unit 5 Writing Three Thank-You Letters
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.
厨师帽写三封感谢信
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，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 Murzim's 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, it's 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 Murzim's 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 cook's 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 dawn's 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 I'd always just accepted what they'd 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.
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