乔布斯传 第8期:童年,被遗弃和被选择(4)

 　　Silicon¹ Valley

　　硅谷

　　The childhood that Paul and Clara Jobs created for their new son was, in many ways, a stereotype² of the late 1950s.

　　保罗和克拉拉夫妇为他们的儿子创造的童年，从很多方面来说，都是20世纪50年代后期的典型模式。

　　When Steve was two they adopted a girl they named Patty, and three years later they moved to a tract³ house in the suburbs.

　　乔布斯两岁那年，他们领养了一个女儿，取名为帕蒂，3年后他们搬到了郊区的一栋房子里。

　　The finance company where Paul worked as a repo man, CIT, had transferred him down to its Palo Alto office,

　　保罗担任“回收人”的CIT信贷公司将他调到了帕洛奥图的办事处，

　　but he could not afford to live there, so they landed in a subdivision in Mountain View, a less expensive town just to the south.

　　但他承受不起那里高昂的生活费用，所以他们选择了在南边的山景城落脚，那里的生活开销相对低廉。

　　There Paul tried to pass along his love of mechanics and cars. “Steve, this is your workbench now,” he said as he marked off a section of the table in their garage.

　　保罗·乔布斯想把自己对机械和汽车的热爱传递给儿子。“史蒂夫，从现在开始这就是你的工作台了。”他边说边在车库里的桌子上划出一块。

　　Jobs remembered being impressed by his father’s focus on craftsmanship⁴.

　　乔布斯还记得父亲对手工技艺的专注曾让自己印象深刻。

　　“I thought my dad’s sense of design was pretty good,” he said, “because he knew how to build anything.

　　“我觉得爸爸的设计感很好，”他说，“因为他什么都会做。

　　If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him.”

　　要是家里缺个柜子，他就会做一个。给家里搭栅栏的时候，他给我一把锤子，这样我就能跟他一起干活儿了。”

　　Fifty years later the fence still surrounds the back and side yards of the house in Mountain View.

　　50年后，当年的栅栏依然包围着山景城那处房子与院落。

　　As Jobs showed it off to me, he caressed⁵ the stockade⁶ panels and recalled a lesson that his father implanted deeply in him.

　　乔布斯向我展示的时候，轻抚着栅栏的木板，回想起了父亲深深植入他脑中的一课。

　　It was important, his father said, to craft the backs of cabinets and fences properly, even though they were hidden.

　　老乔布斯说，把柜子和栅栏的背面制作好也十分重要，尽管这些地方人们是看不到的。

　　“He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.”

　　“他喜欢追求完美，即使别人看不到的地方他也会很关心。”

　　His father continued to refurbish and resell used cars, and he festooned the garage with pictures of his favorites.

　　父亲继续着翻新、出售二手车的事业，并在车库里贴满了他喜爱的汽车的图片。

　　He would point out the detailing of the design to his son: the lines, the vents⁷, the chrome, the trim of the seats.

　　他会向儿子介绍车辆设计的细节——线条、排气孔、铬合金以及座椅的装饰。

　　After work each day, he would change into his dungarees and retreat to the garage, often with Steve tagging along.

　　每天下班后，他就换上工作服，窝在车库里，史蒂夫也常常跟着他。

　　“I figured I could get him nailed down with a little mechanical ability, but he really wasn’t interested in getting his hands dirty,” Paul later recalled.

　　“我原本想让他掌握一点儿机械方面的技能，但他不愿意把手弄脏，”保罗后来回忆说，

　　“He never really cared too much about mechanical things.” “I wasn’t that into fixing cars,” Jobs admitted. “But I was eager to hang out with my dad.”

　　“他从没有真正喜欢过机械方面的东西。”在引擎盖下修修补补根本吸引不了乔布斯。“我对修汽车没什么兴趣。但我特别喜欢跟爸爸待在一起。”

　　Even as he was growing more aware that he had been adopted, he was becoming more attached to his father.

　　即使随着年龄的增长，他越来越意识到自己是被领养的，他还是越来越喜欢跟爸爸黏在一起。

　　One day when he was about eight, he discovered a photograph of his father from his time in the Coast Guard.

　　乔布斯差不多8岁的时候，有一‘天他发现了一张父亲在海岸警卫队时的照片。

　　“He’s in the engine room, and he’s got his shirt off and looks like James Dean. It was one of those Oh wow moments for a kid.

　　“他在轮机舱里，上身赤裸，看上去很像詹姆斯?迪恩。对一个孩子来说，那一刻只能用‘哇，天哪’来形容了。

　　Wow, oooh, my parents were actually once very young and really good-looking.”

　　哇，天哪！我的父母也曾经年轻过，而且长相也很不错。”

　　Through cars, his father gave Steve his first exposure to electronics.

　　通过汽车，父亲让史蒂夫第一次接触到了电子设备。

　　“My dad did not have a deep understanding of electronics, but he’d encountered it a lot in automobiles⁸ and other things he would fix.

　　“他对电子设备并没有很深的了解，但他经常在汽车以及其他修理对象上跟电子设备打交道。

　　He showed me the rudiments⁹ of electronics, and I got very interested in that.”

　　他为我展示了电子设备的基本原理，我觉得很有趣。”

　　Even more interesting were the trips to scavenge for parts.

　　更有趣的是去废品堆里寻找零部件的过程。

1 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

2 stereotype   

n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框

参考例句：

• He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
• There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。

3 tract   

n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林)

参考例句：

• He owns a large tract of forest.他拥有一大片森林。
• He wrote a tract on this subject.他曾对此写了一篇短文。

4 craftsmanship   

n.手艺

参考例句：

• The whole house is a monument to her craftsmanship. 那整座房子是她技艺的一座丰碑。
• We admired the superb craftsmanship of the furniture. 我们很欣赏这个家具的一流工艺。

5 caressed   

爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His fingers caressed the back of her neck. 他的手指抚摩着她的后颈。
• He caressed his wife lovingly. 他怜爱万分地抚摸着妻子。

6 stockade   

n.栅栏，围栏；v.用栅栏防护

参考例句：

• I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade.我跑了不到一百码，就到了栅栏前。
• A heavy stockade around the cabin protected the pioneer from attack.小屋周围的厚厚的栅栏保护拓荒者免受攻击。

7 vents   

（气体、液体等进出的）孔、口( vent的名词复数 )； （鸟、鱼、爬行动物或小哺乳动物的）肛门； 大衣等的)衩口； 开衩

参考例句：

• He always vents his anger on the dog. 他总是拿狗出气。
• The Dandelion Patch is the least developed of the four active vents. “蒲公英区”在这四个活裂口中是发育最差的一个。

8 automobiles   

n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• When automobiles become popular,the use of the horse and buggy passed away. 汽车普及后，就不再使用马和马车了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Automobiles speed in an endless stream along the boulevard. 宽阔的林荫道上，汽车川流不息。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 rudiments   

n.基础知识，入门

参考例句：

• He has just learned the rudiments of Chinese. 他学汉语刚刚入门。
• You do not seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. 你似乎连农业上的一点最起码的常识也没有。