Better Late Than Never

                            迟做总比晚做好
                           by Paul Aurandt

When should you start your life career? With your first Social Security check — or before? Read the following amazing story and take heart. Maybe it’s never too late — if you’re determined.

你应该何时开始你的职业生涯？是在拿到你的第一张社会保障金的支票时，还是在这之前？阅读一下这个令人吃惊的故事，从中受到鼓舞吧。如果你下定了决心，也许永远不会太晚。

1 He is lying there in the grass, hiding and thinking.
2 He has studied the little girl’s habits. He knew she would come outside her grandfather’s house mid-afternoon to play.
3 He hated himself for this.
4 In his whole miserable, messed-up life he’d never considered anything so callous as kidnaping.
5 Yet here he was, lying in the grass, hidden by trees from the house, waiting for an innocent, red-haired, two-year old girl child to come within reach.
6 It was a long wait; there was time to think.

他躺在草地里，躲藏着并思考着。
他已经研究过那个小女孩的生活习惯。他知道她会在下午3点钟左右从外公家出来玩。
他为他要做的事情而痛恨自己。
在他悲惨、混乱的一生中，他从未想到过像绑架这样冷酷无情的事。
然而此刻他却躺在草地里，躲藏在屋边的树后，等待着一个无辜的、红头发的两岁女孩来到他能抓住她的地方。
这是一段长时间的等待；有时间去思考。

7 Maybe all his life Harland had been in too much of a hurry.
8 He was five when his farmer daddy had died.
9 At fourteen he dropped out of Greenwood School and hit the road(四处漂泊).
10 He tried odd jobs as a farm hand, hated it.
11 Tried being a streetcar conductor and hated that.
12 At sixteen he lied about his age and joined the Army — and hated that, too. When his one-year enlistment was up he headed for Alabama, tried blacksmithing and failed.
13 He became a railroad locomotive fireman with the Southern Railroad. He liked that. Figured maybe he had found himself.

可能整个一生哈兰都过得太匆忙。
5岁时，他做农夫的父亲就已经死了。
14岁时，他从格林伍德学校辍学，开始四处流浪。
他试着打过零工在农场干活，（却）不喜欢那个工作。
他试着做过有轨电车售票员，（也）不喜欢那个工作。
16岁时，他谎报年龄参加了陆军——同样不喜欢。当他一年的服役期结束时，他去了亚拉巴马州，尝试着做铁匠，但是（又）失败了。
他在南方铁路公司当上了铁路机车司炉工。他喜欢那工作，以为也许找到了适合自己的工作。

14 At eighteen he got married, and within months, wouldn’t you know she announced she was pregnant the day he announced he’d been fired again?
15 Then, one day, while he was out job hunting, his young wife gave away all their possessions and went home to her parents.
16 Then came the Depression.
17 He really tried.
18 Once, while working at a succession of railroad jobs, he tried studying law by correspondence.
19 But he dropped out of that, too.
20 He tried selling insurance, selling tires.
21 He tried running a ferryboat, running a filling station. No use.
22 Face it — Harland was a loser.
23 And now here he was hiding in the weeds outside Roanoke, Virginia, plotting a kidnaping.
24 As I say, he’d watched the little girl’s habits, knew about her afternoon playtime.
25 But, this one day, she did not come out to play, so his chain of failures remained unbroken.
18岁时，他结了婚，不出几个月，真想不到就在他宣布他再一次被解雇的那一天，他的妻子也宣布她怀孕了。
接着，有一天，当他外出寻找工作时，他年轻的妻子以极低的价格卖掉了他们所有的财产，回了自己的父母家。
接着而来的是大萧条。
他确实尝试过了。
有一次，在他做着一系列的铁路工作期间，他尝试着通过函授学过法律。
但是他再次失败了。
他尝试过卖保险，卖轮胎。
他尝试过开渡船，经营汽车加油站。都失败了。
正视这一现实吧，哈兰是一个失败者。
而现在，在这儿，他则躲在弗吉尼亚州劳诺克市外的一块草地里，密谋着一起绑架。
就像我说的，他已经观察过那个小女孩的生活习惯，知道她下午出来玩的时间。
但是，就这一天，她却没有出来玩。因此，他那一连串的失败纪录仍没有被打破。

26 Late in life he became chief cook at a restaurant in Corbin. And did all right until the new highway bypassed the restaurant.
27 And then his expected life spanran out.
28 He’s not the first man nor will he be the last to arrive at the twilight of life with nothing to show for it.
29 The bluebird of happiness, or whatever, had always fluttered just out of reach.
30 He’d stayed honest — except for that one time when he had attempted kidnaping. In fairness to his name it must be noted that it was his own daughter he’d meant to kidnap from his runaway wife.
31 And they both returned to him, the next day, anyway.
32 But now the years had slid by and a lifetime was gone and he and they had nothing.
晚年，他成了科尔宾一家餐馆的主厨。他一直做得不错，直到一条新的高速公路要绕过餐馆。
于是，他所期望的一段生活就到头了。
他不是第一个也不是最后一个到了生命的暮年竟在事业上毫无任何成果可以展示的人。
象征幸福的青鸟，或别的什么东西，总是擦肩飞过，让人抓不住。
他一向诚实——除了那一次他曾试图绑架外。为了对他的名声表示公正，这里必须强调指出，他要从离开他的妻子那里绑架的是他自己的女儿。
而且不管怎么说，第二天，他的妻子和女儿都回到了他的身边。
但是现在，一年年悄悄地过去了，一生的时间过去了，他和她们还是一无所有。

33 He had not really felt old until that day the postman brought his first Social Security check. That day, something within Harland resented, resisted, and exploded.
34 The Government was feeling sorry for him.
35 You had all those hitless times at bat, the Government was saying, you’ve had it. 36 It’s time to give up and retire.
37 His restaurant customers in Corbin said they’d miss him, but his Government said sixty-five candles on the birthday cake is enough. They sent him a pension check and told him he was “old.”
38 He said, “Nuts.”
39 And he got so angry he took that $105 check and started a new business.
直到那一天邮递员送来他的第一张社会保障金支票，他才真正感到自己老了。那一天，哈兰内心里愤怒了，抵制了，爆发了。
这是政府在对他表示同情。
政府在说，你一直以来都没有成功，你现在太老没有用了。
该是认输退休的时候了。
他在科尔宾餐馆的顾客们说他们会惦念他的，但他的政府却说生日蛋糕上的65支蜡烛已经足够了。他们寄给他一张养老金支票，并告诉他他“老”了。
他的回答是：“胡说！”

40 Today that business is still prospering. For over twenty years until his death he carried on with remarkable success.
41 For the man who failed at everything except one thing… the man who might have been a law-breaking kidnaper had he not also failed at that… the man who never got started until it was time to stop… was Harland Sanders. Colonel Harland Sanders.
42 The new business he started with his first Social Security check… was KentuckyFriedChicken. Now you know the rest of the story.
他一气之下，拿起那张105美元的支票便开办了一家新的企业。
今天，这家企业的生意仍很兴旺。在他死前的20年里，他在经营上获得了令人瞩目的成功。
因为那个每件事都失败而只做成了一件事的人……那个如果没有绑架也失败就会成为犯法者的人……那个直到该停下来的时候才开始创业的人……就是哈兰·桑德斯。哈兰·桑德斯上校。
他用他的第一张社会保障金支票开办的企业就是肯德基炸鸡店。现在你已经知道了他生平的其余部分了。

posted on 2008-05-13 22:18 Eric译海一粟 阅读(60) 评论(0)  编辑  收藏 所属分类: 【美文共赏】 、【朝花夕拾】 网摘收藏