Hillbilly Elegy - Jan 23

The costs of moving are so high that many people ________(停留原地/不搬离).

For reasons I can’t begin to fathom, the city’s ________(智囊团) decided to turn our beautiful riverfront into Lake Middletown, an infrastructural project that apparently involved shoveling tons of dirt into the river and hoping something interesting would ________(由...引起) it.

Many of the city’s best parks and facilities were bought with ________(Armco提供的资金).

Armco’s people ________([在组织中]董事会身居要职) of many of the important local organizations, and it helped to fund the schools.

For example, Inland Container, in Middletown, had 220 Kentuckyians ________(在员工花名册上), 117 of whom were from Wolfe County alone.

While labor relations no doubt had declined by the 1980s, much of the ________(声誉/商誉) built by Armco (and similar companies) remained.

The other reason most still call it Armco is that Kawasaki was a Japanese company, and in a town full of World War II vets and their families, you’d have thought that General Tojo himself had decided to ________(开设店铺) in southwest Ohio when the merger was announced.

Even Papaw—who once promised he’d ________(与子女脱离关系) his children if they bought a Japanese car—stopped complaining a few days after they announced the merger.

If companies like Armco were going to survive, they would have to retool.

job. It never occurred to me that Armco wouldn’t be around forever, funding scholarships, building parks, and ________(举办免费音乐会).

Even at Roosevelt Elementary—where, thanks to Middletown geography, most people’s parents lacked a college education—no one wanted to have a blue-collar career and ________(有着能过上受人尊重的中产阶级生活的前景).

Many kids seem to feel that way today. A few years ago I spoke with Jennifer McGuffey, a Middletown High School teacher who works with ________(高危青年/问题青年).

My grandfather loved the company and knew ________(任何型号和款式) of car built from Armco steel.

Even after most American car companies ________(过渡/变迁...) from steel-bodied cars, Papaw would stop at ________(二手车商) whenever he saw an old Ford or Chevy.

Many parents ________(对这种现象并无异议).

When my sister or I struggled in school, I’d overhear things like “Well, maybe she’s just not that great at fractions,” or “J.D.’s more of a numbers kid, so I wouldn’t worry about that spelling test.

One of our neighbors was a lifetime welfare recipient, but in between asking my grandmother to borrow her car or offering to trade food stamps for cash ________(溢价/在票面价值以上), she’d blather on about the importance of industriousness.

This was the construct she’d built in her head: Most of the beneficiaries of the system were extravagant moochers, but she—despite never having worked in her life—was an obvious exception.

For many, part-time work is all they have access to, because the Armcos of the world are ________(停止营业) and their skill sets don’t fit well in the modern economy.

But whatever the reasons, the rhetoric of hard work conflicts with ________(现实情况).

The teacher would announce the number of the day, and we’d ________(一个接着一个做某事)and announce a math equation that produced the number.

A few moments later, while I ________(为...感到高兴) my brilliance, another student announced, “Ten times three.”

None of us raised a hand. For my part, ________(我崩溃了).

It wasn’t something I’d learned in school, and my family didn’t ________(无所事事) and work on math problems.

I would ________(自责 blame or criticize yourself, usually in a way that is unfair or unnecessary) when I didn’t understand a concept, and ________(leave angrily), defeated.

Mom was ________(从来不是擅长数学的人), but she took me to the public library before I could read, got me a library card, showed me how to use it, and always made sure I had access to kids’ books at home.