第44课（368字 2分钟）

Passage Forty-four

（K4 level）

1.My father died when I was a few months old.

2.After his death, my mother moved back to Louisville, Kentucky, where she had grown up.

3.We lived in a small house with her older sister---Marion, and their mother.

4.This was a time when being a single  parent was still considered unusual.

5.When I was small, there was a children’s book called The Happy Family, and it was a real piece of work.

6.Dad worked all day long at the office, Mom cooked in the kitchen, and brother and sister always had friends sleeping over.

7.The image of the family in this book was typical of the time.

8.It looked nothing like my family, but luckily that wasn’t the way I heard it.

9.The way my Aunt Marion read it to me made the story really funny.

10.Kind-hearted and open-minded, my aunt was the one who played baseball with me, who took me horseback riding, who took me to the father-son dinners and who gave me lessons on how to drive.

11.Believing that anything unusual was probably good for me, she offered to get a loan so that I could go to Africa to work as a volunteer, which was my most important experience.

12.As a young girl, Aunt Marion always planned to have a large number of children of her own, but she never got married.

13.This meant that she was free to spend all her time taking care of me.

14.Many people say we have a lot in common.

15.She always expected me to do my best.

16.She never  failed to make me believe that I could do anything with my life that I wanted, if I only tried hard enough.

17.For more than sixty years, Aunt Marion didn’t and still doesn’t think of herself.

18.Before she is forced to come up to the front, my aunt will stand in the back in family photos, and she doesn’t think that her efforts have made much difference .

19.I honored my aunt, who taught me the things my father couldn’t.

20.So every June for the past 40 years, in growing thankfulness to my Aunt Marion, I’ve sent her a Father’s Day card.

生词表（New Words）

1. died 去世

2. Louisville 路易斯维尔      Kentucky 肯塔基州

3. single 单亲                         unusual 少见

4. family 家庭

5. typical 典型                       image 形象

6. luckily 幸运                       funny 有趣

7. kind-hearted 善良              baseball 棒球

8. horseback 骑马                  dinner 晚宴

9. volunteer 志愿者               experience 经历

10. respect 尊敬                     effort 付出

11. honored 感激

12. photo 照片                       forced 被迫

13. believe 相信                     anything 任何事

14. drive 开车                        lessons 教学

15. children 孩子                   married 结婚

16. important 重要                 offered 提供

17. planned 计划                   expected 期望

18. different 不同                  common 相似

19. sixty 六十                        difference 意义

20. thankful 感激                   card 卡片

1. 我父亲在我几个月大的时候就去世了。

2. 他去世后，我母亲搬回了她从小长大的地方，肯塔基州路易斯维尔。

3. 我们和她的姐姐玛丽安以及她们的母亲住在一间小房子里。

4. 那时候，单亲家长仍然被认为是少见的。

5. 小时候，有一本叫《幸福家庭》的儿童书，这书简直令人无语。

6. 爸爸整天在办公室工作，妈妈在厨房做饭，而兄妹俩总是有朋友来家里过夜。

7. 书中家庭的形象在当时很典型。

8. 它看起来和我的家庭一点都不像，但幸运的是，我听到的却不是这样的故事。

9. 是我的姨妈玛丽安读给我听时让这个故事变得非常有趣。

10. 善良又思想开明的姨妈，是她陪我打棒球，带我去骑马，带我参加父子晚宴，并教我如何开车。

11. 她认为任何不寻常的事情对我可能都是好事，于是主动提出借钱让我去非洲做志愿者，而那是我最重要的一段经历。

12. 年轻时，姨妈玛丽安一直计划有许多自己的孩子，但她从未结婚。

13. 这意味着她可以花全部时间来照顾我。

14. 很多人说我们有很多相似之处。

15. 她总是期待我做到最好。

16. 她从不让我怀疑，只要努力，我就可以实现自己想要的人生目标。

17. 六十多年来，姨妈玛丽安从未、也依然不会想到自己。

18. 在家庭合影中，她会站在后排，直到不得不被拉到前面，而她并不觉得自己的付出有什么意义。

19. 我尊敬我的姨妈，她教会了我父亲无法教我的东西。

20. 所以，过去40年的每个六月，我都怀着越来越深的感激之情，给我的姨妈寄一张父亲节卡片。