Enormous Debt
There was no one quite like my father in our town of Victor. When any other man in town had an extra dollar, he bought a drink; when Father had an extra dollar, he bought a book. Other people had pictures on their walls, or at least a calendar; we had books, 3000 of them, lining1 every vertical2 surface of our little four - room house, on every subject from astronomy to zoology3.
Father was the most persistent4 scholar I ever knew. Every summer he took a month or so off to attend classes in Denver or Omaha or Chicago. Twice a week, a neighbor recently arrived from Germany came over to converse5 with him in German because he hoped some day to study with the great professors of medicine in Vienna. Eventually, he earned seven degrees, attended 11 different colleges and universities, and in 1951, when he was 82 sent us a cheerful little note from England to say that he had just enrolled7 for a graduate course in Elizabethan literature at Oxford8.
My sister, Pherbia, and I were the immediate9 beneficiaries of Fathers insatiable hunger to learn. Every spring, carrying his geologists hammer, he would take us hiking through the mountains to study mineral formations and search for rocks and wildflowers for his specimen10 collections. We were expected to identify all specimens11 without hesitation12. On winter nights, when the skies were especially clear from our, 10,000-foot vantage point in the Rockies, he would set up a telescope and wake us to come view the stars, which he then named with the affectionate familiarity of a local tour guide. For the rest of my life, wherever I traveled around this earth, the stars remained my friends.
Plain, distinct speech was a particular concern of my father and he was constantly drilling me in the art of elocution. Before I was three, he was reading aloud to me from the Bible, Shakespeare and Mark Twain. Thereafter, I read aloud to him so he could work on my diction. By the time I was in the fifth grade, I could recite from a whole range of classical literature and poetry and had to be prepared to do so at a moments notice. Once, when we happened to meet near the church, he swept me inside, stood me up in the pulpit and said, Go ahead. It was a familiar signal. I promptly13 launched into a recitation while, from a rear pew, Father kept coaching, Aspirate your Hs! Louder! And put more fire into it!
Of course, here have been times as a young man, when I got tired of study and devoted14 my time to playing. Then Father would admonish15 me succinctly16 by quoting a saying from Shakespeare, If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.
Obviously, his efforts were not entirely17 in vain, for my voice has enabled me to earn a fair livelihood18. But that fact doesnt begin to define the enormous debt I owe my father.
Annotation:
1. line every vertical surface 这里的意思是凡能放书的地方都放满书。vertical 垂直的
2. zoology n. 动物学
3. persistent adj. 固执的，坚定不移的
4. enroll6 v. 录取
5. beneficiary n. 受益人
6. insatiable adj. 不满足的，贪得无厌的
7. formation n. 结构
8. specimen n. 标本
9. vantage n. 有利
10. come view 等于come and view,意思是来观看
11. affectionate v. 深情的
12. drill v. 使牢记，教会
13. elocution n. 演说法，发声法
14. thereafter adv. 将来
15. at a moments notice 随叫随到
16. pulpit n. 讲经台
17. pew n. 教堂的条凳或座位
18. aspirate v. 送气
19. admonish v. 告诫，敦促
20. succinctly adv. 简洁地
21. tedious adj. 冗长乏味的
22. dont begin to （口）决不可以，完全不可以
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