In My Day

Russell Baker

At the age of eighty my mother had her last bad fall, and after that her mind wandered free through time. Some days she went to weddings and funerals that had taken place half a century earlier. On others she presided over family dinners cooked on Sunday afternoons for children who were now gray with age. Through all this she lay in bed but moved across time, traveling among the dead decades with a speed and ease beyond the gift of physical science.

Where's Russell? she asked one day when I came to visit at the nursing home.

I'm Russell, I said.

She gazed at this improbably overgrown figure out of an inconceivable future and promptly dismissed it.

Russell's only this big, she said, holding her hand, palm down, two feet from the floor. That day she was a young country wife in the backyard with a view of hazy blue Virginia mountains behind the apple orchard, and I was a stranger old enough to be her father.

Early one morning she phoned me in New York. "Are you coming to my funeral today?" she asked.

It was an awkward question with which to be awakened. "What are you talking about, for God's sake?" was the best reply I could manage.

I'm being buried today, she declared briskly, as though announcing an important social event.

I'll phone you back, I said and hung up, and when I did phone back she was all right, although she wasn't all right, of course, and we all knew she wasn't.

She had always been a small woman—short, light-boned, delicately structured—but now, under the white hospital sheet, she was becoming tiny. I thought of a doll with huge, fierce eyes. There had always been a fierceness in her. It showed in that angry challenging thrust of the chin when she issued an opinion, and a great one she had always been for issuing opinions.

I tell people exactly what's on my mind, she had been fond of boasting, "whether they like it or not."

It's not always good policy to tell people exactly what's on your mind, I used to caution her.

If they don't like it, that's too bad, was her customary reply, "because that's the way I am."

And so she was, a formidable woman, determined to speak her mind, determined to have her way, determined to bend those who opposed her. She had hurled herself at life with an energy that made her seem always on the run.

She ran after chickens, an axe in her hand, determined on a beheading that would put dinner in the pot. She ran when she made the beds, ran when she set the table. One Thanksgiving she burned herself badly when, running up from the cellar even with the ceremonial turkey, she tripped on the stairs and tumbled down, ending at the bottom in the debris of giblets, hot gravy, and battered turkey.

Life was combat, and victory was not to the lazy, the timid, the drugstore cowboy, the mush-mouth afraid to tell people exactly what was on his mind. She ran.

But now the running was over. For a time I could not accept the inevitable. As I sat by her bed, my impulse was to argue her back to reality. On my first visit to the hospital in Baltimore, she asked who I was.

Russell, I said.

Russell's way out west, she advised me.

No, I'm right here.

Guess where I came from today? was her response.

Where?

All the way from New Jersey.

No. You've been in the hospital for three days, I insisted.

So it went until a doctor came by to give one of those oral quizzes that medical men apply in such cases. She failed completely, giving wrong answers or none at all. Then a surprise.

When is your birthday? he asked.

November 5, 1897, she said. Correct. Absolutely correct.

How do you remember that? the doctor asked.

Because I was born on Guy Fawkes Day.

Guy Fawkes? asked the doctor, "Who is Guy Fawkes?"

She replied with a rhyme I had heard her recite time and again over the years:

"Please to remember the Fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."

Then she glared at this young doctor so ill informed about Guy Fawkes' failed scheme to blow King James off his throne with barrels of gunpowder in 1605. "You may know a lot about medicine, but you obviously don't know any history," she said. Having told him exactly what was on her mind, she left us again.

Then doctors diagnosed a hopeless senility or hardening of the arteries. I thought it was more complicated than that. For ten years or more the ferocity with which she had once attacked life had been turning to a rage against the weakness, the boredom, and the absence of love that too much age had brought her. Now, after the last bad fall, she seemed to have broken chains that imprisoned her in a life she had come to hate and to return to a time inhabited by people who loved her, a time in which she was needed. Gradually I understood.

Three years earlier I had gone down from New York to Baltimore, where she lived, for one of my infrequent visits and, afterwards, had written her with some banal advice to look for the silver lining, to count her blessings instead of burdening others with her miseries. I suppose what it really amounted to was a threat that if she was not more cheerful during my visits I would not come to see her very often. Sons are capable of such letters. This one was written out of a childish faith in the eternal strength of parents, a naive belief that age and wear could be overcome by an effort of will, that all she needed was a good pep talk to recharge a flagging spirit.

She wrote back in an unusually cheery vein intended to demonstrate, I suppose, that she was mending her ways. Referring to my visit, she wrote: "If I seemed unhappy to you at times, I am, but there's really nothing anyone can do about it, because I'm just so very tired and lonely that I'll just go to sleep and forget it." She was then seventy-eight.

Now three years later, after the last bad fall, she had managed to forget the fatigue and loneliness and to recapture happiness. I soon stopped trying to argue her back to what I considered the real world and tried to travel along with her on those fantastic journeys into the past. One day when I arrived at her bedside she was radiant.

Feeling good today, I said.

Why shouldn't I feel good? she asked. "Papa's going to take me up to Baltimore on the boat today."

At that moment she was a young girl standing on a wharf, waiting for the Chesapeake Bay steamer with her father, who had been dead sixty-one years. William Howard Taft was in the White House, America was a young country, and the future stretched before it in beams of crystal sunlight. "The greatest country on God's green earth," her father might have said, if I had been able to step into my mother's time machine.

About her father, my grandfather, my mother's childhood and her people, I knew very little.

A world had lived and died, and though it was part of my blood and bone I knew little more about it than I knew of the world of the pharaohs. It was useless now to ask for help from my mother. The orbits of her mind rarely touched present interrogators for more than a moment.

Sitting at her bedside, forever out of touch with her, I wondered about my own children, and children in general, and about the disconnection between children and parents that prevents them from knowing each other. Children rarely want to know who their parents were before they are parents, and when age finally stirs their curiosity there is no parent left to tell them. If a parent does lift the curtain a bit, it is often only to stun the young with some exemplary tale of how much harder life was in the old days.

I had been guilty of this when my children were small in the early 1960s and living the affluent life. It irritated me that their childhoods should be, as I thought, so easy when my own had been, as I thought, so hard. I had developed the habit of lecturing them on the harshness of life in my day.

In my day all we got for dinner was macaroni and cheese, and we were glad to get it.

In my day we didn't have any television.

In my day...

In my day...

At dinner one evening a son had offended me with an inadequate report card, and as I cleared my throat to lecture, he gazed at me with an expression of unutterable resignation and said, "Tell me how it was in your day, Dad."

I was angry with him for that, but angrier with myself for having become one of those ancient bores whose highly selective memories of the past become transparently dishonest even to small children. I tried to break the habit, but must have failed. Between us there was a dispute about time. He looked upon the time that had been my future in a disturbing way. My future was his past, and being young, he was indifferent to the past.

As I hovered over my mother's bed listening for some signals from her childhood, I realized that this same dispute had existed between her and me. When she was young, with life ahead of her, I had been her future and resented it. Instinctively, I wanted to break free, and cease being a creature defined by her time. Well, I had finally done that, and then with my own children I had seen my exciting future becoming their boring past.

These hopeless end-of-the-line visits with my mother made me wish I had not thrown off my own past so carelessly. We all come from the past, and children ought to know what it was that went into their making, to know that life is a braided cord of humanity stretching up from time long gone, and that it cannot be defined by the span of a single journey from diaper to shroud.

在我那个年代

拉赛尔·贝克

母亲80岁时狠狠地摔了一跤，这是她最后一次摔得这么严重。此后她的大脑便开始在时间长河中自在地神游。有时候她认为自己是去参加婚礼或葬礼，而这些婚礼或葬礼其实是半个世纪前举行的。有时候她又会沉浸于在星期天下午为孩子们做晚餐的情景中，而这些孩子们现在已到了两鬓斑白的年纪。尽管她卧病在床，她的思绪却能穿越时空，飞快自如地在已逝去的岁月里穿梭，这些依靠自然科学可办不到。

“拉赛尔在哪儿？”有一天我去养老院探望时她问道。

“我就是拉赛尔。”我说。

她凝视着人高马大的我，难以想象她的儿子会长这么大，于是立即否认了我的话。

“拉赛尔只有这么大。”她说着，将手抬起约离地两英尺，掌心向下比划了一下。那时的她是那个站在后院的年轻村妇，从后院可以看到苹果园后面暮霭蒙蒙的弗吉尼亚群山。我对她来说是一个年纪大得足以做她父亲的陌生人。

一天清晨，她给在纽约的我打电话，“你今天来参加我的葬礼吗？”她问道。

这个怪异的问题使我睡意全无：“看在上帝的份上！您在说什么？”这是我所能给出的最好回答。

“今天'我就要下葬了。”她轻快地说，就像在宣布一项重大的社会事件。

“我会再打给您的。”说完我便挂断了电话。而等我打回去的时候，她已经“正常”了。尽管她实际上并不正常，当然，我们都知道她一直不正常。

她一直是个体态娇小的女人——矮个子、小骨架、体格小巧——但是现在，在医院白色罩单下的她愈发显得瘦小，让我觉得她像一个大眼睛、目光犀利的玩偶。她身上总有那么一股倔劲儿。她发表见解时，总是气鼓鼓地、挑衅地扬起下巴。这种表情充分显现出她的性格，她总是那么勇于发表自己的看法。

“我想什么都会直接告诉别人，”她总喜欢炫耀，“不管他们喜不喜欢。”

“想什么就说什么不一定总是上策。”我曾经提醒过她。

“如果他们不喜欢，那就太糟糕了，”这是她惯有的回答，“因为我就是这样的人。”

她就是这样一个令人敬畏的女人，想说什么就说什么，想做什么就做什么，执意要使对手甘拜下风。她以极大的热情全身心地投入到生活中’这股热情使她看上去总是风风火火。

她曾手持斧子追赶鸡群，决意要杀掉一只做成晚餐；她不管是铺床时还是摆饭桌时，都显得很麻利。有一年的感恩节，她烫伤得很严重。当时，她从地窖里上来，手里端着过节要吃的火鸡，上楼梯时绊了一跤，滚下了楼梯，结果火鸡裂开了，她跌坐在一堆鸡内脏和滚烫的肉汁中。

生活是一场战斗，而胜利不属于那些懒汉、胆小鬼和游手好闲的人，也不属于那些唯唯诺诺、不敢直言的人。母亲的一生都在惊碌奔波中度过。

如今她不再忙碌了，一时间我竟不能接受这个无法逃避的事实。当我坐在她床边时，总是有种想把她唤回现实的冲动。在我第一次去巴尔的摩医院探望她时，她问我是谁。

“我是拉塞尔。”我说。

“拉塞尔去西部了。”她提醒我说。

“不，我就在这里。”

她却回应道，“猜猜看今天我从哪儿来？”

“哪里？”

“从新泽西来。”

“不对。你已经在医院待了三天了。”我坚持说。

我们的谈话就这样持续到医生进来时才结束，他来对母亲进行常规的问诊。对于医生的问诊，她回答得一塌糊涂，要么答错，要么根本不答。接下来发生的事情却出人意料。

“您的生日是哪一天？”医生问道。

“1897年11月5日。”她说。正确，完全正确。

“您是怎么记得的？”医生又问。

“因为我是在盖伊·福克斯纪念日出生的。”

“盖伊·福克斯？”医生问道，“谁是盖伊·福克斯？”

她以一首歌谣回答了医生。这些年来我听她反复地吟唱过好多遍这首歌谣：

“请将11月5日铭记于心，火药阴谋粉碎于那日。我有充分的理由认为绝不应该忘掉那场火药阴谋。”

然后，她便盯着这个年轻医生。1605年盖伊·福克斯妄图用一桶火药将詹姆斯一世赶下王位，但最终失败了。眼前这位医生对这段历史却一无所知。“也许你知道很多医学知识，但你显然对历史一无所知。”她说。她把对医生的意见全说出来之后，再次抛下我们去神游了。

随后医生诊断出她患有不可治愈的衰老症或是动脉硬化。我却认为并不这么简单。这十多年来，她把自己与生活做斗争的猛劲逐渐转化为一腔怒火，这种愤怒源自因自己上了年纪而身体虚弱、生活无趣以及缺少关爱等种种状况。而今，自从这次重重地摔了一跤后，她仿佛挣脱了那根枷锁，那根将她禁锢在自己所厌倦的生活中的锁链，并重新回到了那个周围人都疼爱她、需要她的时代。渐渐地，我明白了这一点。

三年前，我偶尔会从纽约到她居住的巴尔的摩去探望她。在一次探望之后，我给她写了封信，信里是些劝人的套话，鼓励她乐观些，多想想幸福的事，而不要用她的苦恼为他人徒增负担。我猜想这封信对她来说无异于是一种威胁，威胁她如果在我探望期间表现得不够高兴，我便不会经常去探望她——孩子们总是能写出此类信件。这封信是出于一种孩子气的信念，认为父母具有永恒的力量；同时也是出于一种天真的想法，认为意志力可以战胜衰老与虚弱，而她也只需几句鼓励的话就可以重新振作起来。

她以一种不同寻常的、轻松欢快的语气回了信。我猜想，这是她在努力补救自己做法的一种表示。在提到我的探望时，她写道如果有时候你见到我不快乐，那么我的确是不快乐的。不过对此谁都无能为力，因为我只是太累了，太孤独了，我只能睡一觉，把这些全忘了。”那年她78岁。

现在，三年过去了，她严重摔伤，她已经忘记了那些疲惫和孤独，重新找回了快乐。我很快便停止了对她的劝说，不再试图把她拉回到我以为的“现实”中来，并且尽力同她一起踏上那些神奇的旅行，回到那些过去的岁月当中。一天，我来到她床边时，发现她容光焕发。

“今天挺精神的嘛。”我说。

“为什么不呢？”她反问，“今天爸爸要带我坐船去巴尔的摩。”

那时的她还是个小女孩，站在码头上，和她的父亲一起等候着切萨皮克湾的汽轮——事实上她的父亲已经去世61年了。那时，威廉·霍华德·塔夫特正在白宫执政，美国还是一个年轻的国家，展现在这个国家面前的是一片光辉灿烂的前景。“美国是上帝赋予的这个绿色星球上最伟大的国家。”——若我能进入母亲的时光机，或许就能听到外祖父这样说。

关于我母亲的父亲也就是我的外祖父、她的童年以及她的家人，我几乎一无所知。

尽管那个曾经存在现已逝去的世界与我血肉相连，我对它的了解却不会比对埃及法老的世界了解得多。此时，想让母亲告诉我也是在做无用功。她思想的轨迹很少触及眼前的问话人，即使触及也是稍纵即逝。

坐在她床边，始终无法与她沟通。我想起了我自己的孩子，天下所有的孩子，想到了那阻碍父母与孩子之间互相了解的断层。很少有孩子了解父母在成为自己的爸妈之前是什么样的，当逐渐增长的年龄激起他们的好奇心时，父母已经不在了，没有人可以告诉他们什么。如果父母真的能稍稍讲一点点的话，也常常是道德教育，讲述过去日子如何艰辛，其后果只会让孩子们感到震惊。

我曾为自己这样做过而后悔。那是20世纪60年代初，我的孩子还小，生活衣食无忧。当我想到他们的童年这样惬意而我的却那么清苦，我就感到烦忧，于是养成了将过去的苦日子搬出来对他们进行说教的习惯。

“在我们那个年代，晚饭只要有通心粉和奶酪就很高兴了。”

“我们那时候连电视都没有。”

“在我那个年代……”

“在我那个年代……”

一天天晚饭时，一张一个儿子的不尽如人意的成绩单惹怒了我。正当我清清嗓子准备教训他时，他却直视着我，脸上带着难以形容的表情，一副无奈的样子，说爸爸，请您告诉我，您那时候是怎样的。”

我对他很生气，但我更气愤的是我自己居然变成了一个令人讨厌的老古董，专门挑过去的某些事情回忆，这些回忆显然连孩子们也觉得不可信。我曾试着改掉这个习惯，但肯定是没改掉。关于“时代”，我们之间有着很大的分歧。儿子用一种令人不安的眼光看待那些曾是我的未来的年代，我的未来便是他的过去，可因为年轻，他对过去毫无兴趣。

当我徘徊在母亲的床边，接收着她那从遥远的童年发出来的零星信号时，我意识到，同样的分歧也曾存在于我和她之间。当她年轻时，生活展现在她面前，对于她而言，我就是她的未来，但我却讨厌这种状况。我本能地想要挣脱，想要自由，希望我不再被她的时代所界定。我最后成功地做到了这一点，可从我自己的孩子身上，我却看到自己那振奋人心的未来正在变成他们乏味的过去。

母亲在生命的最后阶段经历着这些不抱希望的探望，这使我后悔不该那么轻易地抛弃往日的时光。每个人都来自于过去，孩子们应当知道他们传承了什么，他们应该知道，生命是由过去到未来、由无数人的生命编织起来的一条人类共同纽带，而不是被简单定义为一个个体由生到死的生命过程。

Key Words:

social      ['səuʃəl]  

adj. 社会的，社交的

n. 社交聚会

figure     ['figə]     

n. 图形，数字，形状; 人物，外形，体型

orchard  ['ɔ:tʃəd]  

n. 果园

awkward ['ɔ:kwəd]

adj. 笨拙的，尴尬的，（设计）别扭的

promptly [prɔmptli]      

adv. 敏捷地，迅速地

challenging    ['tʃælindʒiŋ]  

adj. 大胆的(复杂的，有前途的，挑战的) n. 复杂

bend      [bend]   

v. 弯曲，使弯曲，屈服，屈从

n. 弯曲，弯

turkey     ['tə:ki]     

n. 土耳其

turkey

n. 火

customary     ['kʌstəməri]   

adj. 习惯的，惯例的

opposed [ə'pəuzd]

adj. 反对的，敌对的 v. 和 ... 起冲突，反抗

determined    [di'tə:mind]    

adj. 坚毅的，下定决心的

axe  [æks]     

n. 斧，乐器，突然去除

vt. 用斧砍，突然

formidable     ['fɔ:midəbl]    

adj. 强大的，可怕的，难对付的

thrust     [θrʌst]    

n. 推力，刺，力推

v. 插入，推挤，刺

cellar      ['selə]     

n. 地窖，地下室

response        [ri'spɔns]

n. 回答，响应，反应，答复

inevitable       [in'evitəbl]     

adj. 不可避免的，必然(发生)的

treason   ['tri:zn]   

n. 叛逆，通敌，背叛，叛国罪

absolutely      ['æbsəlu:tli]   

adv. 绝对地，完全地;独立地

combat   ['kɔmbət]

n. 争斗，战斗

vt. 打斗

impulse  ['impʌls] 

n. 冲动，驱动力，倾向，心血来潮

plot [plɔt]      

n. 阴谋，情节，图，(小块)土地，

timid       ['timid]   

adj. 胆怯的，害羞的

recite      [ri'sait]   

vt. 背诵，逐一例举，叙述或回答问题

rhyme    [raim]    

n. 韵，押韵，韵文 vt. 押韵，用韵诗表达

banal      [bə'nɑ:l] 

adj. 陈腐的，平庸的

scheme   [ski:m]   

n. 方案，计划，阴谋

v. 计画，设计，体系

throne    [θrəun]  

n. 王座，君主

eternal    [i'tə:nəl]  

adj. 永久的，永恒的

n. 永恒的事

naive      [nɑ'i:v]   

adj. 天真的，幼稚的

cheerful  ['tʃiəfəl]   

adj. 高兴的，快乐的

boredom        ['bɔ:dəm]

n. 厌烦，厌倦，令人厌烦的事物

informed        [in'fɔ:md]

adj. 见多识广的 v. 通告，告发 vbl. 通告，

ferocity   [fə'rɔsiti] 

n. 凶猛性，残忍性，狂暴的行为

weakness       ['wi:knis]

n. 软弱

demonstrate  ['demənstreit]

vt. 示范，演示，证明

vi. 示威

vein [vein]     

n. 静脉，纹理，叶脉，岩脉

vt. 使有脉络

unhappy [ʌn'hæpi]      

adj. 不快乐的，不高兴的

radiant    ['reidjənt]

adj. 发光的，明亮的，辐射的

fantastic  [fæn'tæstik]  

adj. 极好的，难以置信的，奇异的，幻想的

fatigue    [fə'ti:g]   

n. 疲乏，疲劳，累活

adj. 疲劳的

intended        [in'tendid]     

adj. 故意的，有意的；打算中的 n. 已订婚者 v.

crystal     ['kristl]   

n. 水晶，晶体

curiosity  [.kjuəri'ɔsiti]   

n. 好奇，好奇心

curtain    ['kə:tən]  

n. 窗帘，门帘，幕(布)

vt. (用帘)装

inadequate    [in'ædikwit]   

adj. 不充分的，不适当的

resignation    [.rezig'neiʃən]

n. 辞职，辞呈，顺从

exemplary      [ig'zempləri]  

adj. 可仿效的，模范的

touched  [tʌtʃt]     

adj. 受感动的 adj. 精神失常的

guilty      ['gilti]     

adj. 有罪的，内疚的

affluent   ['æfluənt]      

adj. 富裕的

disturbing      [di'stə:biŋ]     

adj. 烦扰的；令人不安的 v. 干扰；打断（dist

defined   [di'faind]

adj. 有定义的，确定的；清晰的，轮廓分明的 v. 使

shroud   [ʃraud]   

n. 寿衣，覆盖物，[航海]船之横桅索 v. 包以尸衣，

span       [spæn]   

n. 跨度，跨距，间距

vt. 横跨，贯穿，估

cease      [si:s]

v. 停止，终止

n. 停止

selective  [si'lektiv]

adj. 选择的，选择性的

indifferent      [in'difrənt]     

adj. 漠不关心的，无重要性的，中立的

boring    ['bɔ:riŋ]  

adj. 令人厌烦的

humanity       [hju:'mæniti] 

n. 人类，人性，人道，慈爱，(复)人文学科

braided   ['breidid]

adj. 编辫子的；有饰带镶缀的

参考资料：

现代大学英语精读(第2版)第三册:U8A In My Day(7)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语