暖冬cool夏
这里一年四季温暖如春，没有酷暑没有严寒......
下面这段英文是一篇演讲稿，摘自美国70年代拍摄的电视连续剧The Walton。演讲的主人是一个名叫John-boy(John Jr.)的男孩，在他高中毕业时的发言。记得很多年前从图书馆借的光盘，看这部剧的时候，有点被震撼到。电视剧描述的是1933-1946年大萧条和二战时期，弗吉尼亚沃尔顿山上一个大家庭的故事，充满乡土人情味。电视中John -boy演讲，当时看的时候印象就很深，今天特地从网上搜索下来，粗粗翻了翻(有些地方还要改改，功底不够啊)。这篇讲稿文字简朴精确，富有生活气息。特此摘录留存。如有更好的译文，求之。
As a friend of The Walton's, I would like to welcome you to our family and share this memory with you.
Someone once asked my sister, Marion, where Walton's Mountain was, and she answered, "It's a place where my brother was happy."
That place is the white clapboard house that still stands across the road from The Walton Museum. And this is how I remember it:
I remember my childhood. We were in a depression, but we weren't depressed. We were poor, but nobody ever bothered to tell us that. All we knew was that we suffered an absence of money, but that didn't bother us. We were too occupied with the day to day events. To a skinny, awkward, red headed kid who secretly yearned to be a writer, and kept a journal of events, each of those days seemed filled with wonder. And as I look back they still do.
I remember that the end of winter would come late. First the icicles would melt along the eves of the house and gradually the layers of snow on the north end of the barn would disappear. Sometimes my mother's yellow, blue and white crocus would become impatient and push their heads through the snow on each side of the front walk.
Then March! Time to climb Witt's Hill again with kites made of brown wrapping paper and flown on string which had been collected for that purpose all winter long, then the blossoming of the dogwood and redbud and forsythia which told us that Spring had come again.
Summer would arrive and with it crickets and blue birds and cousins from Richmond and Petersburg, up for a visit. We would go barefooted and catch fireflies in the twilight. After darkness fell we would sit on the front porch and listen to ghost stories told by our grandparents. Some nights my father would take the whole gang down to Drusilla's Pond to catch blue gill and bass. There were two sisters who had drowned there, but we would leave before their ghosts were said to come out with the darkness. Some nights my father would call up bob white quail and lure them to the edge of the porch.
On Sundays we would drive over to Uncle Benny Tapscott's farm in Buckingham County. He would let us go down to his spring house and bring back chilled watermelons and cantaloupe. We would eat them in the yard and spit the seeds on the ground.
Every night there was something good to listen to on the radio. The whole family would gather to listen to "One Man's Family", or Charlie McCarthy ribbing Edgar Bergen or Gene Autrey singing "I'm Back In The Saddle Again". And one memorable night President Roosevelt reassured an apprehensive nation that "all we have to fear is fear itself".
With the coming of Fall we learned to wear shoes again. We would gather chinquapins and black walnuts in the woods and bring them home in bushel baskets. And when the frost killed the vines we would gather the last of the green tomatoes from the garden and the following day my mother's kitchen would be filled with the pungent aroma of green tomato relish.
With September came school again, and autumn color and the aroma of burning leaves. Finally the long silent Winter would be upon us. Under my parents supervision, my brothers and sisters and I would gather around the long wooden kitchen table and do our homework until one by one we drifted off to bed. And there with the house in darkness, we would call good night to each other, and then go to sleep in the knowledge that we were safe, secure, home.
做为沃尔顿家庭的一位友人, 我欢迎你们的光临并愿和你们一起回忆往事。
有人曾问过我的妹妹玛丽恩，沃尔顿山在哪儿，她回答说“那是一个我哥哥感到幸福快乐的地方”。
那个地方有座用白隔板所搭建的房子，至今还矗立在沃顿博物馆马路的对面。我记得的是这样的：
我记得我的童年。那时正处在大萧条期，而我们并不沮丧。我们穷，可没人会在意告诉我们这点(可没有人说我们穷)。我们只知道缺钱，但那并不困扰着我们。我们每天要做的事太多。对一个瘦弱，窘迫，长着一头红发，内心偷偷渴望成为一位作家，记着日记的少年来说，那些日子的每一天都充满奇妙。今日回首，依然如此。
记忆中，冬天总是迟迟不离去。当屋檐的冰柱开始融化之时，北端谷仓上的层层积雪也接着慢慢地消融。有时，妈妈种的黄色，蓝色和白色的番红花急不可待地从前院的路两旁雪堆中拱出头来。
然后三月了！带着我们花了一个冬天收集的褐色包装纸和线，做成的风筝，又去爬威特山，那盛开的山茱萸，紫荆花和连翘在告诉我们，春天又来了。
夏天带着蟋蟀，蓝鸟来了。里曲盟、匹兹堡的表哥表弟也会上来探望我们。我们光着脚，在暮色中捉萤火虫。当夜幕降临后，我们会坐在前院的门廊上，听祖父母给我们讲鬼怪的故事。有几个晚上，爸爸会带着我们这帮孩子下到德鲁西拉池塘捉蓝鰓和鲈鱼。那个池塘淹死过两个女孩，幽灵据说是在天黑后出来，而我们会在它们出来之前离开池塘。有些晚上，爸爸模仿着白鹌鹑的叫声，把它们引诱到门廊边。
周日，我们会开车到白金翰县的Benny Tapscott叔叔的农场。叔叔会让我们下去到他的冷藏间，让我们带回冰镇的西瓜和蜜瓜，坐在院子里吃，把籽吐在地上。
每个夜晚，收音机里总有好听的节目。一家人聚集在一起听“一个男人的家”,或是查理麦卡锡调侃艾德卡伯格，或听Gene Autry 唱“我重又坐上马背”。 记忆犹新的是一个晚上，罗斯福总统宽慰忧虑重重的国人，“我们所该害怕的就是恐惧本身”。
秋天来了，我们重又学着穿上了鞋子。我们去树林里捡锥栗和黑核桃，整篮整篮地扛回家。当霜冻袭来，藤枝冻死后，我们采集着果园里最后一批绿色的西红柿。第二天，妈妈的厨房便满屋飘着绿番茄的浓郁清香。
九月来了，学校开学了，也带来了秋的颜色和树叶焚烧后的香味。寂静漫长的冬天终于要来了。在爸爸妈妈督促下，我和弟弟妹妹们坐在厨房长长的木桌子前一起做功课，直到一个个困了睡去。熄灯后(？)，在黑暗中，我们互道晚安，知道今夜我们安然无恙，并安睡在家中(求更好的翻译？)。
这部连续剧曾经很红火的，据说是写Virginia的，我对那里不了解，你看看文中说的是不是正确，据说连续剧里的很多镜头都是在加州山里拍的。不过，这个连续剧非常好，非常推荐你，英文也好，述说那个年代的故事，乡土气息特别浓，只是很长。
你把我改得好，尤其是前面部分，你的文字比我简练秀气，这也是我不敢去翻译的原因之一。但是，后面这里"安全的感觉"我觉得有点多余，你看英文里一个字，home把很多意思表达了，但是好像不能直白译成"家的感觉"，其实翻译比写作难，人常说的"信达雅"，不能加太多我们的文字，又要神译出来，绝非易事。
Don't bother to Tell us.里面可以有几种意思，你这个第二个翻译比第一个好，但是它也有可能是想表达，那时候的人们大家都很穷，互相之间不在意别人是否贫穷富裕，没有会特意来告诉我们，你们很穷，这样的意思。
谢谢你这么有心。对了，我说的，Nature's loom never rests.在我的"学英语"里有一篇关于Alaska的文章前面就有，你可以去读读，它把大自然比做织布机，把Alaska大公园比做毯子。文章写得很好。再次谢谢你!
暖冬，你看到你有英译中的翻译，很高兴！不知他住在哪里，但我想一定住在比康州往南的地方。因为你提到的这些春天最早开的花在康州都要等到4月初才有。这里没见到REDBUD, DOGWOOD, forsythia很多。不知道番红花有这么多种色。
我翻译了一下最后几句，你看看。
“在父母的监督下，我们扒在厨房的长木桌上写作业，直到我们一个个爬上床去睡觉。在黑暗中，我们互道过晚安。然后带着让我们感觉到安全的，家的感觉，我们安心睡去。”
还有我想那句“DON'T BOTHER TO TELL US"， 是不是理解为：我们很穷，穷得懒得有人来提醒我们。