父親常常把商店廢棄的租用短襪拿回家，衣服穿了三十多年仍敝帚自珍，堅信“不浪費則不匱乏”；我則熱衷于節(jié)能和回收利用，一度在車上黏貼“拯救鯨魚、拯救人類”或“我不吃任何有臉的東西”的標簽。我和父親，誰是真正的環(huán)保模范？

By Tracy Chait ∷闌珊 選 郭小華 注

Get Flash Player

My father has been stealthily rescuing the planet. He’d refer to himself as a frugal New Englander trained to turn off lights and live by the mantra “waste not, want not”.2 He’d never call himself an environmentalist—a title reserved for hippies, Democrats, and the state of Vermont.3 I’d long ago branded myself the environmentalist of the family, based on my devout canvas-bag toting, enthusiasm for organic broccoli, and the ability to pronounce the names of evil toxins like “phthalates” (pronounced as THA-layts).4

As a kid, I ignored my dad’s commitment to buying eggs from a nearby family, his annual opposition to store-bought Christmas gifts, and his infamous plea to persuade a local clothing store to hand over the loaner socks they would no longer be using.5 He finally came home triumphant one day, waving a pair of dingy white tube socks of two different lengths.6 “Girls!” he shouted, calling my mother, sister, and me into the kitchen to see the socks. He smiled like a Cheshire cat7. “They were free!”

He converted to compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) years before it became popular.8 “These bulbs will outlive me,” I remember him saying with a far-off look in his eye.9 I complained that it took 15 minutes for the light to come on in the bathroom, and I didn’t want to endure that for the rest of his life. It took me several more years and a couple of academic degrees to switch out my own bulbs, after I’d moved to California (“Vermont West”) and wasn’t home so often. It was the summer I fell in love with Al Gore and told my fiancé that I threw away neither aluminum foil nor zip-lock bags, and we’d never use wrapping paper.10 He raised both eyebrows at what I paid for dish soap11, but I told him he’d thank me later. A year later, we got married and bought a Prius12.

Recently, like the agonizingly slow-to-illuminate CFLs at my parents’ house, a light switched on in my consciousness: I was not the environmental paragon of the family.13 My dad was. My coupon-clipping, “I’m no tree-hugger” father was the real deal, and I had only been mimicking a way of life espoused by reasonably educated people who loved recycling and traveled to Alaska and had at one point slapped a Save the Whales, Save the Humans, or “I don’t eat anything with a face” sticker on their cars.14 I was an imposter armed with little more than my canvas totes and an impressive vocabulary of stuff that shouldn’t be in shampoo.15

My dad doesn’t have a silicone-wrapped glass water bottle, or bamboo sheets, and yet he’s managed to harness the meaning of real stewardship: Live on less, wear your clothes until they wear out (I’m pretty sure half his shirts were purchased while Nixon was in office), catch your own dinner.16

Growing up, I remember there were a few quotations tacked to the bulletin board in the kitchen. The one I remember most was from Wordsworth, and my dad quoted it often: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”17 I’m finally trying to take my dad’s lead18 and live more simply, buy less instead of buying green. Six years later, my husband and I are now sharing that same Prius.

This past summer I visited my parents for a few weeks. While I was there, I watched my dad bring items he no longer needed to our church’s basement (a low-tech Freecycle operation), take his own mug to the diner, pick chives from the garden, and dig quahogs to make into chowder he stored away for winter.19 With the air in the kitchen rustic and salty with the smell of clams, I told him he was part of the slow food movement.20

He agreed to no such thing, arguing that the clams he dug himself simply tasted sweeter.?

1. Hippie: 嬉皮士，20世紀60年代出現于美國的頹廢派青年，對社會現實抱有某種不滿情緒，信奉非暴力或神秘主義，以群居、蓄長發(fā)、穿奇裝異服等為特征。

2. 他自稱為勤儉節(jié)約、訓練有素的新英格蘭人，隨手關燈，敬神禱告，堅信“不浪費則不匱乏”。New England: 美國東北部六州，包括康涅狄格州、馬薩諸塞州、羅德島、佛蒙特州、新罕布什爾州和緬因州；mantra:（印度教和大乘佛教中的）曼特羅，咒語，據信具有神秘的或精神上的力量；waste not, want not: 不浪費則不匱乏（格言）。

3. environmentalist: 環(huán)保人士，環(huán)境保護論者； Democrat: 民主人士；Vermont: 佛蒙特州，在環(huán)境保護問題上持激進態(tài)度。

4. devout : 虔誠的，虔敬的；tote: 攜帶；broccoli: 花椰菜；toxin: 毒素；phthalate: 鄰苯二甲酸鹽，一種化學化合物，能干擾人的內分泌。

5. 我小的時候，對父親的節(jié)儉不以為然：他總是去附近一戶人家買雞蛋，每年都反對去商店購買圣誕禮物，他還很丟臉地懇求當地一家服裝店將不再使用的租用短襪交給他。infamous: 丟臉的；loaner socks:（顧客買鞋時）借穿的短襪。

6. triumphant: 得意洋洋的；dingy: 骯臟的；tube socks: 無跟圓筒短襪。

7. Cheshire cat: 柴郡貓，英國作家劉易斯?卡羅爾創(chuàng)作的童話《愛麗絲漫游奇境記》中的虛構角色，形象是一只咧著嘴笑的貓，擁有能憑空出現或消失的能力，甚至在消失以后，它的笑容還掛在半空中。

8. convert to: 轉換，改變；compact fluorescent lamp: 緊湊型節(jié)能熒光燈。

9. outlive: 比……經久；far-off: 遙遠的。

10. Al Gore: 美國前副總統(tǒng)戈爾，關注氣候變化與環(huán)境問題；aluminum foil: 鋁箔；zip-lock bag: 拉鏈袋；wrapping paper: 包裝紙。

11. dish soap: 餐具洗潔精。

12. Prius: 豐田普銳斯，于1997年10月底問世，是世界上最早實現批量生產的混合動力汽車，降低了車輛燃耗和尾氣排放。

13. agonizingly slow-to-illuminate: 極其緩慢地照亮；paragon: 模范，典范。

14. 我那喜歡剪優(yōu)惠券、聲稱“我不是激進的環(huán)保主義者”的父親才是真正的環(huán)保模范，而我只不過是效仿受過正當教育的人所擁護的生活方式，他們熱衷于回收利用，去阿拉斯加旅行，一度在車上黏貼 “拯救鯨魚、拯救人類”或“我不吃任何有臉的東西”的標簽。tree-hugger: 激進的環(huán)保主義者。

15. 我是個偽環(huán)保主義者，除了（背）帆布包和知道一大堆洗發(fā)水里不該含有的東西的名稱外也沒做什么。imposter: 偽環(huán)保主義者；canvas tote: 帆布包。

16. silicone-wrapped glass: 硅層玻璃；bamboo sheet: 竹席；harness: 駕馭； steward-ship: 管理方法； catch your own dinner: 為果腹而辛勤勞動。

17. Wordsworth: 威廉?華茲華斯（1770—1850），英國浪漫主義詩人，與雪萊、拜倫齊名；Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:“獲取與消費，正扼殺我們的天性”，摘自華茲華斯的十四行詩《我們太沉湎于俗世》（The World Is Too Much with Us）。

18. take sb.’s lead: 以某人為榜樣。

19. freecycle: 免費回收；mug: 馬克杯（用來喝熱飲的有柄大杯子）；chive: 細香蔥；quahog:圓蛤；chowder: 濃湯或雜燴。

20. rustic: 有鄉(xiāng)村風味的；clam: 蛤，蚌，蛤蜊，slow food movement: 慢食運動，由意大利人卡爾洛?佩特里尼提出，目的是對抗日益盛行的快餐。慢食運動提倡維持單個生態(tài)區(qū)的飲食文化，使用與之相關的蔬果、促進當地飼養(yǎng)業(yè)及農業(yè)。如今，該運動已發(fā)展至全球122個國家，有超過83,000名會員。

（來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：Julie）