Fishing in Simplicity
美音、自然拼读、分级阅读与词汇复习
I live in Louisiana, not far from Lake Charles.
我住在路易斯安那州 离查尔斯湖不远
It’s a backwater kind of place surrounded by bayou and meandering molasses streams, water barely moving at all.
水几乎无法移动。
The streams know they’re eventually going to end up lost in the ocean—a drop in the bucket, so to speak— and they’re in no hurry to get there.
溪流知道它们最终会落到海里,
This is as good a place as any to meander, “this” being my hometown— Simplicity, Louisiana.
这对美德来说就像一个好地方, “这里”是我的家乡—— 路易斯安那的简单。
There isn’t much to the town.
镇上没有太多东西。
I guess that’s why the name fits so well.
我想这就是为什么这个名字这么适合。
It was on these Simplicity backwaters when I was eight years old that I made what I thought was the most historical of discoveries.
我八岁时就在这些简单的后水上 做了我认为最有历史意义的发现
Any one of a hundred lazy summer nights, my granddaddy would tell the story of an old house lost in the swamps where slaves used to hide out before the Civil War.
任何一百个懒惰的夏日之夜,我的外公都会讲述一栋旧房子在沼泽地被丢失的故事,在南北战争前奴隶们常躲在那里.
The old house is gone, but his story has it that the place kind of lights up once in a while, all filled with ghosts and such.
旧房子不见了 但是他的故事说 这个地方偶尔会亮起灯来 到处都是鬼
The only remnant of the house is a staircase that seems to go nowhere.
屋内唯一的遗迹是楼梯,似乎无处可去.
That’s why, I suppose, they call it Nowhere House.
因此,我想,他们称之为“无地之家”。
That’s why, when I found an old stone staircase that butted up against a sinkhole filled with water that fed Syrup Creek, I thought for sure I had found Nowhere House.
因此,当我找到一个旧的石阶梯, 顶起一个水槽洞, 里面充满了水,
My granddaddy just laughed and laughed.
我爷爷只是笑了笑
He said it was the old Deucane place that washed away in the flood of ’63.
他说在63年的洪水中被冲走的是杜肯老地方。
There’s nothing left except for thirteen steps up and a long drop to the water.
除了向上十三步和向水上一长滴外,
Fewer than a thousand people live in Simplicity, and most of them work for De Wilde’s Feed and Seed or they don’t work at all.
他们大多为德怀德的"饲料和种子"工作,
De Wilde’s does about everything: it’s a flour mill where grain is ground, and they even have a shed out back where cayenne pepper is made into a hot sauce that would leave blisters on the sun.
De Wilde所做的一切:这是一出面粉厂, 谷子就放在地上,
In front of the flour mill and lumberyard is the big store where you can buy anything and everything: a quart of fresh milk, barbecue sausages, persimmons, live crawdads, and even fishing tackle and lures.
在面粉厂和伐木场前是大商店,你可以在那里购买任何东西和一切:一克新鲜的牛奶,烧烤香肠,活生生的爬行者,甚至钓鱼钓钩和引诱.
It was the fishing tackle that drew me to De Wilde’s.
是钓鱼钩把我引到德怀德的。
When I was nine, I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, but that never stopped me from wishing up and down the fishing aisles.
我九岁时没有两分硬币可以一起擦,
Early spring of my tenth birthday, De Wilde’s decorated the main window on the big front-porch side of the store with a fishing pole and all the rigging.
我十岁生日的早春,De Wilde用钓竿和所有的钻井装饰了店面上大前门的正窗.
It wasn’t one of those long cane poles like my granddaddy used—it was a spinning reel with a pole made of fiberglass.
这不是我爷爷用的那种长长的拐杖杆,
I wanted that pole in the worst of ways.
我想要那根杆子 最糟糕的方式。
Early in the morning before the sun heated everything beyond intolerable, I stood beside that window and stared.
清晨,太阳照亮了一切 无法忍受的东西, 我站在窗户旁边,看着。
I don’t know how many times I found myself standing there staring when I heard the school bell ring on the other side of town.
我听到学校的铃声时,
I was late so many times that the principal, Mr.
我迟到了好多次 校长先生
Dusard, taped a piece of paper with my name on it to the chair outside his office.
杜萨德把一张有我名字的纸 粘到他办公室外面的椅子上
Now, I loved to fish—there was nothing better—but I didn’t have a fancy rig.
我很喜欢钓鱼,
I only had a length of fishing line with a bobber and a barbless hook tied to the end.
我只有一条长长的钓鱼线 有一条无刺的钩子绑在尾部
I always kept the line rolled up in my pocket because I just never knew when a fishing opportunity was going to happen.
我总是把绳子放在口袋里 因为我永远不知道什么时候会有钓鱼的机会
Sometimes opportunity does knock, and when it does, you’d better open the door fast before it runs away.
有时机会会敲门,
On Wednesday, two weeks after Easter, there was a sign at De Wilde’s.
在复活节后两周的周三,德怀德餐厅有一个标志.
The sign told of a catfish-catching contest.
牌子上写着钓鱼比赛
Not a big deal in Simplicity—we have catfish-catching contests all the time.
简而言之 没什么大不了的 我们经常有捕鱼比赛
What made this special was the prize: the pole and reel in the window.
这个特别的奖项是: 窗外的柱子和相机。
I may have only been ten years old, but I had a better feeling for catfish than any of the adults in town.
我可能只有10岁 但我比城里的成年人更喜欢吃 cat鱼
Even my granddaddy said so, and that was hard for him because he was pretty good in his own right.
连我的外公也这么说,这对他来说是很难的,因为他本身相当优秀.
He was enchanted by the competition himself.
他被竞争对手自己迷住了
You see, he fished with a big old cane pole and a single line, and that fancy rig would do him real proud.
你看,他钓了 大老拄杖杆 和一行, 而花哨的钻机会让他非常骄傲。
It was my granddaddy who first taught me how to fish, but I kept on learning.
是我爷爷先教我钓鱼的 但我一直学着呢
That pole was going to be mine, and I told him so.
那根杆子会是我的 我告诉他的
So there ended up being a contest within the contest—me against my granddaddy.
结果在比赛中发生了一场比赛 我对我的外公
But my granddaddy never knew that I had a secret plan.
但我外公从不知道我有秘密计划
There were two basic rules: You could only catch one catfish fresh on the day of the contest, and there was a time limit.
有两项基本规则: 比赛当天你只能钓到一头新鲜的 cat鱼,而且有时间限制.
Since most folks who live here don’t have a watch, the contest was ruled to be over half past dark, thirty minutes after sunset, no exceptions.
因为大多数住在这里的人都没有手表,
In other words, if you were fishing and it got dark and all, you’d better hightail it to De Wilde’s with whatever you had caught.
换句话说,如果你在钓鱼,天色变黑了,你最好用你抓得到的东西去De Wilde。
I got off to a really bad start.
我有一个非常糟糕的开始。
My granddaddy intentionally let me sleep in.
我爷爷故意让我睡在里面
He didn’t try to wake me at all.
他根本没想吵醒我。
He brewed himself a thermos of coffee and sneaked on down to the creek.
他给自己泡了热咖啡 然后偷偷跑去小溪里
I woke up sweating with the sun full on my face, a bad sign that it was ten o’clock or so.
我醒来时满脸是太阳,
I should have given up on my secret plan then and there, but like my granddaddy, I’m not one to give up on much of anything.
我本应该放弃秘密计划,
I pulled on some faded jeans, yanked on a T-shirt, and stuffed the rolled line into my pocket.
我拉上一些已淡出牛仔裤, 被拉上T恤, 塞入我的口袋里。
I didn’t wear shoes.
我没有穿鞋子。
It was hot, and I always thought shoes were bad luck anyway.
它很热,我总是觉得 鞋子是坏运气反正。
I needed all the luck I could get now.
我现在需要一切好运
The slam of the screen door woke the neighbor’s dog as I bolted from the house and trotted down Chigger Creek Lane.
屏蔽门的一击惊醒了邻居的狗,
It wasn’t much of a road, more of a dirt rut that wound through the swamp cedar and weeping magnolia.
在沼泽的雪松上被打成碎片,
Along the way, I could hear granddaddy down at the creek laughing at me as I passed on by.
一路走来,我听到爷爷在小溪边笑我
Though it was late, I stuck to my plan: fishing from the top step of the flooded Deucane place.
虽然已经很晚了,但我还是坚持我的计划:从被淹的杜肯(Deucane)地的顶端去钓鱼.
I just had a feeling that there was a big cat there with my name on it, just like on my chair at the principal’s office.
我只是觉得那里有只大猫 上面有我的名字 就像校长办公室的椅子上一样
I climbed up the moss-covered stairs and pulled the line from my pocket.
我爬上被苔藓覆盖的楼梯 从口袋里拉出绳子
I sat down at the top, my legs dangling over, reflecting in the still waters of the sinkhole.
我坐在顶部 我的腿伸过来 反射出水槽的静水
I reached over and pulled back a slab of thick French moss.
我伸手把一块厚厚的法国苔藓拉回去
There, all white and juicy, were the biggest, plumpest grubs you ever saw.
在那里,所有的白色和多汁, 是最大的, 丰满的阴茎你见过。
I skewered one onto my barbless hook and let it drop squiggling into the water.
我用无刺的钩子刺上一个 让它掉入水中
It sank from sight; the red and white bobber was the only sign that something was up.
它从视线下沉;红色和白色的浮标是唯一有东西出现的迹象.
I kind of hunched my shoulders and waited because that is the best thing and the only thing you can do if you’re going to catch contest-winning catfish.
我摸起肩膀等, 因为这是你唯一能做的,
The sun bore down, crisping my face, and in the distance I could hear my granddaddy bragging about how he’d already won and that I might as well give up.
我听到祖父吹嘘他已经赢了, 我可能还是放弃。
I never gave up.
我从未放弃过
With the light slipping under the bracken and skipping off the black water, I changed bait for the eighth time without a nibble.
灯光滑倒了 从黑水中跳出 我第八次换了鱼饵
Just as the sun dropped lower than my hopes, the bobber slowly slipped down in the water and disappeared deep.
就像太阳的落下 比我的希望更低, 宝物慢慢地滑入了水中 并深深地消失了。
It was the hit I had been waiting for.
这是我一直在等待的打击。
I let the line slip through my hands, patiently waiting to set the hook.
我让绳子滑过我的手,耐心地等待起钩来.
When there was less than two feet of line left, I wrapped it around my right hand and hauled back hard.
当剩下不到两英尺的线时,我把它包在了右手上,并用力拉回.
There was a return tug that nearly pulled me off the step, and then inch by inch I started reeling in that whale of a catfish.
有一回拖船差点把我拉出台阶 然后一寸一寸地 我开始在一条小鱼的鲸鱼里摇晃
Old Moby was strong, and the skin on my hands was shredded like birthday ribbon where he pulled the line through my palms.
老莫比很强壮,我手上的皮肤被粉碎了 像生日丝带,他拉线穿过我的手掌。
By the time I got that beast out of the water, it was dark and I could barely see it, but my arms and back could feel the mighty weight.
当我把那只野兽从水中取出时,天色很黑,我几乎看不见它,但我的手臂和背部可以感受到强大的重量.
It was the fishing pole for sure.
钓鱼杆是肯定的
It being dark and all, I had less than thirty minutes to get to De Wilde’s.
我只有不到30分钟的时间到达德怀德。
With the prize heavy on my back, I ran.
我背上那笔大奖 我跑了
I slipped three times, fell twice, and finally ripped up the steps of the Feed and Seed.
我滑倒了三次,跌倒了两次,最后撕开"饲料和种子"的台阶.
Inside was packed with town folk.
里面满是镇上人
I must have been a sight to see—hands bleeding, jeans torn from falling—but I was there.
我一定是看到... 手出血,牛仔裤被撕裂...
From the looks of things, my catfish, Old Moby, was the biggest fish caught.
从事物的外观来看,我的 cat鱼"老莫比"是被捕获的最大鱼.
Later, there was no question that I had truly caught the biggest fish.
后来,毫无疑问,我真正捕获了最大的鱼。
Later, there was no question that I truly was ten minutes late.
后来,毫无疑问,我确实晚了10分钟。
There was no question that my granddaddy won first prize with his puny little catfish that was half the size of Old Moby.
毫无疑问,我的外公 赢得了一等奖 与他的小猫鱼 大小一半的老莫比。
All in all, it still didn’t end too badly.
总而言之,
While the womenfolk cooked the catfish, men—grown men—gathered around me and bragged on my skill.
当女人们煮了 cat鱼的时候,男人们——壮大的男人——围着我,用我的技巧吹嘘。
Kind of made me feel all grown up.
有点让我觉得长大了
My granddaddy never found out that my secret plan was to give the pole to him anyway.
我爷爷从没发现 我的秘密计划是把杆子给他