美国国家公共电台 NPR--When gun violence ends young lives, these men prepare the graves

When gun violence ends young lives, these men prepare the graves

Transcript¹

Just outside St. Louis, a cemetery² for children sits on a hill. The gravediggers are witnesses to the nation's gun violence epidemic³. (Story first aired on All Things Considered on Jan. 27, 2023.)

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

There have been more than 50 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year. CDC data from recent years shows the growing number of gun-related deaths. Cara Anthony of Kaiser Health News went to a cemetery in southern Illinois. There, groundskeepers work in the shadows of the gun violence epidemic, burying victims, many of them children.

CARA ANTHONY, BYLINE⁴: A cemetery sitting high up on a hill is called Sunset Gardens of Memory. In one corner, everything is smaller. Picture gravestones the size of a license⁵ plate. The cemetery workers use little shovels⁶ when it's time to dig a new grave.

JOHNNIE HAIRE: We're in Baby Land. This is where a lot of babies are buried.

ANTHONY: That's Johnnie Haire, grounds supervisor⁷ here in Millstadt, across the river from St. Louis. His shift starts just after sunrise. And he doesn't stop moving until sunset.

How long have you been working here?

HAIRE: Oh, 43 years. I just can't leave.

ANTHONY: Haire says he's more than a groundskeeper, he's a caretaker. When a 3-year-old girl was shot and killed in the fall of 2021, Haire made sure she was buried in Baby Land. Haire started adding small touches to this part of the cemetery more than 30 years ago to make it feel special. He built a birdbath and brought in angel statues that he painted by hand.

HAIRE: I just wanted to put some color in the angels and the babies.

ANTHONY: The red on their clothes, the brown skin, the black hair, that's all you?

HAIRE: That's my doing there (laughter).

ANTHONY: Another longtime groundskeeper, William Belt Sr., says it was awkward to walk by the gravestones without acknowledging them, so he greeted each one.

What would you say?

WILLIAM BELT SR: Excuse me. Coming through. Then I got myself together. It was new to me.

ANTHONY: The entire cemetery is huge, 30 acres.

JOCELYN BELT: I've been walking this hill my whole life, so it doesn't seem very big.

ANTHONY: That's William's daughter, Jocelyn Belt. Not just her dad, but her brother and cousin are caretakers here, too. In Baby Land, parents leave dolls, little race cars and other toys scattered⁸ on the ground.

BELT: They just do things so differently in how they grieve and how they process the loss, respect their memory and all that.

ANTHONY: Gun violence is the No. 1 cause of death for kids in the U.S. When the caretakers dig a grave, they feel that trend in their hands. These men collect data in their own way.

BELT: They don't necessarily know exactly what happened. They'll always know that something isn't right health wise, medically wise. They'll know when the gun numbers are up because they'll get a lot of shooting victims and things like that.

ANTHONY: The caretakers have faced two epidemics⁹, COVID and guns. They did their best to keep up. Johnnie Haire says many of the burials were for teens and young people who died from gunshot injuries.

HAIRE: One time, it was just every weekend. It was just a steady flow, you know? This one getting killed over here. This one getting killed over there. They fighting against each other, some rival gangs, whatever they were.

ANTHONY: William Belt Jr., Jocelyn's brother, is also a caretaker. He says the work can take a toll¹⁰, especially as a father.

WILLIAM BELT JR: When it's a kid and they've lived a life, and then you see other kids out - like, they might have been their friends from daycare or school or something - and they grieving, that's just sad

ANTHONY: But there's little time to dwell on emotion as the men do their work. Supervisor Johnnie Haire says there's always plenty to do.

HAIRE: It's a job that got to be done. In this cemetery, there's nobody else to do it (laughter). You just got to keep it together.

ANTHONY: I'm Cara Anthony in Millstadt, Ill.

(SOUNDBITE OF SLOW MEADOW'S "QUINTANA (SOLO PIANO)")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

3 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

6 shovels   

n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份

参考例句：

• workmen with picks and shovels 手拿镐铲的工人
• In the spring, we plunge shovels into the garden plot, turn under the dark compost. 春天，我们用铁锨翻开园子里黑油油的沃土。 来自辞典例句

7 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。

8 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

9 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

10 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。