Back to the Dump（在线收听）

     When I was a boy, everybody urged me to get plenty of sunshine, so I got plenty of sunshine for a long time. One day while I was ¹⁾absorbing July sun as fast as I could, a doctor asked what I thought I was doing.

“Getting plenty of sunshine,” I said.

“Are you mad?“ he replied.

     No, I was not mad, just slow to catch up with my life’s ²⁾revisions. Getting plenty of sunshine had been declared dangerous while I was out to lunch. I revised my store of knowledge. Now I get only small ³⁾droppers of sunshine ⁴⁾extracted from the half hour just before sunset.

     When I was old enough to notice that girls were pleasantly different from boys, my mother told me the fact of life. “You must always treat a woman like a lady,” she said. So for a long time I went through life treating women like ladies.

     One day while I was helping a woman into her coat, another woman asked me what I thought I was doing.

     “Treating a woman like a lady,” I said.

     “Are you mad?” she replied.

     No, I was not mad, but my ⁵⁾interrogator was furious. I had been out to lunch during one of life’s revisions and missed the announcement that it was ⁶⁾swinish to treat a woman like a lady. I discarded another piece of my childhood education. Now I treat women like ⁷⁾ticking bombs.

     When I was 17 and for many years afterward, I admired Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt as the ideal couple. One evening I had an ⁸⁾encounter with a ticking bomb, and ⁹⁾contemplated behaving like a fool, but rejected the ¹⁰⁾impulse because we weren’t married.

     “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as I ¹¹⁾fled. I told her that someday I wanted to be half of a couple as ideal as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

     “Are you mad?” she replied.

     No, not mad. I had been out to lunch during another of life’s revisions and, so had missed the ¹²⁾disclosure that Eleanor didn’t get along well with Franklin and that Franklin fooled around when she was out of town. Another part of my youthful education went to the ¹³⁾dump.

     Perhaps it was not age that defeated me, though. Maybe it was fatigue caused by the constant trips to the dump to discard everything I’d learned in the first half of my life. Life seemed to be an educator’s ¹⁴⁾practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong. CE

04、回归垃圾堆

我还是个小男孩时，大家都劝我多晒晒太阳，因此，我晒了很长时间的太阳。七月的一天，我正在尽情地晒太阳，一位医生问我是否知道自己在做什么。

“晒太阳啊。”我说。

“你疯了吗？”他答道。

不，我没疯，只是没跟上世道的变化罢了。我出去吃午饭时，晒太阳被宣告为危险的事。我修正了自己的知识库。现在我只是在太阳下山前半小时稍微吸收点阳光。

长大后，我发现女孩与男孩不同，她们举止文雅，令人愉快。这时，母亲给我讲了些生活常识。“对女人，你必须始终如待贵妇。”她说。因此，很长一段时间里，我待所有女人如贵妇人。

一天， 当我正在帮一妇女穿外套时，另一位妇人问我是否知道自己在做什么。

“待女人如待贵妇啊。”我说。

“你疯了吗？”她答道。

不，我没疯，只是质问我的人却怒不可竭。我出去吃午饭时，又碰上这世道发生变化，没听到待女人如待贵妇是可鄙的行为这一宣告。我只好抛弃幼年接受的另一点教育。现在，我看待女人如同滴答响着的炸弹。

17岁以及以后的许多年中，我一直羡慕富兰克林和埃利诺·罗斯福，把他们作为最理想的一对来崇拜。一天晚上，我和一位滴答响的炸弹见面，期望在她面前装得傻一点，但最后还是放弃了这念头。毕竟我们还没结婚。

“你知道自己在做什么吗？”我逃走时她问道。我告诉她，将来一天我要成为富兰克林和埃利诺·罗斯福这对理想夫妇的一半。

“你疯了吗？”她答道。

不，我没疯。我出去吃午饭时，世道又发生了变化，没听到埃利诺和富兰克林相处不好的消息。据披露说，埃利诺出城时，富兰克林到处闲荡干蠢事。因而，我的这一部分早年教育又进了垃圾堆。

不过，击垮我的或许不是年龄原因。或许只是为了把我前半生所学的一切知识扔进垃圾堆，频繁的奔波从而令我心力交瘁。生活像是在跟教育者开玩笑，花了半辈子时间所学到的东西，到了后半辈子，发现都是错的。CE