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Alex Haley served in the Coast Guard during World War ll. On an especially lonely day to be at sea - Thanksgiving Day - he began to give serious thought to a holiday that has become, for many Americans, a day of overeating and watching endless games of football. Haley decided to celebrate the true meaning of Thanksgiving by writing three very special letters. 亚历克斯黑利二战时在海岸警卫队服役。出海在外，时逢一个倍感孤寂的日子感恩节，他开始认真思考起这一节日的意义。对许多美国人而言，这个节日已成为大吃大喝、没完没了地看橄榄球比赛的日子。黑利决定写三封不同寻常的信，以此来纪念感恩节的真正意义。 Writing Three Thank-You Letters Alex Haley 1 It was 1943, during World War II, and I was a young U. S. coastguardsman. My ship, the USS Murzim, had been under way for several days. Most of her holds contained thousands of cartons of canned or dried foods. The other holds were loaded with five-hundred-pound bombs packed delicately in padded racks. Our destination was a big base on the island of Tulagi in the South Pacific. 写三封感谢信亚利克斯黑利 那是在二战期间的1943年，我是个年轻的美国海岸警卫队队员。我们的船，美国军舰军市一号已出海多日。多数船舱装着成千上万箱罐装或风干的食品。其余的船舱装着不少五百磅重的炸弹，都小心翼翼地放在垫过的架子上。我们的目的地是南太平洋图拉吉岛上一个规模很大的基地。 2 I was one of the Murzims several cooks and, quite the same as for folk ashore, this Thanksgiving morning had seen us busily preparing a traditional dinner featuring roast turkey. 我是军市一号上的一个厨师，跟岸上的人一样，那个感恩节的上午，我们忙着在准备一道以烤火鸡为主的传统菜肴。 3 Well, as any cook knows, its a lot of hard work to cook and serve a big meal, and clean up and put everything away. But finally, around sundown, we finished at last. 当厨师的都知道，要烹制一顿大餐，摆上桌，再刷洗、收拾干净，是件辛苦的事。不过，等到太阳快下山时，我们总算全都收拾停当了。 4 I decided first to go out on the Murzims afterdeck for a breath of open air. I made my way out there, breathing in great, deep draughts while walking slowly about, still wearing my white cooks hat. 我想先去后甲板透透气。我信步走去，一边深深呼吸着空气，一边慢慢地踱着步，头上仍戴着那顶白色的厨师帽。 5 I got to thinking about Thanksgiving, of the Pilgrims, Indians, wild turkeys, pumpkins, corn on the cob, and the rest. 我开始思索起感恩节这个节日来，想着清教徒前辈移民、印第安人、野火鸡、南瓜、玉米棒等等。 6 Yet my mind seemed to be in quest of something else - some way that I could personally apply to the close of Thanksgiving. It must have taken me a half hour to sense that maybe some key to an answer could result from reversing the word Thanksgiving - at least that suggested a verbal direction, Giving thanks. 可我脑子里似乎还在搜索着别的事什么某种我能够赋予这一节日以个人意义的方式。大概过了半个小时左右我才意识到，问题的关键也许在于把Thanksgiving这个字前后颠倒一下那样一来至少文字好懂了：Giving thanks。 7 Giving thanks - as in praying, thanking God, I thought. Yes, of course. Certainly. 表达谢意就如在祈祷时感谢上帝那样，我暗想。对啊，是这样，当然是这样。 8 Yet my mind continued turning the idea over. 可我脑子里仍一直盘桓着这事。 9 After a while, like a dawns brightening, a further answer did come - that there were people to thank, people who had done so much for me that I could never possibly repay them. The embarrassing truth was Id always just accepted what theyd done, taken all of it for granted. Not one time had I ever bothered to express to any of them so much as a simple, sincere Thank you. 过了片刻，如同晨曦初现，一个更清晰的念头终于涌现脑际要感谢他人，那些赐我以诸多恩惠，我根本无以回报的人们。令我深感不安的实际情形是，我向来对他们所做的一切受之泰然，认为是理所应当。我一次也没想过要对他们中的任何一位真心诚意地说一句简单的谢谢。 10 At least seven people had been particularly and lastingly helpful to me. I realized, swallowing hard, that about half of them had since died - so they were forever beyond any possible expression of gratitude from me. The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I became. Then I pictured the three who were still alive and, within minutes, I was down in my cabin. 至少有七个人对我有过不同寻常、影响深远的帮助。令人难过的是，我意识到，他们中有一半已经过世了因此他们永远也无法接受我的谢意了。我越想越感到羞愧。最后我想到了仍健在的三位，几分钟后，我就回到了自己的舱房。 11 Sitting at a table with writing paper and memories of things each had done, I tried composing genuine statements of heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to my dad, Simon A. Haley, a professor at the old Agricultural Mechanical Normal College in Pine Bluff, Arkansas; to my grandma, Cynthia Palmer, back in our little hometown of Henning, Tennessee; and to the Rev. Lonual Nelson, my grammar school principal, retired and living in Ripley, six miles north of Henning. 我坐在摊着信纸的桌旁，回想着他们各自对我所做的一切，试图用真挚的文字表达我对他们的由衷的感激之情：父亲西蒙A黑利，阿肯色州派因布拉夫那所古老的农业机械师范学院的教授；住在田纳西州小镇亨宁老家的外祖母辛西娅帕尔默；以及我的文法学校校长，退休后住在亨宁以北6英里处的里普利的洛纽尔纳尔逊牧师。 12 The texts of my letters began something like, Here, this Thanksgiving at sea, I find my thoughts upon how much you have done for me, but I have never stopped and said to you how much I feel the need to thank you - And briefly I recalled for each of them specific acts performed on my behalf. 我的信是这样开头的：“出海在外度过的这个感恩节，令我回想起您为我做了那么多事，但我从来没有对您说过自己是多么想感谢您”我简短回忆了各位为我所做的具体事例。 13 For instance, something uppermost about my father was how he had impressed upon me from boyhood to love books and reading. In fact, this graduated into a family habit of after-dinner quizzes at the table about books read most recently and new words learned. My love of books never diminished and later led me toward writing books myself. So many times I have felt a sadness when exposed to modern children so immersed in the electronic media that they have little or no awareness of the marvelous world to be discovered in books. 例如，我父亲的最不同寻常之处在于，从我童年时代起，他就让我深深意识到要热爱书籍、热爱阅读。事实上，这一爱好渐渐变成一种家庭习惯，晚饭后大家围在餐桌旁互相考查近日所读的书以及新学的单词。我对书籍的热爱从未减弱，日后还引导我自己撰文著书。多少次，当我看到如今的孩子们如此沉迷于电子媒体时，我不由深感悲哀，他们很少，或者根本不了解书中所能发现的神奇世界。 14 I reminded the Reverend Nelson how each morning he would open our little country towns grammar school with a prayer over his assembled students. I told him that whatever positive things I had done since had been influenced at least in part by his morning school prayers. 我跟纳尔逊牧师提及他如何每天清晨和集合在一起的学生做祷告，以此开始乡村小学的一天。我告诉他，我后来所做的任何有意义的事，都至少部分地是受了他那些学校晨祷的影响。 15 In the letter to my grandmother, I reminded her of a dozen ways she used to teach me how to tell the truth, to share, and to be forgiving and considerate of others. I thanked her for the years of eating her good cooking, the equal of which I had not found since. Finally, I thanked her simply for having sprinkled my life with stardust. 在给外祖母的信中，我谈到了她用了种种方式教我讲真话，教我与人分享，教我宽恕、体谅他人。我感谢她多年来让我吃到她烧的美味菜肴，离开她后我从来没吃过那么可口的菜肴。最后，我感谢她，因为她在我的生命中撒下美妙的遐想。 16 Before I slept, my three letters went into our ships office mail sack. They got mailed when we reached Tulagi Island. 睡觉前，我的这三封信都送进了船上的邮袋。我们抵达图拉吉岛后都寄了出去。 17 We unloaded cargo, reloaded with something else, then again we put to sea in the routine familiar to us, and as the days became weeks, my little personal experience receded. Sometimes, when we were at sea, a mail ship would rendezvous and bring us mail from home, which, of course, we accorded topmost priority. 我们卸了货，又装了其它物品，随后我们按熟悉的常规，再次出海。 一天又一天，一星期又一星期，我个人的经历渐渐淡忘。我们在海上航行时，有时会与邮船会合，邮船会带给我们家信，当然这是我们视为最紧要的事情。 18 Every time the ships loudspeaker rasped, Attention! Mail call! two hundred-odd shipmates came pounding up on deck and clustered about the two seamen, standing by those precious bulging gray sacks. They were alternately pulling out fistfuls of letters and barking successive names of sailors who were, in turn, shouting back Here! Here! amid the pushing. 每当船上的喇叭响起：“大伙听好！邮件点名！”200名左右的水兵就会冲上甲板，围聚在那两个站在宝贵的鼓鼓囊囊的灰色邮袋旁的水手周围。两人轮流取出一把信，大声念收信水手的名字，叫到的人从人群当中挤出，一边应道：“来了，来了！” 19 One mail call brought me responses from Grandma, Dad, and the Reverend Nelson - and my reading of their letters left me not only astonished but more humbled than before. 一次“邮件点名”带给我外祖母，爸爸，以及纳尔逊牧师的回信我读了信，既震惊又深感卑微。 20 Rather than saying they would forgive that I hadnt previously thanked them, instead, for Petes sake, they were thanking me - for having remembered, for having considered they had done anything so exceptional. 他们没有说他们原谅我以前不曾感谢他们，相反，他们向我致谢，天哪，就因为我记得，就因为我认为他们做了不同寻常的事。 21 Always the college professor, my dad had carefully avoided anything he considered too sentimental, so I knew how moved he was to write me that, after having helped educate many young people, he now felt that his best results included his own son. 身为大学教授的爸爸向来特别留意不使用任何过于感情化的文字，因此， 当他对我写道，在教了许许多多的年轻人之后，他认为自己最优秀的学生当中也包括自己的儿子时，我知道他是多么地感动。 22 The Reverend Nelson wrote that his decades as a simple, old-fashioned principal had ended with schools undergoing such swift changes that he had retired in self-doubt. I heard more of what I had done wrong than what I did right, he said, adding that my letter had brought him welcome reassurance that his career had been appreciated. 纳尔逊牧师写道，他那平凡的传统校长的岁月随着学校里发生的如此迅猛的变化而结束，他怀着自我怀疑的心态退了休。“说我做得不对的远远多于说我做得对的，” 他写道，接着说我的信给他带来了振奋人心的信心：自己的校长生涯还是有其价值的。 23 A glance at Grandmas familiar handwriting brought back in a flash memories of standing alongside her white rocking chair, watching her settin down some letter to relatives. Character by character, Grandma would slowly accomplish one word, then the next, so that a finished page would consume hours. I wept over the page representing my Grandmas recent hours invested in expressing her loving gratefulness to me - whom she used to diaper! 一看到外祖母那熟悉的笔迹，我顿时回想起往日站在她的白色摇椅旁看她给亲戚写信的情景。外祖母一个字母一个字母地慢慢拼出一个词，接着是下一个词，因此写满一页要花上几个小时。捧着外祖母最近花费不少工夫对我表达了充满慈爱的谢意，我禁不住流泪从前是她给我换尿布的呀。 24 Much later, retired from the Coast Guard and trying to make a living as a writer, I never forgot how those three thank you letters gave me an insight into how most human beings go about longing in secret for more of their fellows to express appreciation for their efforts. 许多年后，我从海岸警卫队退役，试着靠写作为生，我一直不曾忘记那三封“感谢”信是如何使我认识到，大凡人都暗自期望着有更多的人对自己的努力表达谢意。 25 Now, approaching another Thanksgiving, I have asked myself what will I wish for all who are reading this, for our nation, indeed for our whole world - since, quoting a good and wise friend of mine, In the end we are mightily and merely people, each with similar needs. First, I wish for us, of course, the simple common sense to achieve world peace, that being paramount for the very survival of our kind. 现在，感恩节又将来临，我自问，对此文的读者，对我们的祖国，事实上对全世界，我有什么祝愿，因为，用一位善良而且又有智慧的朋友的话来说，“我们究其实都是十分相像的凡人，有着相似的需求。”当然，我首先祝愿大家记住这一简单的常识：实现世界和平，这对我们自身的存亡至关重要。 26 And there is something else I wish - so strongly that I have had this line printed across the bottom of all my stationery: Find the good - and praise it. 此外我还有别的祝愿这一祝愿是如此强烈，我将这句话印在我所有的信笺底部：“发现并褒扬各种美好的事物。” Thanksgiving, like Spring Festival, brings families back together from across the country. Waiting for her children to arrive, Ellen Goodman reflects on the changing relationship between parents and children as they grow up and leave home, often to settle far away. 如同春节那样，散居各处的美国人到感恩节就回家团聚。埃伦古德曼在等待着子女回家的同时，思索着当子女长大离家，常常在远方定居之后，父母与子女关系的不断变化。 Where Is Home? Ellen Goodman 1 The kids are coming home for the holiday. 何处是家? 埃伦古德曼 “孩子们要回家过节了。” 2 My friend announces this as we swap recipes and plans for Thanksgiving. 我们在相互交流着感恩节的菜单和节日安排时，我的朋友郑重其事地这么说。 3 I stop; amused for a moment at the language we now share. When, I ask, did we become the people who call their adult children, the kids? 我愣了一下，不由对我俩用词相同感到有趣。“从什么时候起，”我问道，“咱们成了把长大成人的子女叫做孩子的人？” 4 We laugh briefly at the passage of time, at thoughts of our own mothers who still refer to us as the girls, and then she pauses. 想到时光流逝，想到我们自己的母亲仍把我们叫做 “丫头”，我俩不由得笑出声来，随后她止住了笑。 5 When, asks my old friend, did our kids become the people who come home only at holidays? There is a moment as bittersweet as cranberry sauce. “从什么时候起，”我的老朋友问道，“我们的孩子成了到节假日才回家的人？”两人心头一时又酸又甜。 6 (1)This is the week when our friends bring in the younger generation, eagerly harvesting them from bulging airports. We noisily arrange children, nieces, nephews, cousins around tables, placing them like good china that we take out for special occasions. 这个星期是我们的朋友们将小辈带回家的时候，是急切地把子女从人满为患的机场接回去的时候。 我们忙乱地安排子女，侄子侄女，堂兄弟表姐妹什么的在餐桌旁一一就坐，就跟摆放在特殊场合才偶尔一用的精美餐具似的。 7 These energetic offspring do not come over the river and through the woods anymore. They struggle past check-in counters and wrestle their gear into stuffed overhead bins. They migrate back on airlines whose owners pray with their overbooked hearts that the weather will hold. 这些精力旺盛的后辈不再穿林过河而来。他们挤过检票处，使劲地把行李塞进座位上方满满的行李箱。他们搭乘着民航客机飞回家，那些公司心里想着客满的航班，祈祷着好天气持续下去。 8 (2)It is a testimony to the joyful pull of family that Americans saturated the air and highways this week to return to the place they no longer live but nevertheless call home. To get home for the holidays. 这个星期美国人挤满飞机和公路，都想回到他们已不再居住，却仍称之为家的地方。这证明了家庭具有能给人带来喜悦的吸引力的一个明证。 回家去过节。 9 Yet my old friend has touched, however delicately, on that other truth about a country scattered over generations and geography. We have gone from family life as everyday, from knowing every sock in our childrens drawers and every frown on their faces, to welcoming them home to designated guest rooms. 但我的老朋友很微妙地触及了另外一个事实，即这个国家一代又一代的人散布在天南地北。我们的家庭生活原本平平淡淡，没有变化，连孩子抽屉里的袜子，他们脸上任何一道不悦神情都一清二楚，现在却要迎接他们回家，把他们安置在指定的客房里。 10 We have visitation rights in each others lives now, say my friend, a mother in 617 who looks forward to greeting the children from 415 and 011. We keep in touch, we catch up, we say hellos and goodbyes. But we are still trying to learn how to compress quality time into small quantities. 我们相互拥有探视权，我的朋友说。她是位母亲，住在电话区号为617的地方，盼望着迎接分别住在区号为415和011地区的子女回家。我们保持联系，我们互通信息，我们相互问好，再依依道别。但我们仍试图学会如何把团圆的“美好时光”压缩的短些，但相聚的次数要多些。 11 My friend is not complaining. Neither of us longs to return to those wonderful yesterdays. The nests that once felt empty now feel roomy. 我的朋友并没有抱怨。我们谁都无意退回到那美好的往昔。一度显得空落落的老巢如今显得宽宽敞敞。 12 More to the point we raised our children to look over the horizons. We told them, the world is yours, go for it. One by one, they went for it, to 305 and 215 and 406. It is, after all, the American way. 更重要的是，我们把子女养育成人，是要他们眺望远方。我们跟他们说，世界是你们的，去拥有这个世界。他们一个个去拥有世界了，有的去了305，有的去了215，有的去了506。毕竟，这就是美国的生活方式。 13 So we email and travel and are grateful at how much easier it is to keep in touch - at least virtual touch - today than when our parents were young. We take joy in the kids creating their own lives. 于是我们收发电子邮件，我们旅行，想到如今保持联系至少是虚拟的联系要比我们自己父母年轻时便捷得多，不由心存感激。我们为孩子们创建自己的生活而深感欢欣。 14 Yet at times an unpatriotic thought crosses our minds. Is this American way, this long-distance family, an odd tradition as unique to our people as Thanksgiving? 然而，偶尔我们脑子里会掠过一个不那么爱国的念头。难道这就是美国方式，家庭成员相距如此遥远，这种与感恩节同样独特的不同寻常的国民传统？ 15 We are a nation of movers, founded by people on pilgrimages, populated by those who were willfully or forcibly uprooted. Our national mythology is based on the lure of kicking out and starting fresh. (3)We moved west and west again on a promise of the last best place, which turned out to be just a way station. 我们是一个迁徙者的国度，由清教徒前辈移民创立，有意或被迫离乡背井者曾在这里居住。我们的民族神话建立在离开家园，重新开始这一诱惑之上。我们西进再西进，期待得到最后那片最好的土地，而那却只是路上一个小站而已。 16 Even Robert Frosts most familiar and most American definition - home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in - has another subtext, Home is not where you stay. 就连罗伯特弗罗斯特那最为人所知,最美国化的定义“家就是那个当你不得不前往时，他们必须接纳你的所在”也带有其潜台词，家不是羁留之所。 17 From the middle of the age spectrum, my friend and I have seen elders move from house to condo, north to south, aging sunbirds still migrating. On the other side of the generational sandwich we watch our childrens words. They are coming home on Tuesday and going back home on Sunday. 作为中年人，我和朋友见过年长者从独立的住宅搬入公寓套间，从北方迁往南方，老了的太阳鸟仍迁徙不已。在一代又一代人的夹层的另一端，我们留意着自己子女的用词。他们星期二“回家来”，星期天 “回家去”。 18 Today many Americans find it hard to answer the question Where are you from? Do we all hold dual citizenship? Does the national concern about weaker family ties say less about our feelings than about our geography? 今天，许多美国人觉得难以回答“你是哪儿人”这个问题。我们是否都拥有双重籍贯？国民对越发薄弱的家庭纽带的关注难道更着眼于地域，而非我们的情感？ 19 These questions hang lightly in the November air as we turn the subject from comings and goings of children to the advantages and disadvantages of chestnuts in the stuffing. This is the time, after all, of celebrating reunion, not musings about separation. 这些问题在11月的气氛中并不显得重要，我们的话题从子女归来转到火鸡填料里加栗子的好处与缺陷。毕竟这是欢庆团圆之时，不是默想离别痛苦的时候。 20 The kids are coming home. It is not the scarcity of food that brings us back to this full table. It is each other. And somewhere between the turkey and pies we settle down to savor togetherness. “孩子们”就要回家了。把我们带回摆满食物的餐桌旁的，不是食品匮乏，而是我们彼此。在享用火鸡与馅饼的间隙，我们定下心来品味团圆的温馨。 21 (4)Over this Thanksgiving holiday and in this restless country, we stop and feast on family. 在这个人们流动不停的国度里，整个感恩节期间我们始终留在家中享受天伦之乐。
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