Each summer, as children, my brother and I spent most of August at the cottage Grandpa Rodham had built in 1921 about twenty miles northwest of Scranton in the Pocono Mountains overlooking Lake Winola.
小時候，弟弟和我常去爺爺的老家住，每年的8月多半消磨在爺爺1921年所建的度假小屋里，小屋位于斯克蘭頓西北二十英里左右，四周是波科諾山，可俯瞰維諾拉湖。
The rustic cabin had no heat except for the cast-iron cook stove in the kitchen, and no indoor bath or shower. To stay clean, we swam in the lake or stood below the back porch while someone poured a tub of water onto our heads. The big front porch was our favorite place to play and where our grandfather shared hands of cards with my brothers and me. He taught us pinochle, the greatest card game in the world, in his opinion. He read us stories and told us the legend of the lake, which he claimed was named after an Indian princess, Winola, who drowned herself when her father would not let her marry a handsome warrior from a neighboring tribe.
小屋很簡陋，熱水只能用廚房里一個煮飯的爐子燒，也沒有浴室或淋浴設備。想洗澡的話就跳到湖里，或站在后門廊下，由另外一個人提水從頭上往下澆。寬大的前門廊是我們最愛待的地方，我們在這里和祖父學習玩撲克牌。祖父認為世界上最好的紙牌游戲非皮納克爾莫屬。他讀故事給我們聽，講述維諾拉湖的傳說，說這湖是紀念一位印第安公主維諾拉的，這位公主的父親不準她嫁給另外一個部落的英俊戰士，結果她投湖自盡。
When I was as young as ten or eleven, I played pinochle with the men—my grandfather, father, and assorted others, including such memorable characters as “Old Pete” and Hank, the notorious sore losers. Old Pete lived at the end of a dirt road and showed up to play every day, invariably cursing and stomping off if he started losing. Hank came only when my father was there. He would totter up to the front porch with his cane and climb the steep stairs yelling, “Is that black-haired bastard home? I want to play cards.” He'd known my dad since he was born and had taught him to fish. He didn't like losing any better than Pete, occasionally upended the table after a particularly irksome defeat.
大約在十或十一歲時，我開始和祖父、父親、威拉德伯父以及其他男人們玩起了撲克牌，其中“老皮特”和漢克的牌品之差是出了名的。皮特住在一條塵土路的盡頭，每天必定到場，若手氣開始變壞，就總是氣得罵人和跺腳。只有當父親在時，漢克才會加入牌局。他會拄著拐杖蹣跚走進前門廊，邊爬樓梯邊喊：“那黑頭發臭小子在嗎？我要玩牌。”他從小看著父親長大，并教父親釣魚。他的牌品不見得比皮特好，有時輸得不甘心，會氣得掀翻桌子。
After the war, my dad started a small drapery fabric business, Roderick Fabrics, in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago's Loop. He employed day laborers, as well as enlisting my mother, my brothers and me when we were old enough to help with the printing. We carefully poured the paint onto the edge of the silk screen and pulled the squeegee across to print the pattern on the fabric underneath. Then we lifted up the screen and moved down the table, over and over again, creating beautiful patterns, some of which my father designed. My favorite was “Staircase to the Stars.”
父親戰后在芝加哥大環的商品市場里開了家專賣窗簾布的小公司，叫羅里克布行。他生平第一間辦公室可俯瞰芝加哥河，我至今還記得三四歲時到那間辦公室里的情景。父親為了讓室內空氣流通，常常把窗戶全打開，他怕我靠窗戶太近，就騙我說窗外有只大惡狼，我若掉下去就將葬身狼腹。后來父親自己在北城開了間印染廠，雇了些日工，母親也幫忙干活，等我和弟弟夠大時，我們也都加入印染行列。我們小心翼翼地把染料沿絲網邊緣倒入，再滾動壓軸，讓圖案印在絲網下的布料上，然后抬高絲網，移走臺子，就這么不斷地重復，染制出漂亮的圖案。有些圖案是父親設計的，其中“摘星梯”是我最喜愛的。
評論
打印
