There was no one quite like my father —— in our town of Victor. When a
ny other man in town had an extra dollar, he bought a drink; when Father had
an extra dollar, he bought a book. Other people had pictures on their walls
, or at least a calendar; we had books, 3000 of them, lining every vertical
surface of our little four - room house, on every subject from astronomy to
zo-ology.
　　Father was the most persistent scholar I ever knew. Every summer he took
a month or so off to attend classes in Denver or Omaha or Chicago. Twice a
week, a neighbor recently arrived from Germany came over to converse with hi
m in German because he hoped some day to study with the great professors of
medicine in Vienna. Eventually, he earned seven degrees, attended 11 differe
nt colleges and universities, and in 1951, when he was 82 sent us a cheerful
little note from England to say that he had just enrolled for a graduate co
urse in Elizabethan literature at Oxford.
　　My sister, Pherbia, and I were the immediate beneficiaries of Father's i
nsatiable hunger to lean. Every spring, carrying his geologist's hammer, he
would take us hiking through the mountains to study mineral formations and s
earch for rocks and wildflowers for his specimen collections. We were expect
ed to identify all specimens without hesi-tation. On winter nights, when the
skies were especially clear from our, 10,000-foot vantage point in the Rock
ies, he would set up a telescope and wake us to come view the stars, which h
e then named with the af-fectionate familiarity of a local tour guide. For t
he rest of my life, wherever I traveled around this earth, the stars remaine
d my friends.
　　Plain, distinct speech was a particular concern of my father and he was
constantly drilling me in the art of elocution. Before I was three, he was r
eading aloud to me from the Bible, Shakespeare and Mark Twain. Thereafter, I
read aloud to him so he could work on my diction. By the time I was in the
fifth grade, I could recite from a whole range of classical literature and p
oetry —— and had to be pre-pared to do so at a moment's notice. Once, when
we happened to meet near the church, he swept me inside, stood me up in the
pulpit and said, "Go ahead. " It was a familiar signal. I promptly launched
into a recitation while, from a rear pew, Father kept coaching, "Aspirate y
our H's! Louder! And put more fire into it!"
　　Of course, here have been times as a young man, when I got tired of stud
y and devoted my time to playing. Then Father would ad-monish me succinctly
by quoting a saying from Shakespeare, "If all the year were playing holidays
, to sport would be as tedious as to work ."
　　Obviously, his efforts were not entirely in vain, for my voice has enabl
ed me to earn a fair livelihood. But that fact doesn’t begin to define the
enormous debt I owe my father.

　　Annotation:
　　1. line every vertical surface 这里的意思是凡能放书的地方都放满书。verti
cal 垂直的
　　2. zoology n. 动物学
　　3. persistent adj. 固执的，坚定不移的
　　4. enroll v. 录取
　　5. beneficiary n. 受益人
　　6. insatiable adj. 不知足的，贪得无厌的
　　7. formation n. 结构
　　8. specimen n. 标本
　　9. vantage n. 有利
　　10. come view 等于come and view,意思是“来观看”
　　11. affectionate v. 深情的
　　12. drill v. 使牢记，教导
　　13. elocution n. 演说法，发声法
　　14. thereafter adv. 以后
　　15. at a moment’s notice 随叫随到
　　16. pulpit n. 讲经台
　　17. pew n. 教堂的条凳或座位
　　18. aspirate v. 送气
　　19. admonish v. 告诫，敦促
　　20. succinctly adv. 简洁地
　　21. tedious adj. 冗长乏味的
　　22. don’t begin to （口）决不能，完全不能