[转贴]克林顿的童年追思

delphiking

My Meaningful Moments


总统的回忆录一般与畅销书无缘，但比尔·克林顿是个例外。他无与伦比的个人魅力与丰富多彩的传奇经历曾令万众瞩目，《我的生活》的出版能成为2004年夏天的“一大书事”便也不足为奇了。
与众多总统相比，克林顿的难得之处在于他平民化风格和浓浓的人情味。书中他对自己童年及学生时代生活部分的描写平实亲切、生动有趣，好似一位长者在你耳边将生活的本真娓娓道来。虽然我们不可能读了他的故事就能像他那样在世界的舞台叱咤风云，但至少他的成功指引了一条普通人成功的可能道路，那么就让我们在平凡中发现生活的闪光点吧。
本文语音部分为作者本人阅读，建议细细品读，模仿并运用文中的地道表达。

A lot happened to me while I lived on Thirteenth Street. I started school at Miss Marie Purkins' School for Little Folks kindergarten, which I loved until I broke my leg one day jumping rope. And it wasn't even a moving rope. The rope in the playground was tied at one end to a tree and at the other end to a swing set. The kids would line up on one side and take turns running and jumping over it. All the other kids cleared1 the rope.
Me, I didn't clear the rope. I was a little chunky anyway, and slow, so slow that I was once the only kid at an Easter egg hunt who didn't get a single egg, not because I couldn't find them but because I couldn't get to them fast enough. On the day I tried to jump rope I was wearing cowboy boots to school. Like a fool, I didn't take the boots off to jump. My heel caught on the rope, I turned, fell, and heard my leg snap. I lay in agony on the ground for several minutes while Daddy raced over from the Buick place to get me.
I had broken my leg above the knee, and because I was growing so fast, the doctor was reluctant to4 put me in a cast up to my hip. Instead, he made a hole through my ankle, pushed a stainless steel bar through it, attached it to a stainless steel horseshoe6, and hung my leg up in the air over my hospital bed. I lay like that for two months, flat on my back, feeling both foolish and pleased to be out of school and receiving so many visitors. After I got out of the hospital, my folks bought me a bicycle, but I never lost my fear of riding without the training wheels. As a result, I never stopped feeling that I was clumsy and without a normal sense of balance until, at the age of twenty-two, I finally started riding a bike at Oxford. Even then I fell a few times, but I thought of it as building my pain threshold.
I was grateful to Daddy for coming to rescue me when I broke my leg. He also came home from work a time or two to try to talk Mother out of spanking me when I did something wrong. I remember once he even took me on the train to St. Louis to see the Cardinals, then our nearest Major League Baseball team. We stayed overnight and came home the next day. I loved it. Sadly, it was the only trip the two of us ever took together. Like the only time we ever went fishing together. The only time we ever went out into the woods to cut our own Christmas tree together. The only time our whole family took an out-of-state vacation together. There were so many things that meant a lot to me but were never to occur again.
High school was a great ride. I liked the schoolwork, my friends, the band, and my other activities. On Wednesday, July 24, we went to the White House to meet the President in the Rose Garden. President Kennedy walked out of the Oval Office into the bright sunshine and made some brief remarks, complimenting our work, and giving us higher marks than the governors. After accepting a Boys Nation T-shirt, Kennedy walked down the steps and began shaking hands. I was in the front, and being bigger and a bigger supporter of the President's than most of the others, I made sure I'd get to shake his hand even if he shook only two or three. It was an amazing moment for me, meeting the President whom I had supported in my ninth-grade class debates, and about whom I felt even more strongly after his two and a half years in office.
Much has been made of that brief encounter and its impact on my life. My mother said she knew when I came home that I was determined to go into politics. I thought at the time I wanted to become a senator, but deep down I probably felt as Abraham Lincoln did when he wrote as a young man, “I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.”


我住13街那会儿发生了不少事。我在玛丽·普尔金斯儿童学校开始了求学生涯，我很喜欢那样的生活，直到有天我跳绳摔断了腿。绳子还不是活动的那种，而是一头绑在操场边的树上，另一头绑在秋千上。孩子们在绳子的一边排好队，轮流跑跳过去。其他所有孩子都跳了过去。
我没能跳过去。我总有点儿笨手笨脚，缓慢迟钝，曾是复活节找彩蛋活动中惟一的、连半个彩蛋都没找到的孩子——不是因为找不着，而是动作太慢，蛋被人拿光了。跳绳那天，我穿了双牛仔靴上学，跳绳时又笨得连靴子都没有脱，结果鞋跟绊住了绳子，我扭了一下，栽倒在地，只听喀嚓一声，腿折了。我痛得在地上躺了好几分钟，老爸从别克车行火速赶来接我。
我膝盖上方的腿骨折了。由于我身体长得很快，医生不想把石膏模子一直打到我的臀部，而是在我的踝关节处打了个洞，插进一块不锈钢板，将其固定在一根U形不锈钢上，然后把腿吊在病床上方。我就这样平躺了两个月，觉得自己像个傻子，同时也为自己不用再上学还有这么多人来看望我而乐呵呵的。出院后，家人给我买了辆自行车，但只要是骑上没有辅助轮的自行车我就会发慌。于是，我总觉得自己行动笨拙，缺乏正常的平衡感，直到22岁在牛津大学开始骑车时才缓过来。即使在那时我还摔过几次，但我把这权当是锻炼自己对疼痛的忍耐力而已。
我很感激老爸在我摔断腿时赶来救我。有一两次，他还专门放下工作回家，劝说母亲不要因我做错事就打我屁股。记得有一次，他甚至带我坐火车到圣路易斯去看红雀队比赛，那是离我们最近的职业棒球联盟球队。我们在那里待了一夜，第二天才回家——那种感觉真是棒极了。遗憾的是，那是我俩惟一一次一起外出，就像我俩惟一一次一起钓鱼，惟一一次一起到户外森林里砍伐我们的圣诞树，惟一一次全家一起去外州度假那样。有那么多的事情对我来说意义深远，可它们再也不会发生了。
中学生活就像一次奇妙的骑车旅行。我喜欢做作业，喜欢我的朋友们、乐队以及其他活动。7月24日星期三，我们一起前往白宫玫瑰园谒见总统。肯尼迪总统离开椭圆形办公室，步入明媚的阳光里，寥寥数语表扬了我们的工作，还给予我们比州长还要高的评价。在接受“男孩联盟”的T恤之后，肯尼迪走下台阶开始和大家握手。我站在前排，是总统的超级拥戴者，虽然他只是和两三个人握握手，但我确保自己能跟他握上。那个时刻真让我激动不已——能面见我在九年级辩论会上支持的总统，而在他执政两年半之后我对他的支持更加坚定了。
那次简短的会见和由此产生的影响给我的生活带来了不少变化。母亲说她知道我一回到家就会立志从政了。当时我认为自己想当参议员，但在内心深处我或许是像阿伯拉罕·林肯年轻时所写的那样：“我要努力学习，时刻准备着，也许我的机遇就会来临。”