《10到25岁》介绍(5)：家族文化传承之皮特和蕾奥娜的故事
说明：我正在连载《10到25岁》这本书的原文和翻译。本文是介绍部分的第5篇，也是介绍部分的最后一篇，下一篇将进入第一章。
之前的部分：
It was July 2019. Around 150 people had gathered for Pete Sumners’s memorial service at his old office building in Lufkin, Texas. They ate barbecue and peach cobbler on plastic plates and huddled near the air conditioner. Pete’s family and friends told stories of his kindness and humor. His employees talked about the jobs he had created and the careers he had elevated. They also talked about how, eighty years earlier, Pete’s contributions almost didn’t happen.
那是2019年7月。大约150人聚集在德克萨斯州卢夫金皮特·萨姆纳斯的旧办公楼，参加他的追悼会。他们用塑料盘子吃着烧烤和桃子馅饼，挤在空调附近。皮特的家人和朋友讲述了他善良和幽默的故事。他的员工谈论了他创造的工作机会和提升的职业生涯。他们还谈到，八十年前，皮特的贡献差点没能实现。
One Friday in November 1939, Pete loaded all his belongings into a Ford Model A and started driving home to the family farm in the small town of Conroe, Texas. At the time, he was a sixteen-year-old student at Rice University in Houston, majoring in mechanical engineering. He had decided that morning to drop out.
1939年11月的一个星期五，皮特把他所有的东西装进一辆福特A型车，开车回德克萨斯州康罗镇的家庭农场。当时，他是休斯顿莱斯大学机械工程专业的16岁学生。那天早上，他决定退学。
Just three months earlier, Pete had driven to Rice with confidence and pride. He was self-assured, cocky even. After all, he had been a football player and star student at Conroe High School, with a 94.6 GPA (out of 100) and third in his graduating class. But Rice was not Conroe. When Pete received his preliminary grades, he was shocked. He was failing five of his six classes. He wondered if he deserved to be there. Indignant and despondent, stressed and anxious, Pete saw no choice but to give up on his dream.
就在三个月前，皮特满怀信心和骄傲地开车去莱斯大学。他自信满满，甚至有些自负。毕竟，他是康罗高中的足球运动员和明星学生，平均绩点为94.6（满分100），在毕业班中排名第三。但莱斯大学不是康罗。当皮特收到他的初始成绩时，他震惊了。他六门课中有五门不及格。他怀疑自己是否应该在这里。愤怒、沮丧、压力和焦虑的皮特觉得别无选择，只能放弃自己的梦想。
As Pete drove home that day in 1939, he wondered what he would say to his mother, Leona, about his decision to drop out, and what she would say in return. Leona was a firm but loving woman who had guided her family through the Great Depression. Her warm and demanding demeanor had made her one of the most beloved teachers in the Houston Independent School District. But a few years earlier Leona had developed a chronic respiratory illness after working at an asbestos factory. Her health and strength were failing. Maybe she wouldn’t put up a fight, Pete thought, if he explained to her that he wasn’t cut out for college after all.
1939年的那天，皮特开车回家时，想着该怎么向母亲蕾奥娜解释自己退学的决定，以及她会怎么回应。蕾奥娜是一个坚定而慈爱的女人，她带领家人度过了大萧条。她温暖而严格的态度使她成为休斯顿独立学区最受欢迎的教师之一。但几年前，蕾奥娜在一家石棉工厂工作后患上了慢性呼吸道疾病。她的健康和体力正在衰退。皮特想，也许如果他能向她解释自己不适合上大学，她就不会反对了。
Pete arrived at the farm late on Friday night. The next morning, he was in for a surprise. "She may have been sick,” Pete said in an oral history interview later in life, "but this Saturday she found the strength to work me over.”
皮特周五深夜才到达农场。第二天早上，他迎来了一个惊喜。“她可能生病了，”皮特在后来的口述历史采访中说，“但这个星期六她找到了力气来收拾我。”
Smarts had nothing to do with it, Leona exclaimed. She didn’t dismiss his fears, but she also didn’t accept his excuses. He would persevere, she demanded, because he had potential. But she would also collaborate with him on getting support. He was having a hard time staying organized, so she arranged for him to find lodging in Houston with a prominent doctor. The doctor was married to an old friend of hers who would make sure he stayed on track—and keep him fed. By nightfall Pete was in the car, driving back to Rice. Leona hadn’t even let him stay to wash his dirty laundry.
聪明与此无关，蕾奥娜大声说道。她没有忽视他的恐惧，但也不接受他的借口。她要求他坚持下去，因为他有潜力。但她也会与他合作，寻求支持。他在保持条理方面有困难，所以她安排他在休斯顿与一位著名医生同住。这位医生是她的一位老朋友的丈夫，他会确保皮特保持在正轨上——并让他有饭吃。到晚上，皮特已经开车回到了莱斯大学。蕾奥娜甚至没让他留下来洗脏衣服。
That fateful day marked an inflection point in Pete’s life trajectory, one that would be on full display at his memorial service eighty years later. Pete went back to Rice and dedicated himself to his studies. At Rice, he met his wife, Opal, to whom he was married for seventy-five years, and with whom he had a large family. After Pete graduated in 1943, he was deployed to the Pacific theater of WWII. At just twenty-one years old, he used his engineering degree to lead maintenance for a fleet of B-29 bombers on Tinian that were pivotal to the Allied victory. He wouldn’t have done any of that if Leona had let him drop out.
那一天成为了皮特人生轨迹的转折点，这一转折点在他80年后的追悼会上得到了充分展示。皮特回到莱斯大学，专心致志地学习。在莱斯，他遇到了妻子奥帕尔，两人结婚75年，育有众多子女。1943年毕业后，皮特被派往二战的太平洋战场。年仅21岁的他利用自己的工程学位，领导了提尼安岛上对盟军胜利至关重要的B-29轰炸机机队的维护工作。如果蕾奥娜当时让他退学，这一切都不会发生。
After the war, Pete’s small engineering business brought air-conditioning to homes and offices around Lufkin. Pete liked to tell stories about what life in east Texas was like before air-conditioning. The air was unbearably hot and muggy. Men often changed their shirts three, four, five times per day. To sleep, you opened the windows and hoped for a breeze. But the open windows invited an onslaught of mosquitos. Such was your daily devil’s bargain. It was a revelation when Pete’s engineers showed up at your home or office and hooked up central AC. Pete was proud of the comfort he’d brought to thousands in east Texas. And he could only do that because Leona’s timely, tough-but-loving guidance kept him on track to becoming an engineer.
战后，皮特的小型工程公司为卢夫金周围的住宅和办公室带来了空调。皮特喜欢讲述东德克萨斯在空调出现前的生活。空气闷热得令人难以忍受。男人们一天要换三四五次衬衫。为了睡觉，你打开窗户，希望能有微风。但开着的窗户引来了蚊子的猛烈攻击。这就是你每天与魔鬼的交易。当皮特的工程师出现在你的家或办公室并安装中央空调时，那真是一个惊喜。皮特为东德克萨斯数千人带来的舒适感到自豪。而他能做到这一点，正是因为蕾奥娜及时、严厉而慈爱的指导使他走上了成为工程师的道路。
Pete’s biggest contribution of all, perhaps, was what he did for his employees. Pete’s handyman, Tinker, went from being an unskilled teenager to a part owner of the business. Another employee, Jimmy, experienced depression. Pete was patient with Jimmy and never fired him for being unreliable, which could have sent him into a tailspin. But Pete expected a lot of Jimmy when he was feeling well. Jimmy thanked Pete for his life.
皮特最大的贡献或许是他为员工所做的一切。皮特的杂务工廷克从一个没有技能的青少年变成了公司的部分所有者。另一名员工吉米患有抑郁症。皮特对吉米很有耐心，从未因他不稳定而解雇他，这可能会让他陷入困境。但皮特在吉米状态良好时对他期望很高。吉米感谢皮特给了他新生。
Pete hired Janice as a secretary at seventeen, straight out of high school. He gave her responsibility and an opportunity to learn. By the time she retired forty years later, she was managing the business. At the memorial service, Janice explained that because of Pete, she gave her kids something she never got: a college education. One is now a doctor, another a lawyer. "My kids can do what they do for so many other people because of what Pete did for me,” she told me. Over the years, Pete treated his employees like Leona had treated him. He held them to high expectations, but he gave them his support as well. And it changed their lives, just like Leona had changed his.
皮特在简妮丝17岁刚高中毕业时雇佣她做秘书。他给了她责任和学习的机会。到她40年后退休时，她已经在管理公司了。在追悼会上，简妮丝解释说，因为皮特，她给了孩子们她从未得到的东西：大学教育。一个现在是医生，另一个是律师。“我的孩子们能为这么多人做这么多事，是因为皮特为我做的一切，”她告诉我。多年来，皮特对待员工就像蕾奥娜对待他一样。他对他们有高期望，但也给予他们支持。这改变了他们的生活，就像蕾奥娜改变了他一样。
The Pete-and-Leona story represents something bigger than just a college- dropout decision. It exemplifies what adults can do for young people at any major fork in the road that leads to a better future for them and their communities.
皮特和蕾奥娜的故事不仅仅是一个大学退学决定那么简单。它展示了成年人在年轻人面临重大抉择时可以为他们做什么，从而为他们和他们的社区带来更好的未来。
I’m also drawn to Pete’s story for a personal reason. You see, Pete was my grandfather. Leona was my great-grandmother. I never knew Leona because she died in 1941, but Iam a product of her tradition. Leona is the reason why Pete met my grandmother, Opal, who gave life to my mother, who has a similar disposition and powerfully influenced me.
我对皮特的故事还有个人原因。你看，皮特是我的外祖父。蕾奥娜是我的曾祖母。我从未见过蕾奥娜，因为她于1941年去世，但我是继承了她的传统。蕾奥娜是皮特遇到我外祖母奥帕尔的原因，奥帕尔给了我母亲生命，她有着相似的气质，对我产生了深远的影响。
I was immersed in these stories growing up, but I never really understood them. We always laughed that Leona was so tough on old Pete. We focused on how harshly she enforced her high expectations. We downplayed her support. I didn’t realize it until recently, but our blindness to the true meaning of Leona’s actions says something profound about our culture. Our society tends to think that there are only two ways to interact with young people: tough or soft, mean or nice, authoritarian or permissive. We don’t realize that you can have a bit of both: you can have high standards and high support, like the wise-feedback note. Because we don’t realize that, we often emulate only half of what Leona did—either kick her son out or lavish him with free housing. Then, because we get it only half-right, we miscommunicate with young people, preventing them from fulfilling their potential. It’s an infuriating cycle. What if we could break out of it?
我从小沉浸在这些故事中，但从未真正理解它们。我们总是笑称蕾奥娜对老皮特太严厉。我们关注她如何严格地执行她的高期望，却忽视了她的支持。直到最近我才意识到，我们对蕾奥娜行为真正意义的盲点，反映了我们文化的深刻问题。我们的社会倾向于认为与年轻人互动只有两种方式：严厉或温和，刻薄或友好，权威或放任。我们没有意识到你可以两者兼有：你可以有高标准和高支持，就像智慧反馈便条那样。因为我们没有意识到这一点，我们常常只模仿蕾奥娜做法的一半——要么把儿子赶出去，要么提供免费的住房。然后，因为我们只做对了一半，我们与年轻人的沟通出现了误解，阻碍了他们发挥潜力。这是一个令人愤怒的循环。如果我们能打破它呢？
That day in Lufkin at Pete’s office, talking to Janice, my journey of learning became personal. I became determined to find the Leonas and the Petes of the world. I wanted to study their secrets. I would scour workplaces, homes, schools, and scientific journals to find out: How do the best managers, parents, and educators get the most out of young people, pushing them to be the best without crushing their spirits? I wrote this book to share what I’ve learned.
那天在卢夫金皮特的办公室，与简妮丝交谈时，我的学习之旅变得个人化了。我决心找到世界上像蕾奥娜和皮特这样的人。我想研究他们的秘诀。我会遍寻工作场所、家庭、学校和科学期刊，找出：最好的管理者、父母和教育者如何最大限度地发挥年轻人的潜力，推动他们成为最好的自己，而不压垮他们的精神？我写这本书是为了分享我所学到的。
Note that I’m on the same journey of learning as you are. I need this information as well. I manage young people in my research lab. I’m a parent of four, with the oldest just starting her teenage years. I coach baseball and basketball. I used to teach middle schoolers and now I teach in college. I’ve tried all the ideas in this book. Although I can’t say I did them perfectly, I can promise that on the occasions when I got them right, it was worth it.
请注意，我和你一样在这条学习之路上。我也需要这些信息。我在我的研究实验室管理年轻人。我是四个孩子的父母，最大的孩子刚刚进入青春期。我教棒球和篮球。我以前教中学生，现在在大学教书。我尝试了这本书中的所有想法。虽然我不能说我做得完美，但我可以保证，在我做对的时候，那是非常值得的。
Those of us on this journey want actual, practical knowledge of how to interact effectively with young people. That’s why, for each chapter, I’ve written questions and suggestions for how to take the ideas and put them into practice. They appear sequentially at the end of the book.
我们这些在这条路上的人，想要的是关于如何有效与年轻人互动的实际知识。这就是为什么我在每一章的最后都写了一些问题和建议，说明如何将想法付诸实践。它们按顺序出现在书的末尾。
With that, I’d like to welcome you to your continuing education about the wonderful, vexing, and inspiring world of motivating and influencing young people.
有了这些，我想欢迎你继续学习如何激励和影响年轻人，那是一个奇幻、令人烦恼又鼓舞人心的世界。