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Unit 7 A Son’s Restless Journey
Bush today insists that he had a great time at Yale and doesn’t recall any unpleasantness. But somewhere along the way he developed a sizable chip on his shoulder. He would later carp about the “self-righteousness” and “intellectual superiority” of the East Coast liberal establishment that took over institutions like Yale in the 1960s. As early as 1964, he had a run-in with one of the avatars of the new order, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, the Yale chaplain who had turned on his own Andover-and-Skull-and-Bones past to become a fiery radical, advising students to resist the draft. Bush bitterly recalled Coffin’s telling him, after his father had lost the 1964 Senate race in Texas to Ralph Yarborough, “I knew your father, and he lost to a better man.” To Bush,. Coffin embodied the “heaviness” and “guilt” of the liberal East.
a sizable chip on his shoulder Being in bad temper because one thinks one is unfairly treated.
self-righteousness • 自命清高 • intellectual superiority • 惟我独尊
Rev. William Sloane Coffin • Rev. • reverend adj. （对牧师的尊称，前面与the连用）尊敬的 • His Eminence • 阁下(天主教中对红衣主教的尊称) • Excellency • 阁下：和His、Her 或 Your 连用，作为对某些高级的官员，如总督、大使和省长的头衔的称谓或尊称
chaplain • (私人、社团、医院、监狱、贵族、私人教堂、军中等的)牧师 • Clergyman • Minister • Priest • Monk
Skull-and-Bones • 骷髅会 • Secrete societies based a a university.
What does the paragraph tell us? • Bush was not liberal even when he was young, although liberalism was a trend at the time when he was young.
Paragraph 2 At a time when Yale students agonized endlessly over what to do about the draft, Bush does not appear to have talked much about his own choice. To volunteer for Vietnam would have required an act of boldness and outright defiance. Seeking battle was almost unheard of among undergraduates: it was said that more Yale students were dying in motorcycle accidents than in combat in 1969. At the same time, according to his Yale friend Roland Betts, Bush did not want to politically embarrass his father. Bush Jr. took a respectable but easy way out, joining the Texas National Guard.
agonized • All the time they agonized and prayed. • 他们一直在忍受痛苦并且祈祷。 • Why do you agonize yourself with the thought of your failure? • 你为何总是对于你的失败念念不忘而自我折磨呢?
Paragraph 3 Bush seems to have been somewhat bored and restless after college, finding only limited meaning in learning how to fly obsolete jets (F-102s) for the Texas Guard. He tangled with his father one night after driving drunk, into some garbage cans outside their house in Washington. “Want to go mano a mano?” Bush challenged his dad. The father did not need to fight his son. The mere utterance of the words “I’m disappointed” was chilling to the younger Bush, who still visibly winced as he recalled his father’s quiet scorn in an interview with Newsweek. Barbara Bush said that her husband often gave the children the “silent treatment” when they misbehaved, peering over his reading glasses with cold disapproval. Still, the father gave his children room to grow up on their own. When George W. obtained his driver’s license, his father was willing to let him drive from Texas to Maine, despite Barbara’s strong misgivings. The Bush children “knew their father trusted them and their mother didn’t.” Mrs. Bush archly recalled with a laugh.
mano-a-mano • Mano-a-mano is a Spanish and Italian construction meaning "hand to hand". It was used originally for bullfights where two matadors alternate competing for the admiration of the audience. • Current Spanish usage describes any kind of competition between two people where they both compete trying to outdo each other. • Within the Doce Pares Eskrima fighting system, it is one of the three ranges of engagement, specifically the closest one. This does not indicate solely unarmed combat. • This term has been adopted in English with similar meaning, possibly by Ernest Hemingway. The English adoption can be likened to the phrases "one on one", "head to head", or "single combat".
Facts you get from the paragraph • fly obsolete jets • tangled with his father one night after driving drunk • Father’s chilling utterance to solve the quarrel • father’s quiet scorn in an interview • father was willing to let George W. drive from Texas to Maine
What does the paragraph want to tell us? • Bush’s family education: strict but understanding father.
Paragraph 4 Determined to make it on his own, Bush did not tell his father that he was applying to Harvard Business School. The “West Point of Capitalism” was not inundated with applicants in the anti-business early 1970s, so Bush got in, despite mediocre grades that kept him out of his first choice of grad schools, the University of Texas Law School. Bush posed as a redneck rebel at Harvard, wearing his National Guard flight jacket and cowboy boots and chewing tobacco as he sat at the back of the class, spitting into a paper cup. But he showed early signs of the self-discipline that would become more characteristic as time went on. He kept up with the grueling casework, particularly in a course called Human Organization and Behavior. Here were formal lessons in organizing and managing people that Bush had only intuited as an Andover cheerleader. He developed his basic approach to leadership at Harvard’s training ground for future CEOs. The essence was to think Big Picture, don’t get caught in the details, delegate and decide. Bush whizzes through briefing books today. preferring to listen rather than read, but his friends say he has an ability to cut to the chase. If Bush seems less substantive than a Bill Clinton ——or an Al Gore — he can blame a Harvard education.
The “West Point of Capitalism” was not inundated with applicants in the anti-business early 1970s, so Bush got in, despite mediocre grades that kept him out of his first choice of grad schools, the University of Texas Law School. • What does the sentence mean? • Young people were not interested in business at that time, and there were not many people applying to this famous college. Therefore, Bush, as an average student, was fortunate to have a chance to go to that university.
Paragraph 5 Bush hardly mentions Harvard today. He loathed what he saw as the university’s liberal. intellectually pretentious atmosphere. On weekends at the home of his aunt Nancy Ellis. who lived in Boston, Bush railed against the “smugness” of Cambridge. He pined to get back to Texas. While Bush’s classmates headed for Wall Street, Bush went to look for a job in the oil patch, again following his father, whose portrait hangs in Midland’s Petroleum Hall of Fame.
Paragraph 6 • Bush has talked incessantly about the “entrepreneurial” spirit of Midland, where a geology degree from the University of Oklahoma counted for more than a Harvard or Yale education, and Andover was scoffed at by his friends as “Bendover.” But Bush was hardly self-made. In many ways, he found sanctuary in Midland, where his old friendships and connections made for a much easier, safer life than bucking the Eastern intellectual snobs. He likes to praise the risk-taking gumption of the oil “wildcatters,” but Bush himself got most of his seed money from his father’s friends and old Skull and Bones mates. He was a fairly cautious oilman. He drilled near established wells—in effect looking for singles and doubles, not home runs. Even then, he was unlucky. Unlike his father, who arrived in Texas during a boom time and rode the wave, Bush suffered some serious downturns in the business and had to put up with friends calling his business, Arbusto Co., “Ar-bust-o.”
Paragraph 7 The l970s and early 1980s are seen as Bush’s years in the wilderness, a time when he was drifting about in a sort of restless. perpetual adolescence. He certainly dressed like a sophomore. shuffling around town in Chinese slippers and his friends’ castoff clothes. “If you were going to throw a shirt away, he’d say, ‘Hey, are you getting rid of that?” recalled a buddy, Charlie Younger. Bush liked to down beer around the barbecue. Yet he had a goal. He seems to have sensed from the beginning that politics was his calling. He toyed with running for Congress from Houston in 1971 until his parents and other wiser heads discouraged him, and he mounted an uphill campaign for the House of Representatives in 1978. He lost, narrowly, to Kent Hance, a good ole boy who made fun of Harvard and Yale and Bush’s fondness for jogging. “I got out-countried, and it’s not gonna happen again,” says Bush, who has since been known to act like he has a “chaw” in his cheek.
Paragraph 8 • Bush ran without any particular qualifications beyond his last name. He was somewhat oblivious to the political power of his family ties. At Andover. he never boasted about his family’s prominence, but when a friend expressed surprise at learning that Bush’s grandfather was a U.S. senator, Bush said with a shrug, “I thought you knew that.” Before his 1978 congressional race, he went to a “candidate’s school” set up by the Republican Party. David Dreier. now a Republican congressman from California, recalls young hush’s telling him excitedly, “I’ve got the greatest idea of how to raise money for the campaign. Have your mother send a letter to your family’s Christmas-card list. I just did, and I got $350,000!” It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Bush that not everyone has Barbara Bush’s Rolodex full of senators and statesmen and GOPfat cats.
Paragraph 9 • For all his late-night carrying on in this period, Bush was clearly looking for some order and stability in life. He found it in his wife, Laura, a quiet, pretty librarian with a calm, sure manner. She was unfazed by the competitive frenzy of the Bush family. When the matriarch and chief-of-games, grandmother Dorothy, coolly eyed Laura at Walker’s Point and inquired, “What do you do?” Laura responded just as coolly, “I read.” Laura soon had Bush attending church suppers, and reportedly helped end his drinking by giving him a choice: “Jim Beam or me.” It may also be revealing that the man described as his “closest friend” today is a teetotaling, Bible-studying pillar of the community, Don Evans.
Paragraph 10 • Bush’s newfound faith did not squelch his natural irreverence. In church one Sunday, the congregation around him was distracted during the sermon by a beeping sound: he had been impatiently clocking the preacher with his watch. Bush has hardly rounded off all his rough edges. He still “bounces off the walls,” says a family friend, who adds, “Laura will say, ‘Oh, George, will you just go for a run?” His own family understands that his sobriety has been a test of will. “He could easily be out of control,” his sister, Dorothy, told Newsweek. “He has said that there is a fat person inside him who is trying to get out. He has tremendous discipline.” Bush has not entirely tamed his temper, and when his naturally squinty eyes narrow to slits, he can be surly. He has been known to snarl at reporters who have written unflattering pieces about the Bush family.
Paragraph 11 • Bush has never stopped trying to please his father. Some friends believe that he quit drinking in part to avoid embarrassing his parents. At one dinner party at their home, an inebriated George W. supposedly turned to the matron at his side and inquired, “So, what’s sex like after 50?” When his father began gearing up to run for president in 1987, Bush moved his family to Washington to help. Within the campaign, he enforced loyalty to “the Man,” as he referred to his father, sometimes a little too hotly. He was well matched with Lee Atwater, the brilliant bad-boy political operative who masterminded Bush’s 1988 campaign, and whose subversive, edgy humor would have made him right at home in Bush’s crowd at Andover.
Paragraph 12 • Though George Bush Sr. sometimes disapproved of his son’s footloose and, as he put it, “feisty” ways, he was patient about letting him find his own way and was intensely proud when he did. While he was being interviewed for the GOP video that will play at the convention this week, Bush Sr. was asked, “Are you proud of your boy?” President Bush began to cry and the camera had to be switched off. Both Bushes are sentimental men. Bush Jr. was intensely moved on the morning of his inauguration as governor of Texas when his father passed on to him the same cuff links his own father had given him after he won his Navy wings in 1943. As he recounted that story to Newsweek, George W.’s eyes filled with tears.
Paragraph 13 • George Bush Sr. was always loving and trusting of his son. Yet one senses that their relationship has become more easygoing over time. As a boy, George W. was too impatient to go • fishing with his father for more than a few minutes. In his interview with Newsweek, Bush imitated his boyish restlessness on fishing expeditions with Dad: “There are no fish! Take me in!” Now he can float along for hours, talking politics and tapping his father’s experience and wisdom. Example: as he was mulling over a running mate — and possibly thinking of Dick Cheney — George W. recently asked his father, “If someone says no, do they mean it?”
Paragraph 14 A couple of weeks ago Bush was chatting up reporters, as he does almost every day at the back of his campaign plane. “Were you drinking last night?” he greeted a female network producer he likes. “Why are you wearing dark glasses?” She just laughed. (He also teases her about her love life.) With a profile writer, he turned a question about his Harvard Business School experience into a riff about M.B.A.s. “We’re gonna get out the M.B.A. vote! M.B.A.s unite! M.B.A.s chain across America!” he cried, raising his fists in mock triumph. He deftly handled the press regulars, joking and teasing with them (he has nicknames for most, like “Panchito” for Frank Bruni of The New York Times). He was warm and funny and quick, and though the jaded reporters try not to like him, they do. Most family sagas peter out after a couple of generations. But the Bushes seem to carry on, each in his own way, joined by a certain goofy charm, a muted but powerful call to serve and a keen desire to win.
Replace the italicized parts with words from the text carped • The old lady complained continuously about the way her granddaughters dressed. • His painting gave a concrete form to the spirit of the age. • The poor couple suffered great pain every night over the decision to send their sons to school and keep their only daughter at home to help with farming work. • He issued an open and direct denial of the story that he was involved in bribery. • Bill looked hard at the computer screen, wondering what his programming mistake was. embodied agonized outright peered
Replace the italicized parts with words from the text mediocre 6. Mary’s parents knew clearly that their daughter’s poor scores would keep her out of any prestigious university. 7. The company was flooded with application letters after their advertisement for new employees appeared in local newspapers. 8. The manager stubbornly opposed the suggestion to reduce his staff despite his failing business. 9. John Bull is always speaking sharply to his workers for no apparent reason. 10. The rain came gradually to a stop before we got started. inundated bucked snarling at petered out
scoff unfazed misgiving mull misbehave pretentious obsolete wince whiz through squelch jaded sanctuary pose grueling obsolete • Gas lamps became __________ when electric lighting became popular. • It is very hard for me not to _________ when I see a nurse putting a needle intro my arm. • No one would deny that the marathon is the most ________ event in the sports meet. • They ______________ the rehearsal so that there would be time for a short meeting. • The film star made a(n) __________ speech to journalists, stating that he only cared about art, not wealth. wince grueling whizzed through pretentious
scoff unfazed misgiving mull misbehave pretentious obsolete wince whiz through squelch jaded sanctuary pose grueling squelched 6. The senator __________ the reporters who tried to interrupt him during his speech. 7. It took a long time for him to _________ over the whole thing before eventually making a decision. 8. It was exciting to see such a movie for the first time, but we soon became ________ when our TV was flooded with programs of a similar kind. 9. Jane hoped her new housemaid cold be trusted, but she still had some ________. 10. When the war broke out, a large number of refugees crossed the border, seeking ________ in the neighboring country. mull jaded misgivings sanctuary
scoff unfazed misgiving mull misbehave pretentious obsolete wince whiz through squelch jaded sanctuary pose grueling 11. Fame happened almost overnight for the 25-year-old actress, but she has been _________ by all the recent media attention. 12. The man _________ as a health-worker in order to get into the old lady’s house, and then stole her money. 13. Years ago, people would have ________ at the notion that robots would operate on patients instead of surgeons. 14. Mrs. Williams was upset when she heard that her son had ____________ at school. unfazed posed scoffed misbehaved
Translation • 克林顿和小布什根本就是两种不同的人。克林顿是一应事务巨细必究的人。在记忆资料时，他是一部机器；那些无休止的政治或经济问题的会议，他与顾问们必定参加。相反，小布什痛恨那些超过15分钟的会议，更不喜欢人们用乱七八糟的数字去烦他。克林顿从一开始出任总统就十分关注民意测验对他行为的认可程度。但是小布什却大不一样。他从竞选时就说，他将以自己的准则做出各种决定。 • 克林顿酷爱读书，而其继任者却非如此。前总统生活快活，风流倜傥，还经常喝上几口。但新总统自14年前劫杯之后已滴酒不沾。 • 小布什出生于得克萨斯新英格兰贵族家庭；前任总统是来自普通家庭，经历艰辛，锤炼了自己的才能。他用自己的智慧和口才做事，而这正是继任者所缺乏的。
Translation • Clinton and Bush Jr. differ greatly from each other. Clinton attends in person to everything, trivial or critical, he and his advisors never fail to take part in the interminable meetings on politics or the economy; he memorizes data well just like a computer. In contrast, Bush Jr. dislikes a meeting that lasts over 15 minutes, and loathes being bothered by confusing figures. Clinton cared every much about public approval presented by polls since his early presidency, whereas Bush Jr. , in sharp contrast, proclaimed at the outset of his election that he would make all decisions on his own. • Clinton is an avid reader, but his successor is not. Joyful, casual, and elegant, the ex-president enjoys a drink but the new president has been a teetotaler for the last 14 years. • Bush Jr. was born of a privileged WASO family in Texas, while the former, from an ordinary family, has tempered himself and developed his talents in hardships. He works with wisdom and eloquence, which his successor is short of.
