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“Every weekend, there’d be a junkyard trip. We’d be looking for a generator, a carburetor, all sorts of components.”
“每個周末，我們都會進行一次廢品站之旅。我們會尋找發電機，或者化油器，還有各種各樣的元件。”
He remembered watching his father negotiate at the counter.
他還記得看著父親在柜臺前談價格。
“He was a good bargainer, because he knew better than the guys at the counter what the parts should cost.”
“他很揸長討價還價，因為他比賣家更清楚零件的合理價格。”
This helped fulfill the pledge his parents made when he was adopted.
這一點對于實現他父母當初領養他時許下的承諾很有幫助。
“My college fund came from my dad paying $50 for a Ford Falcon or some other beat-up car that didn’t run, working on it for a few weeks,
“我上大學的錢是這么來的：我父親會花50美元買下一輛已經開不動的福特獵鷹（Ford Falcon)或者其他什么破車，花幾個星期修好它，
and selling it for $250—and not telling the IRS.”
然后以250美元的價格賣出去——而且他不會去報稅。”
The Jobses’ house and the others in their neighborhood were built by the real estate developer Joseph Eichler, whose company spawned more than eleven thousand homes in various California subdivisions between 1950 and 1974.
喬布斯家的房子位于迪亞布洛大道286號，和他們周圍的房子一樣，都是由房地產開發商約瑟夫·埃奇勒（Joseph Eichler)建造的，他的公司于1950-1974年間，在加州的各個地區興建了超過11000座房屋。
Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision of simple modern homes for the American “everyman,”
受到弗蘭克·勞埃德·賴特（Frank Lloyd Wright) “適合美國普通百姓的簡單現代之家”這一設想的啟發，
Eichler built inexpensive houses that featured floor-to- ceiling glass walls, open floor plans, exposed post-and-beam construction, concrete slab floors, and lots of sliding glass doors.
埃奇勒建造了廉價房屋，這些房屋的特點是：落地的玻璃墻、開放式的平面設計、無遮蔽的梁柱構造、混凝土地面以及大量的滑動玻璃門。
“Eichler did a great thing,” Jobs said on one of our walks around the neighborhood.
“埃奇勒做得很好，”喬布斯有一次和我在附近散步時說，
“His houses were smart and cheap and good. They brought clean design and simple taste to lower-income people.
“他造的房子整潔漂亮，價格低廉，質量優秀。他們把干凈的設計和簡潔的品位帯給了低收入人群。
They had awesome little features, like radiant heating in the floors.
房子本身有很棒的小特色，比如地板下安裝了熱輻射供曖設施。
You put carpet on them, and we had nice toasty floors when we were kids.”
我們小的時候，鋪上地毯，躺在上面，溫曖舒適。”
Jobs said that his appreciation for Eichler homes instilled in him a passion for making nicely designed products for the mass market.
喬布斯說，他對埃奇勒建造的房屋的欣賞，激發了他為大眾制造設計精良的產品的熱情。
“I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesn’t cost much,” he said as he pointed out the clean elegance of the houses.
“我喜歡把很棒的設計和簡便的功能融入產品中，而且不會太貴，”他一邊向我指出這些房屋的干凈典雅之處，一邊說道，
“It was the original vision for Apple. That’s what we tried to do with the first Mac. That’s what we did with the iPod.”
“這是蘋果公司最初的設想，我們在制造第一臺Mac電腦時就嘗試這么做，并在iPod上實現了這個設想。”
Across the street from the Jobs family lived a man who had become successful as a real estate agent.
喬布斯家的對面曾經住著一個成功的房地產經紀人。
“He wasn’t that bright,” Jobs recalled, “but he seemed to be making a fortune.
“他也不是很聰明，”喬布斯回憶說，“但看起來他好像賺了不少錢。
So my dad thought, ‘I can do that.’ He worked so hard, I remember. He took these night classes, passed the license test, and got into real estate. Then the bottom fell out of the market.”
于是我爸爸就想：‘我也能干這一行啊。’我記得他拼命努力，去上夜校，通過了執照考試，進入了房地產業。緊接著，房地產市場崩潰了。”
As a result, the family found itself financially strapped for a year or so while Steve was in elementary school.
結果，喬布斯一家經濟拮據了差不多一年時間，當時史蒂夫還在上小學。
His mother took a job as a bookkeeper for Varian Associates, a company that made scientific instruments, and they took out a second mortgage.
他媽媽在生產科學儀器的瓦里安聯合公司（Varian Associates)找到了一份記賬員的工作，他們家也給房子辦理了第二份抵押貸款。
One day his fourth-grade teacher asked him, “What is it you don’t understand about the universe?”
有一天，他的四年級老師問他：“關于這個世界，你有什么不明白的？ ”
Jobs replied, “I don’t understand why all of a sudden my dad is so broke.”
喬布斯回答說：“我不明白為什么我爸爸一夜之間就破產了。”
