be for the better?

Well, let's find out.

Our subject onto the best of our knowledge today?

The resilient brain.

Wisconsin Wisconsin Public Radio It's to the best of our knowledge, I'm Anne Strange Champs.

In 1976, the most famous Soviet dissident in the world moved to a tiny town in rural Vermont.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel laureate, after years of prison, interrogation, labor camps, internal exile, KGB raids, took his wife and young sons and settled in Cavendish, Vermont, population 1,264-ish.

For the people of Cavendish, hiding the world's most famous dissident was a big responsibility.

Every town needs to have a secret that unites them in that secret.

And for our town, it was Sojanitzin and not giving directions to his home.

Margo Caulfield runs the Cavendish Historical Society.

Okay. society. He moved here in 1979, and he left in 1974. He lived 18 of the 20 years.

He was in exile here. Literally bought the house, sight unseen.

It is an absolutely perfect location,

and I often think what a gift of people of Cavendish gave him

because he was able to write.

Everybody left him alone and everybody protected his privacy.

You know, the kids loved, if somebody would stop and say,

...