1. Elation of snowy days in America 美国雪天的乐 2. A snowy morning is a theatre of memory. 下雪的早晨令人浮想联翩。 3. No matter how inconvenient all the falling white stuff is for commuters, 无论这下落的白絮给上下班的人们带来多大 不便, 4. most North Americans who wake up to snow feel a strange elation born of that household drama of their childhood: 多数醒来就见到白雪的北美人都会感到一种 难以名状的兴奋,这源自童年时在家中兴奋 等待的一幕戏: 5. Will there be school today or not? 今天还上不上学? 6. Since most children in America and Canada live far from their schools, large yellow schoolbuses ferry them back and forth in the suburbs and countryside. 在美国和加拿大,多数学生住得离学校很远 ,在市郊和农村的学生由黄色的大校车接送 他们。 7. As soon as more than a few inches of snow are on the ground, school superintendants must decide whether to call off school for the day. 只要地面上有了几英寸的雪,学校的督导就 必须决定当天还开不开课。 8. Parents tune in to the local radio stations to listen anxiously for announcements of school cancellations. 父母们打开收音机,焦急地等着听当地电台 播放有关学校停课的通知。 9. Sometimes you can sense teachers and superintendants panicking across a region: 有时候你会感受到整个地区教师与督导们的 焦虑: 10. First one school will call in to say school is off, then a few minutes later another, 先是某一所学校给电台打进电话说停课,几 分钟以后又有一所, 11. then a couple more and finally resistance caves in as dozens of schools telephone their decisions. 然后又有两三所,最后,当十几所学校都打 来电话告知他们的决定后,不愿意停课的学校的阵营就土崩瓦解了。 12. Jubilation at the breakfast table: NO SCHOOL TODAY! 于是欢呼声响彻在孩子们的早餐桌上:今天 不上学喽! 13. In my years in Beijing the snowfalls, I must say, have been puny, three inches at most. 说起我在北京这些年里所下的雪,我必须承认,真是小得很,最多也就是3英寸厚。 14. Beijingers who study in the northern US are often taken aback by the much deeper snow they encounter there: 到美国北部上学的北京人往往会对所见到的深得多的雪而感吃惊: 15. It''s common for a foot of snow to fall in the course of a few hours, turning traffic into a nightmare of sliding and stalling cars. 一场几小时的雪下过,地面就积起一英尺厚的雪,这是很常见的,由此使得交通陷入到 车辆刹不住闸以及抛锚熄火的恶梦中。 16. Many winters feature storm after storm, with a great piling up of unmelted snow. 在很多冬天里,暴风雪往往是一场接着一场 地袭来,堆积起厚厚的未溶的雪。 17. I remember one insanely delightful snowstorm in 1978 我还记得1978年那场让人乐疯了的暴风雪, 18. that shut down everything from Boston to Washington for three days under a meter of snow. 从波士顿到华盛顿之间的所有城镇都被罩在 一米深的雪“被”下,三天里一切商务和交 通都停顿了。 19. People were skiing through the streets of the small city where I was living at the time. 那时在我所住的小城里,人们在大街上滑雪 玩。 20. There is something wonderful about a catastrophe that doesn''t actually seem to hurt anyone, or not many people, anyway. 那种实际上对人并没有什么伤害,或者没有 对很多人造成伤害的天灾,确实有着某种奇 妙的魅力。 21. Preparing for winter is a serious matter in large parts of Canada and the US. 在加拿大和美国的大部分地区,准备过冬是 件须认真对待的事。 22. Normal tires must be replaced with "snow tires" that, thanks to their deeper grooves (and sometimes their studs), help cars to move over ice and snow. 汽车上的普通轮胎要换成“雪地胎”,这种 胎上有深深的凹槽(有时还有钉),可帮助 车驶过冰雪地面。 23. Many people put insulating "storm windows" on their houses so as to cut their winter heating bills. 很多人会在家里安上双层玻璃的防寒窗,以 减少冬季的取暖费用。 24. New snow shovels need to be bought; snow blowers, the winter cousins of lawn mowers, must be checked out. 还需要买新的宽宽的雪铲;作为锄草机冬季 同族的吹雪机,也必须检查停当。 25. And the moment the flakes start to fall, 在雪片开始降下的一刹那, 26. the road crews are on alert for the signal to man the snowplows that keep traffic moving in all but the worst weather. 公路管理者就绷紧了神经,等着开动扫雪机 的信号,以保证交通在各种情况下都通畅, 除非是在最恶劣的情况下才作罢。 27. Local politicians know that failure to keep roads plowed and open is likely to cost them their jobs come election time. 当地的政治家们都知道,如果不能及时清扫 道路并使其畅通,就意味着在下次竞选时可 能失掉自己的职位。 28. For easterners winter is a cause of mild concern; for westerners it can still be a very real threat. 对于东方人来说,冬天只须略加关注便可; 而对于西方人,冬天有时却是实实在在的威 胁。 29. I spent part of my childhood on my grandparents'' farm in South Dakota, 我曾在南达科他州我祖父的农场度过一段童 年时光, 30. an open plain inhabited by many many cows and very few people, most of them on individual family farmsteads scattered every few miles. 那里是一片开阔的平原,有很多很多的牛, 人却很少,大都住在各自的农舍,彼此相距 数英里。 31. Here the weather is extreme: 那里的冬天非常严酷: 32. The coldest winter day I remember was -40℃ (easy to remember: it''s also -40℃F!), fortunately windless 我记得最冷时的气温是零下40摄氏度(这很 好记,同时也是零下40华氏度),所幸是那 时没刮风; 33. the hottest summer weather was three infernal days with temperatures of 47.5℃ punctuated by tornadoes. 而夏天最热的天气是气温竟达47.5摄氏度的 那可恶的三天。其间还有数次龙卷风。 34. Winters in Dakota are not necessarily very snowy, 达科他地区的冬天不一定下很大的雪, 35. but the snow is blown about by fierce winds that can churn even a modest snowfall into a terrific blinding blizzard. 但是雪被大风一吹,不大的雪就变成了可怕 的看不清路的雪暴, 36. Buildings and trees are quickly buried in snowdrifts. 房屋与树木很快就被随风滚来的雪浪吞没。 37. After digging out from one of these storms (it may take days, and farmers often have to be rescued from under mounds of snow), 当人们从这样的雪暴中铲出通路走出来时( 铲雪有时会用上 好几天,农民们常常需要人 把他们从厚厚的雪层中救出来), 38. people like to point to where hungry deer have beenclimbing the drifts to nibble the upper branches of the few trees. (人们)总喜欢指点着远处:饥饿的鹿爬上 了雪堆,啃咬着为数极少的树木的高端枝 杈。 39. These blizzards and long spells of extreme cold are very hard on any wildlife that isn''t hibernating. 这些雪暴以及长期的严寒对于不冬眠的野生 动物是极为严酷的。 40. Like many farmers, my grandfather would often take pity on the starving pheasants and throw maize and millet out for them and the other birds. 就像很多农民所做的那样,我的祖父也常常 同情那些饥饿的野鸡,把玉米和小米撒在外 面,让它们和其他鸟类来吃。 41. Once as we were crossing the neighboring state of Wyoming---we were very much in the middle of nowhere---we were caught by some fairly light snow. 有一次我们经过相邻的怀俄明州,当时四周 远近都没有人家,正赶上了一场很小的雪。 42. No problem, I thought, we were safe in our car. 没有问题,我想,我们在车里很安全。 43. Then as the wind picked up and the visibility fell to zero, 之后,当起了风、可见度变为零时, 44. I noticed that snowflakes were being driven right under the insulating rubber around the windows. 我注意到,雪片儿一个劲儿地往玻璃四周的 橡胶密封条下面钻。 45. We had blankets in the trunk, to be sure, 当然,后备箱里有毛毯, 46. but if the car had broken down we might easily have wound up as frozen as the cattle carcasses and occasional human corpses that turn up every spring. 但是,当时如果汽车熄了火,我们很快就会 落得个冻死的下场,就像每年春天发现的冻 死的牛以及偶然也有的人的冻尸那样。
|