希拉里有声自传Hillary Rodham Clinton05

Like so many who grew up in the Depression, his fear of poverty colored his life. He could not stand personal waste. If one of my brothers or I forgot to screw the cap back on the toothpaste tube, my father threw it out the bathroom window. We would have to go outside, even in the snow, to search for it in the evergreen¹ bushes in front of the house. That was his way of reminding us not to waste anything. To this day, I put uneaten olives back in the jar, wrap up the tiniest pieces of cheese and feel guilty when I throw anything away.

But in our family’s spirited, sometimes heated, discussions around the kitchen table, usually about politics or sports, I learned that more than one opinion could live under the same roof.

Sometimes I had talked about how the spread of communism was threatening our way of life. But the Cold War was an abstraction to me, and my immediate² world seemed safe and stable.

I grew up in a cautious, conformist era in American history. I had enough adolescent vanity that I sometimes refused to wear the thick glasses I had needed since I was nine to correct my terrible eyesight. My friend starting in sixth grade, Betsy Johnson, led me around town like a Seeing Eye dog.

I was considered a tomboy all through elementary school. My fifth-grade class had the school’s most incorrigible³ boys, and when Mrs. Krause left the room, she would ask me or one of the other girls to “be in charge.” As soon as the door closed behind her, the boys would start acting⁴ up and causing trouble, mostly because they wanted to aggravate⁵ the girls. I got a reputation for being able to stand up to them.

My sixth-grade teacher, Elisabeth King, drilled us in grammar, but she also encouraged us to think and write creatively, and challenged us to try new forms of expression. It was an assignment from Mrs. King that led me to write my first autobiography⁶. I rediscovered it in a box of old papers after I left the White House, and reading it pulled me back to those tentative years on the brink⁷ of adolescence⁸. I was still very much a child at that age, and mostly concerned with family, school and sports. But grade school was ending, and it was time to enter a more complicated world than the one I had known.

1 evergreen   

n.常青树；adj.四季常青的

参考例句：

• Some trees are evergreen;they are called evergreen.有的树是常青的，被叫做常青树。
• There is a small evergreen shrub on the hillside.山腰上有一小块常绿灌木丛。

2 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

3 incorrigible   

adj.难以纠正的，屡教不改的

参考例句：

• Because he was an incorrigible criminal,he was sentenced to life imprisonment.他是一个死不悔改的罪犯，因此被判终生监禁。
• Gamblers are incorrigible optimists.嗜赌的人是死不悔改的乐天派。

4 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

5 aggravate   

vt.加重(剧)，使恶化；激怒，使恼火

参考例句：

• Threats will only aggravate her.恐吓只能激怒她。
• He would only aggravate the injury by rubbing it.他揉擦伤口只会使伤势加重。

6 autobiography   

n.自传

参考例句：

• He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
• His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。

7 brink   

n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿

参考例句：

• The tree grew on the brink of the cliff.那棵树生长在峭壁的边缘。
• The two countries were poised on the brink of war.这两个国家处于交战的边缘。

8 adolescence   

n.青春期，青少年

参考例句：

• Adolescence is the process of going from childhood to maturity.青春期是从少年到成年的过渡期。
• The film is about the trials and tribulations of adolescence.这部电影讲述了青春期的麻烦和苦恼。