美国国家公共电台 NPR Meyers Chuck, AK, 99903

 

UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: All right, guys. Everybody buckled¹ in tight?

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

We flew in on the mail plane. How cool is that? I'll explain. Last month, I was in Southeast Alaska on a reporting trip. And I had noticed this name on a map - Meyers Chuck, just a little dot on the coast. Well, something about that name caught my imagination and wouldn't let go. And when I found out that Meyers Chuck is off the grid² - no roads or cars, just a sprinkling of houses on the water and a post office that's the social hub of town - well, I had to go. So a 15-minute float plane ride later, here we are in Meyers Chuck, splashing down at high tide with the once-a-week mail delivery.

CASSY PEAVEY: Hi. Cassy.

BLOCK: Hey, Cassy. Melissa. Nice to meet you.

That's who we've come to see, Cassy Peavey, the postmistress of Meyers Chuck, which has a wonderful edge of the country zip code - 99903. Today, Meyers Chuck is getting about 90 pounds of mail and groceries.

UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: That is all we have, guys.

STEVE PEAVEY: Well, that's enough.

BLOCK: That's Cassy's husband, Steve Peavey.

S. PEAVEY: Oh, my golly Molly.

BLOCK: He's here on the dock to help Cassy haul the bags and boxes of mail.

S. PEAVEY: Got it, babe?

C. PEAVEY: I think I do.

BLOCK: Steve, in a flannel³ shirt and suspenders, is 79. Cassy is 74, wearing jeans and a red and black plaid jacket.

C. PEAVEY: But here, you can take this one.

S. PEAVEY: Yeah.

C. PEAVEY: Thanks.

BLOCK: And up they go, up the ramp⁴ from the dock and into the tiny post office which is perched on pilings on the rocks. Steve Peavey built it himself with some friends out of cedar⁵ two-by-fours. Cassy's been postmistress of Meyers Chuck for 15 years.

C. PEAVEY: I usually sort the magazines and things first and then put the envelopes on top, so.

BLOCK: By now, she could probably sort this mail with her eyes closed, just 18 mail slots for everyone in town.

C. PEAVEY: Kurt Broderson, he doesn't come very often.

BLOCK: Summer's the busy season in Meyers Chuck, when people boat up to their cabins. Maybe 25 people live here then. In the winter, that drops to about five or sometimes even just two, Cassy and Steve Peavey.

C. PEAVEY: Pretty quiet place here today.

BLOCK: When the mail is in and sorted, Cassy hangs the American flag outside.

S. PEAVEY: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Hello. Hello.

BLOCK: And that's the cue for folks to come by.

C. PEAVEY: Gosh, Dave, I wish I could say that you had some groceries or some mail or something but you don't have anything.

BLOCK: No mail for Dave Perry - doesn't matter, a visit to the post office is a chance to shake off your solitude⁶, see your neighbors, sit by the woodstove and chat.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: It's my outboard that's given up, the Yamaha, the two-stroke '75.

S. PEAVEY: Dan Pack bought that.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I know.

BLOCK: You can come to the PO...

C. PEAVEY: And I usually have cookies or cinnamon rolls or cake or something.

BLOCK: ...Grab your mug off the row of hooks on the wall...

C. PEAVEY: Names on the coffee cups. Everybody knows their own. There's a couple of guys that are pretty touchy⁷ about people using their cup.

BLOCK: ...Pour yourself some coffee and settle in.

BOB HUNLEY: Seemed like kind of a one-gust⁸ storm, you know? It seemed like it had one good gust there yesterday afternoon then just kind of fizzled out after that.

BLOCK: And if, like Gary Nielsen, you ride over to the post office in your skiff...

GARY NIELSEN: There are about like 6 foot seas out there right now.

BLOCK: ...And it's hard for you to climb up on the dock, well, Steve or Cassy will bring your mail down to you.

S. PEAVEY: There you go, Gary.

NIELSEN: Thanks, Steve. See you next week.

BLOCK: Cassy's one rule at the post office - please, no talking about politics.

S. PEAVEY: Yeah. I get talked to every once in a while.

C. PEAVEY: I tell him. I say, you know...

S. PEAVEY: Don't you do that.

C. PEAVEY: No. You stay away from that. Cause I'm pretty much the boss when things happen down there.

BLOCK: We've walked up to the Peavey's cozy⁹ home just a few steps up a path from the post office. And as we chat over tea and Cassy's cinnamon rolls, the stories come rolling out about the old days when Meyers Chuck was a busy fishing town filled with characters who had marvelous nicknames.

S. PEAVEY: Pipe Pole Slim. Crackerbox Mack. Wooden Wheel Johnson.

C. PEAVEY: Logger Bill.

S. PEAVEY: Yeah. And then Greasy¹⁰ Ed.

BLOCK: Steve Peavey grew up in Meyers Chuck. He and Cassy moved back together as newlyweds 56 years ago, when she was just 18. They raised their two kids here. Back then, there were no telephones in town. Finally, in the '70s, Meyers Chuck got a phone - just one.

C. PEAVEY: And it was on a tree. It was fastened to a tree. And you'd have to stand in line to make your phone call.

BLOCK: And if that phone happened to ring?

MIKE MEYER: Hotfoot it down the trail to whomever's house it was, tell them to call so-and-so.

BLOCK: That's Mike Meyer, who grew up here in Meyers Chuck. And family legend has it that one of his ancestors gave the town its name. The Chuck part comes from a Chinook word. It means an inlet that fills at high tide.

The folks in Meyers Chuck are used to doing just about everything for themselves. They provide their own power. The Peaveys have a little windmill that spins out on the dock. Others have solar panels. Water is piped down from a lake. The townspeople built the waterline themselves back in the '80s.

C. PEAVEY: One is about a mile of pipeline¹¹ that comes down by the creek¹² and then forked out to all the houses, which is pretty darn nice.

BLOCK: In its heyday¹³ in the 1930s, more than a hundred people lived in Meyers Chuck. There was a store a barbershop, bakery and bar. By the time the Peaveys moved here in 1961, it was smaller but still humming.

C. PEAVEY: We had a little store here. And, of course, the Post Office was here. And there was a fish-buying scow here. It was just really sweet. But it's just slowly, slowly...

S. PEAVEY: Slowly dying, yeah.

C. PEAVEY: ...Yeah, slowly died.

BLOCK: There used to be a school here but it's closed now - no kids. And as much as she loves Meyers Chuck, loves that it's so small and independent, at age 74, Cassy finds herself wishing they could move away. Steve has had a stroke. And she worries about how far they are from medical care. She'd love to spend more time with her kids and grandkids.

C. PEAVEY: I talked about retiring but have kind of changed my mind because I was told if I closed the post office, it would never open again.

BLOCK: Oh, really?

C. PEAVEY: So it kind of puts a little pressure on me but, well, it would be criminal to change it the way it is now.

S. PEAVEY: Nobody around that wants to take it on.

BLOCK: If this post office were to close, people would have to go by boat to get their mail over in Thorne Bay, 11 miles across Clarence Strait.

C. PEAVEY: And 11 miles across the straits here would be impossible so many times in the wintertime.

BLOCK: So Cassy figures she's kind of stuck. Also because Steve, he has absolutely no interest in ever living anywhere but right here in Meyers Chuck.

S. PEAVEY: Hell, I'd be just as satisfied just to live my life out and die, you know, here. I mean, I'm not standing¹⁴ in line. Heck, this is a good place.

BLOCK: You don't think you'll ever leave?

S. PEAVEY: I don't want to, no. Heck no.

BLOCK: All there are some people who manage to live their whole life here, they don't have to move away for health reasons?

C. PEAVEY: No. No. It's never happened.

BLOCK: In the next few weeks, Steve Peavey plans to head out for five weeks of salmon¹⁵ fishing solo on his boat, the Patsy. Cassy will be home. It's the busy season at the post office in Meyers Chuck, Alaska.

1 buckled   

a. 有带扣的

参考例句：

• She buckled her belt. 她扣上了腰带。
• The accident buckled the wheel of my bicycle. 我自行车的轮子在事故中弄弯了。

2 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。

3 flannel   

n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服

参考例句：

• She always wears a grey flannel trousers.她总是穿一条灰色法兰绒长裤。
• She was looking luscious in a flannel shirt.她穿着法兰绒裙子，看上去楚楚动人。

4 ramp   

n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速

参考例句：

• That driver drove the car up the ramp.那司机将车开上了斜坡。
• The factory don't have that capacity to ramp up.这家工厂没有能力加速生产。

5 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

6 solitude   

n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方

参考例句：

• People need a chance to reflect on spiritual matters in solitude. 人们需要独处的机会来反思精神上的事情。
• They searched for a place where they could live in solitude. 他们寻找一个可以过隐居生活的地方。

7 touchy   

adj.易怒的；棘手的

参考例句：

• Be careful what you say because he's touchy.你说话小心，因为他容易生气。
• He's a little touchy about his weight.他对自己的体重感到有点儿苦恼。

8 gust   

n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发

参考例句：

• A gust of wind blew the front door shut.一阵大风吹来，把前门关上了。
• A gust of happiness swept through her.一股幸福的暖流流遍她的全身。

9 cozy   

adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的

参考例句：

• I like blankets because they are cozy.我喜欢毛毯，因为他们是舒适的。
• We spent a cozy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。

10 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

11 pipeline   

n.管道，管线

参考例句：

• The pipeline supplies Jordan with 15 per cent of its crude oil.该管道供给约旦15%的原油。
• A single pipeline serves all the houses with water.一条单管路给所有的房子供水。

12 creek   

n.小溪，小河，小湾

参考例句：

• He sprang through the creek.他跳过小河。
• People sunbathe in the nude on the rocks above the creek.人们在露出小溪的岩石上裸体晒日光浴。

13 heyday   

n.全盛时期，青春期

参考例句：

• The 19th century was the heyday of steam railways.19世纪是蒸汽机车鼎盛的时代。
• She was a great singer in her heyday.她在自己的黄金时代是个了不起的歌唱家。

14 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

15 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？