英语是当今世界上主要的国际通用语言,同学们通过看英语的故事提高自己的英语水平,也是不错的选择。
My Mom Only Had One EyeMy mom only had one eye.I hated her. She was such an embarrassment1.
She ran a small shop at a flea2 market and collected old clothes and some other things to sell for the money we needed. Once during elementary school, it was field day, and my mom came.I was so embarrassed and wondered how could she do this to me?I threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school, my schoolmates asked me, "your mom only has one eye?!" and taunted3 me.
I was so angry with my mom and wished that she would just disappear from this world. So I said to my mom, "Why don't you have the other eye?! If you're only gonna make me a laughingstock!" My mon did not respond, I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, I felt so good to have had said what I wanted to say. Maybe it was because my mom hadn't punished me, I didn't think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.
For the words I had said to her earlier,there was something pinching5 at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty. I told myself that I would become successful in the near future, so I studied very hard. Later I got accepted by the Seoul University, I left my mother and came to Seoul to study. Then I got married there.
I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I am living happily as a successful man. I enjoy the life in Seoul because it's a place that doesn't remind me of my mom and my past. This kind of happiness was getting bigger and bigger, until one day someone knocked at my door. It was my mom! And still with her one eye! It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom's eye.
I screamed at her, "Who are you? I don't know you! How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter!" To this, my mom quietly answered, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address," and she disappeared out of sight.
One day, a letter regarding6 a school reunion came to my house. Lying to my wife that I was going on a business trip, I went back to participate in the reunion. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack7, which I used to call a house, just out of curiosity8. There I found my mom fallen on the cold ground. I did not shed4 a single tear.
Then a piece of paper in her hand came into my eyes. It was a letter to me.
My son,
I think my life has been long enough now, and I won't visit Seoul anymore. But would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come to visit me once in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided9 not to go to the school…for you. I'm so sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you.
You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident and lost your eye. As a mom, I couldn't stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye. So I gave you mine. I was so proud of my son to see a whole new world for me with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. During the couple of times that you were angry with me, I thought to myself, it's because he loves me.
My son…oh, my son…
Don't cry for me because of my death. I love you so much.
Park's Hardware
The rumor1 proved all too bitterly true: Park's Hardware, a downtown institution of Orono, Maine, since 1898, would be closing.
Word spread quickly. Locals cajoled, cross-examined, and pleaded with Lin, the owner of the store, to no avail. Running a small, local, family-owned hardware business was no longer a profit maker2. The town's affection for Park's Hardware was just not enough to allow it to prevail against the giant warehouse3 stores that loomed4, discount-laden, down the road in Bangor.
I was one member of the milling masses that began to filter through Park's as, day by day, the wax lettering on the front window changed from "20% OFF EVERYTHING" to "30%," "40%," and on and on, like the death of a thousand cuts until the only things left were the light sockets5 and doorknobs.
It's a difficult thing to see a hardware store go. A hardware store is special because it sells the things that allow us to indulge our tinkering habits, can-do-it-ness, and creativity, and in the process improve our immediate6 surroundings to suit our tastes. There are few things more satisfying than a new coat of paint on a weary wall, or a new lock set requiring only the knowledge of how to spin a screwdriver7. From such a small investment of cash and time, a hardware store affords one a wholesale8 return of satisfaction.
The cynic might argue that one can accomplish the same end by shopping at the big-box warehouses9 whose footprints are measured not in square feet, but acres. Well, maybe sometimes, but certainly not always. And the likelihood of feeling forsaken10 in such a wasteland is high.
I recall the time I was rummaging11 in one of the aisles12 of a Bangor hardware fortress13 for a wireless14 door chime that Park's didn't carry. I found the thing, but didn't understand the following gloss15 on the package: "Red light indicates condition of battery." I spotted16 a clerk in a brightly colored apron17.
"Excuse me," I said, holding the item out, "I can't seem to find the red light." The man took the package, examined it, and, plopping it back in my hand, said, "Neither can I," before he walked away. I contrast this experience with one I routinely had at Park's, in which I would walk into the store holding a pile of arcane-looking metal and plastic pieces in my cupped hands.
"Lin," I'd plead as I held out the offering before him, "can you ... please ... I don't know ... do you think...?" And quicker than one could say, "little red light," Lin would spring into action and together we'd voyage off into one of the eclectic recesses18 of the store to mix and match and measure until the solution precipitated19 before my eyes like a genie20 emerging from a lamp.
Was it more expensive to shop at Park's as opposed to a warehouse? In one way, yes -- if I intended to buy a big-ticket item like a snowblower or chain saw. But otherwise, no: I could buy a single screw at Park's, and have it lovingly deposited in a little bag, for a nickel -- no charge for the accompanying pleasant conversation.
At a warehouse I had no choice but to buy a box of a hundred screws, and, if I were fortunate, receive at the cash register the stock admonition: "Have a nice day."
But I don't want to be directed to have a nice day. Nor do I want a box of a hundred screws when all I need is one, nor told to wait because an "associate" would be with me shortly. I just want to know the location of the little red light, and now that Park's is gone, I realize that I never will.