Hillbilly Elegy - Jan 25

With little ________(宗教训练), I was ________(急着去观摩一下真正的教会).

I asked Mom if I could see him, and she agreed, so ________(在我的法定父亲离开我生活的同一个夏天，我的生物学父亲又回到了我的生活圈子). Mom had ________(兜了一圈回到原地): Having cycled through a number of men in an effort to find me a father, she had ________(选定) the original candidate.

His mom remarried early, and though her second husband was a good man, he was also very firm and an ________(局外人/外人)—even the best stepparents ________(需要一段时间来适应).

There was a medium-sized ________(养鱼的池塘), a couple of fields for cows and horses, a barn, and a ________(鸡舍).

Every morning the kids would run to the chicken coop and ________(捡早上那一批的鸡蛋)—usually seven or eight, a perfect number for a family of five. During the day, we ________(在...周围蹦蹦跳跳) the property with a dog in tow, caught frogs, and chased rabbits.

Dad had built a home with an almost jarring serenity.

Even though they believed in ________(体罚), it was never ________(given) excessively or combined with verbal abuse—________(体罚讲究方法) and anger-free.

________(我对爸爸的性格知之甚少) during his marriage to Mom ________(大多数都是从别人口中知道的).

He credits a more serious involvement with his faith. In this, Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for decades: Religious folks are much happier.

In his religious habits, Dad________(以...的固定印象生活) of a culturally conservative Protestant with ________(南方出身), even though the stereotype is mostly inaccurate.

Indeed, the only conservative Protestants I knew who attended church regularly were my dad and his family. In the middle of ________(（美国南部和中西部有着较强基督教信仰基础的）《圣经》地带), active church attendance is actually quite low.

In a recent ________( 盖洛普民调), Southerners and Midwesterners reported the highest rates of church attendance in the country.

This pattern of deception ________(与...有关) cultural pressure.

________(俄亥俄州截然相反).

The juxtaposition is jarring: Religious institutions remain a positive force in people’s lives, but in a part of the country slammed by the decline of manufacturing, joblessness, addiction, and broken homes, church attendance has ________(下降).

For ________(待产妇女), it offered a free home with job training and parenting classes.

When Dad faced financial troubles, his church ________(团结起来) and purchased a used car for the family. In the broken world I saw around me—and for the people struggling in that world—religion offered tangible assistance to ________(确保那些虔诚的信徒可以继续正常的生活).

For the first time, I heard his side of the story: that the adoption had nothing to do with a desire to avoid child support and that, far from simply “________(抛弃我)” as Mom and Mamaw had said, Dad had hired multiple lawyers and ________(做了一切法理范围内的事) to keep me.

He worried that ________(对抚养权的争夺) was destroying me.

When he spoke to the court’s child psychiatrist, he learned that I had begun ________(behave badly) at school and was showing signs of emotional problems.

After a few weeks in kindergarten, I was ________(留级) for a year.

Eventually, Dad told me, he ________(向上帝祈求三个兆头) that an adoption was in my best interest.

I don’t doubt the truth of this account, and though I ________(理解) the obvious difficulty of the decision, I have never felt comfortable with the idea of leaving your child’s fate to signs from God.

Yet this was ________(一段微不足道的小插曲), all things considered.

________(总地来说), I loved my dad and his church.

I’m not sure if I liked the structure or if I just wanted to share in something that was important to him—both, I suppose—but I became a devoted convert. I devoured books about ________(年轻的地球神创论), and joined online chat rooms to challenge scientists on the theory of evolution.