【小阅读^大脑袋】0319 NO.339

A month after Hurricane Katrina, I returned home in New Orleans. There lay my house, reduced to waist-high ruins, smelly and dirty.

Before the trip, I’d had my car fixed. When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill, she noticed my Louisiana license plate. “You from New Orleans?” she asked. I said I was, “No charge,” she said, and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet. The next day I went for a haircut, and the same thing happened.

As my wife was studying in Florida, we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off amortgage on our ruined house. We looked at many places, but none was satisfactory. We’d begun to accept that we’d have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while, when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kennedy in California. He’d read some pieces I’d written about our sufferings for Slate, the online magazine, and wanted to give us (“no conditions attached”) a new house across the lake from New Orleans.

It sounded too good to be true, but I replied, thanking him for his exceptional generosity, that we had no plans to go back. Then a poet at the University of Florida offered to let his house to me while he went to England on his one-year paid leave.

The rent was rather reasonable. I mentioned the poet’s offer to James Kennedy, and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months.

Throughout this painful experience, the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity. It’s almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance.

BCAD
答案解析：
1．The garage employee’s attitude toward the author was that of _______.
A．unconcern
B．sympathy
C．doubt
D．tolerance
解析： B正确。
对于灾区的人是不关心,疑惑,还是宽容?都不合适.

 

2．What do we know about James Kemnedy?
A．He was a written of an online magazine.
B．He was a poet at the University of Florida
C．He offered the author a new house free of charge.
D．He learned about the author’s sufferings.
解析： C 正确。
文章对应处：He’d read some pieces I’d written about our sufferings for state, the online magazine and wanted to give us (“no conditions attached”) a new house across the lake from New Orleans.

3．It can be inferred from the text that _______.
A．the author’s family was in financial difficulty
B．rents were comparatively reasonable despite the disaster
C．houses were difficult to find in the hurricane-stricken area
D．the mortgage on the ruined house was paid off by the bank
解析：A正确。
题目用到infer(推断)这个词, 意思就是原文虽没提到,但我们可以猜出来的,只有A.

4．The author learned from his experience that ________.
A．worldly possessions can be given up when necessary
B．generosity should be encouraged in some cases
C．people benefit from their sad stories
D．human beings are kind after all.
解析：D正确。
人类毕竟是善良的： the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity.

参考译文：
飓风卡特里娜过后一个月，我回到新奥尔良的家。那里我的房子拦腰毁坏，散发着难闻的气味，脏乱不堪。

在踏上行程前，我把我的车子送去修理。汽车修理站的人员填写发票时，注意到我车子的牌照是路易斯安那州的。“你来自新奥尔良？”她问道。我说是的。“不要钱，”她说，在我的手伸向钱包时坚定地摇了摇头。第二天我去理发，同样的事情又发生了。

因为我妻子在福罗里达州学习，我们决定搬到那里。我们试着找找可以租得起的房子，而一面我们还要偿还毁坏了的房子的抵押贷款。我们找了很多地方，但没有一个是满意的。我们开始相信我们要在糟糕的环境中住一段时间了，不过我收到加州一位叫詹姆斯•肯尼迪的人发来的一封十分奇妙的电子邮件。他读了一些我在在线杂志Slate上面写的关于我们的遭遇的只言片语，他想给我们一所与新奥尔良一河之隔的一所新房子（没有任何附加条件）。

这听起来太好了，简直让人无法相信。我们感谢他如此慷慨大方，不过我还是回复说我们没有回去的打算。之后一位弗罗里达大学的诗人要去英国度一年的带薪假，他愿意把他的房子租给我们。租金十分合理。我向詹姆斯•肯尼迪提起了诗人租房子给我们，第二天他就给送来足够付8个月租金的支票。

通过这次痛苦的经历，陌生人的善良让我重拾对人性的信心。我意识到人们一有机会就会那样友好和慷慨，即使你身外之物又有何妨。


我的读后感：
Yesterday night, after having dinner with some of my friends, we went to the bus stop. Suddenly, one of my friends cried out "Thief!" We turned to the direction she pointed, and undoubtly a thief was streching his hand into the handbag of a man and a woman walking side by side closely.

My friend coughed loudly to give warn to the 2 walking a little distance before us. She coughed too loud that the thief was interupted. He just turned around to us, with anger.

Then, my sense of justice arose and I also glared at me angerily. The thief walked straight to us. I grasped my bag tightly and prepared, well, I didn't know what would happen next. Can you imagine what happened? The thief spitted to us! And he walked away with some words I couldn't understand cause he was from Sinkiang.

After this, I am a little disappointed when we didn;t see the 2 persons who was almost stolen by the thief. No one around seemed to come to help us.

It is just like a slapstick, the difference is, this time I am the one involved.

好啦，这就是我的小故事，和大家分享一下，也许读来不是那么令人愉快，但这是我看到humanity时自然联想的。这篇文章的主人公运气好的让我感觉不真实，但同时深深地羡慕。我们是缺乏这样一个chance吗？真有这个chance又是每个人都能做到的吗？我在这里打个问号，毕竟我的经历很少，我想自己找到这个答案。

 

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词汇及短语：
waist-high: 高及腰际的
smelly: 发出难闻气味的;有臭味的 
garage: 车库；汽车修理站; 加油站 
license plate：(车辆的)牌照,号码牌 
rental: n. 租费, 租金额
mortgage: 抵押贷款
paid leave: 带薪假
humanity:人性,人道, 仁慈 
worldly:世上的,尘世的,物质世界的