大學(xué)英語綜合教程第三冊 9

[00:00.00] Alex Haley served in the Coast Guard during World WarII。On an especially lonely day to be at sea [00:08.65]—Thanksgiving Day-he began to give serious thought to a holiday that has become, [00:15.52]for many Americans,a day of overeating and watching endless games of football. [00:22.96]Haley decided to celebrate the true meaning of Thanksgiving by writing three very special letters. [00:31.45]WRITING THREE THANK-YOU LETTERS By Alex Haley [00:39.94]It was 1943,during Wrold WarII,and I was a young U.S.coastguardsman. [00:47.44]My ship,the USS Murzim,had been under way for several days. [00:54.05]Most of her holds contained thousands of cartons of canned or dried foods. [00:59.72]The other holds were loaded with five-hundred-pound bombs packed delicately in padded racks. [01:07.81]Our destination was a big base on the island of Tulagi in the South Pacific. [01:14.79]2 I was one of the Murzim's several cooks and,quite the same as for folk ashore, [01:21.37]this Thanksgiving morning had seen us busily preparing a traditional dinner featuring roast turkey. [01:28.61]3 Well,as any cook knows,it’s a lot of hard work to cook and serve a big meal, [01:35.01]and clean up and put everything away.But finally,around sundown,we finished at last. [01:42.35]4 I decided first to go out on the Murzim's afterdeck for a breath of open air.I made my way out there, [01:50.73]breathing in great,deep draughts while walking slowly about,still wearing my white cook’s hat. [01:57.86]5 I got to thinking about Thanksgiving, [02:01.50]of the Pilgrims,Indians,wild turkeys,pumpkins,corn on the cob, and the rest. [02:09.44]6 Yet my mind seemed to be in quest of something else— [02:14.14]some way that I could personally apply to the close of Thanksgiving.It must have taken me a half hour [02:21.87]to sense that maybe some key to an answer could result from reversing the word “Thanksgiving” [02:28.92]—at least that suggested a verbal direction, “Giving thanks.” [02:34.25]7 Giving thanks-as in praying,thanking God,I thought.Yes,of course.Certainly. [02:41.36]8 Yet my mind continued turning the idea over. [02:45.62]9 After a while,like a dawn's brightening,a further answer did come-that there were people to thank, [02:53.27]people who had done so much for me that I could never possibly repay them. [02:58.96]The embarrassing truth was I'd always just accepted what they'd done,taken all of it for granted. [03:06.33]Not one time had I ever bothered to express to any of them so much as a simple,sincere “Thank you.” [03:14.01]10 At least seven people had been particularly and lastingly helpful to me.I realized,swallowing hard, [03:22.29]that about half of them had since died— [03:26.13]so they were forever beyond any possible expression of gratitude from me. [03:31.67]The more I thought about it,the more ashamed I became. [03:36.03]Then I pictured the three who were still alive and,within minutes,I was down in my cabin. [03:42.72]11 Sitting at a table with writing paper and memories of things each had done, [03:48.28]I tried composing genuine statements of heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to my dad,Simon A. [03:56.59]Haley,a professor at the old Agricultural Mechanical Normal College in Pine Bluff,Arkansas;to my grandma, [04:06.62]Cynthia Palmer,back in our little hometown of Henning,Tennessee;and to the Rev. [04:13.65]Lonual Nelson,my grammar school principal,retired and living in Ripley,six miles north of Henning. [04:22.43]12 The texts of my letters began something like,"Here,this Thanksgiving at sea,I find my thoughts upon [04:31.05]how much you have done for me,but I have never stopped and said to you how much I feel the need [04:37.92]to thank you--''And briefly I recalled for each of them specific acts performed on my behalf. [04:46.01]13 For instance,something uppermost about my father was how he had impressed upon me [04:52.96]from boyhood to love books and reading.In fact,this graduated into a family habit of after-dinner quizzes [05:01.79]at the table about books read most recently and new words learned.My love of books never diminished [05:10.57]and later led me toward writing books myself.So many times I have felt a sadness [05:17.15]when exposed to modern children so immersed in the electronic media [05:22.74]that they have little or no awareness of the marvelous world to be discovered in books. [05:29.20]14 I reminded the Reverend Nelson how each morning he would open our little country town's grammar school [05:35.99]with a prayer over his assembled students.I told him that whatever positive things [05:43.14]I had done since had been influenced at least in part by his morning school prayers. [05:50.48]15 In the letter to my grandmother,I reminded her of a dozen ways she used to teach me [05:57.46]how to tell the truth,to share,and to be forgiving and considerate of others. [06:04.30]I thanked her for the years of eating her good cooking,the equal of which I had not found since. [06:11.59]Finally,I thanked her simply for having sprinkled my life with stardust. [06:17.84]16 Before I slept,my three letters went into our ship's office mail sack.They got mailed [06:24.94]when we reached Tulagi Island. [06:28.60]17 We unloaded cargo,reloaded with something else,then again we put to sea in the routine familiar to us, [06:36.96]and as the days became weeks,my little personal experience receded.Sometimes,when we were at sea, [06:45.26]a mail ship would rendezvous and bring us mail from home,which,of course,we accorded topmost priority. [06:53.39]18 Every time the ship's loudspeaker rasped,"Attention!Mail call!?" [06:59.16]two hundred-odd shipmates came pounding up on deck and clustered about the two seamen, [07:05.80]standing by those precious bulging gray sacks.They were alternately pulling out fistfuls of letters [07:13.50]and barking successive names of sailors who were,in turn,shouting back "Here ! Here! "amid the pushing. [07:21.36]19 One "mail call" brought me responsed from Grandma,Dad,and the Reverend Nelson—and my reading of their letters [07:30.01]left me not only astonished but more humbled than before. [07:35.39]20 Rather than saying they would forgive that I hadn't previously thanked them,instead,for Pete's sake, [07:42.55]they were thanking me--for having remembered,for having considered they had done anything so exceptional. [07:50.20]21 Always the college professor,my dad had carefully avoided anything he considered too sentimental, [07:57.20]so I knew how moved he was to write me that,after having helped educate many young people, [08:04.70]he now felt that his best results included his own son. [08:10.03]22 The Reverend Nelson wrote that his decades as a "simple,old-fashioned principal" [08:16.74]had ended with schools undergoing such swift changes that he had retired in self-doubt. [08:23.20]“I heard more of what I had done wrong than what I did right,"he said, [08:28.73]adding that my letter had brought him welcome reassurance that his career had been appreciated. [08:35.34]23 A glance at Grandma's familiar handwriting brought back in a flash memories of standing [08:43.44]alongside her white rocking chair,watching her"settin' down" some letter to relatives. [08:50.94]Character by character,Grandma would slowly accomplish one word,then the next, [08:57.78]so that a finished page would consume hours.I wept over the page representing my Grandma's recent hours [09:06.09]invested in expressing her loving gratefulness to me--whom she used to diaper! [09:12.91]24 Much later,retired from the Coast Guard and trying to make a living as a writer, [09:19.23]I never forgot how those three"thank you"letters gave me an insight into how most human beings [09:27.20]go about longing in secret for more of their fellows to express appreciation for their efforts. [09:34.77]25 Now,approaching another Thanksgiving,I have asked myself what will I wish for all who are reading this, [09:44.05]for our nation,indeed for our whole world?asince,quoting a good and wise friend of mine, [09:51.54]“In the end we are mightly and merely people,each with similar needs." First,I wish for us,of course, [10:01.44]the simple common sense to achieve world peace,that being paramount for the very survival of our kind. [10:09.49]26 And there is something else I wish?aso strongly that I have had this line printed [10:16.31]across the bottom of all my stationery: “Find the good—and praise it.” [10:23.46]coastguardsman under way carton bomb [10:28.60]海岸警衛(wèi)隊隊員 航行中 硬紙盒 炸彈 [10:33.73]pad rack ashore traditional [10:38.30]用軟的材料襯托 炮彈架 在岸上 傳統(tǒng)的 [10:42.87]turkey put away sundown afterdeck [10:50.72]火雞 收好 日落時分 后甲板 [10:58.57]draught get to sth./doing sth cob and the rest [11:07.47]氣流 開始認(rèn)真思考 玉米穗軸 等等 [11:16.36]quest reverse verbal turn over [11:23.27]尋求 反轉(zhuǎn) 口頭的 考慮 [11:30.18]brighten repay sincere lastingly [11:37.20]變亮 償還 誠摯的 長久地 [11:44.21]gratitude statement heartfelt appreciation [11:52.65]感激 陳述 衷心的 感謝 [12:01.08]agricultural mechanical hometown Reverend [12:09.85]農(nóng)業(yè)的 機械的 故鄉(xiāng) 尊敬的 [12:18.61]at sea specific behalf instance [12:26.08]在海上航行 明確的 利益 例子 [12:33.55]uppermost impress boyhood quiz [12:41.39]最高的 使重視 少年時代 測驗 [12:49.23]diminish expose immerse awareness [12:56.11]使變小 使暴露 使沉浸 察覺 [13:02.99]marvelous prayer assemble considerate [13:09.85]不可思議的 祈禱 集合 體貼的 [13:16.71]sprinkle stardust unload cargo [13:20.84]將…灑在…上 夢幻 卸貨 貨物 [13:24.96]reload recede rendezvous accord [13:32.68]再裝 變得模糊 會合 使符合 [13:40.40]topmost loudspeaker rasp hundred-odd [13:48.68]最高的 擴音器 發(fā)出 一百多個 [13:56.96]shipmate deck cluster seaman [14:00.92]同船水手 甲板 群 海員 [14:04.88]bulge fistful bark successive [14:11.19]鼓脹 一把 厲聲叫出 接連不斷的 [14:17.50]in turn amid humble undergo [14:24.55]輪流地 在…當(dāng)中 使謙卑 經(jīng)過 [14:31.60]swift reassurance appreciate bring back [14:39.96]迅疾的 放心 賞識 回想起 [14:48.32]in a flash weep diaper being [14:52.46]一瞬間 流淚 尿布 生命 [14:56.60]go about in secret quote mightily [15:03.54]表現(xiàn)　　　　　　秘密地　　　　　引用　　　　　　非常 [15:11.91]最主要的　　　　信紙信封

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