当前位置

首页 > 英语阅读 > 英文经典故事 > Father and Son

Father and Son

推荐人: 来源: 阅读: 9.09K 次
Writing, painting or music can often capture the splendor of the best of life, but occasionally life mirrors art. An experience occurred recently that brought this home to me: Our student son Mark and I enjoyed a round of Seaside golf near the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland-one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world.

Father and Son
I write not as a good golfer in the technical sense, but hopefully as a "good" player who enjoys a round in the company of family or friends, who tries hard to win but who doesn't mind losing to the better golfer. Sadly, "good golfers" in that sense are becoming harder to find in a competitive world.

Mark and I were intent on enjoying a day out together, one of those rare occasions where a father and son can share each other's company totally without interruption. Mark had just returned from a vacation job in Germany, where he had been shoveling curry powder in a spice factory. He was about to return to the University of Manchester in England, and I was due to go back to my busy desk at Queen's University in Belfast the next morning. So we settled for a sharing of seaside golf.

Those people who do not understand golf should still read on. I'm not sure that I understand golf myself, or why grown men and women spend so much time, money and energy-and suffer so much anguish-in trying to knock a small white ball into a tiny hole in the ground using a long awkward-looking stick, and trying to do so in as few strokes as possible. It is more than a game: It is a lesson in life. I have seen mature men pale at the prospect of knocking in a final three-foot putt to win a match. Even worse, I know men who have found it hard to lose gracefully to their close friends, or to their own sons. Sometimes such winners are really the losers.

Despite all such angst, there is a totally irrational surge of satisfaction-sometimes peaking into joy-when the golf swing works well and that little white ball zooms down the fairway as if Jack Nicklaus himself had hit it. It was one of those great days of unexpected golfing successes when Mark and I strode along the fairways, bounded on one side by the picturesque River Bush. I had played this course for more than twenty years, but on this particular morning I realized that Mark was coming of age and was beating his father for the first time, fair and square.

As we walked and talked, my mind lingered on the theme of life imitating art, and particularly the art of that great and much-loved English poet Sir John Betjeman, who captured the magic of "Seaside Golf":

How straight it flew, how long it flew,
It cleared the rutty track,
And soaring, disappeared from view
Beyond the bunker's back -
A glorious, sailing, bounding drive
That made me glad I was alive.

As our game progressed through the regulation eighteen holes, it was obvious that Dad, playing quite well by his standards, was hanging on for dear life. And at the very last hole, Mark, a gentle giant of a young man, strode forward none-too-confidently to try to sink a short putt that would win the match. As he stood there concentrating, I wanted him to sink the putt and win, but I was equally prepared to play on to a "sudden death" if necessary. Agonizingly he hit it, and the ball rolled gently-into the cup! A beam of joy lit up his face, and I felt deep in my heart: "That's my boy." I thought, too, of the lines of Betjeman:

It lay content
Two paces from the pin:
A steady putt and then it went
Oh, most securely in.
The very turf rejoiced to see
That quite unprecedented three.
Afterwards, in the clubhouse, we had a simple but splendid lunch overlooking the very green where Mark had clinched his memorable victory. We replayed every stroke, we talked about sport and we philosophized about life. I even pointed out, for the umpteenth time, the sparkling white hotel across the headlands where his mother and I had held our wedding reception a quarter century earlier, and I told him, yet again, of my early and troubled attempts to learn to play golf on this very same course. One day I became so frustrated that I put the ball in my pocket and walked on with my partner, rather than try to play a few holes. Later, my editor, when reading of this in my Belfast newspaper column, wrote the following headline: "The Day I Played Four Holes in None!"

Mark, for his part, listened intently and appreciatively to this family history. He too has an eye for beauty and an ear for poetry. He is (I'll say it) a treasured son, a partner and confidant in his own right, and his triumph on the golf course had underlined his maturity and growing sense of independence. With such a son I, technically the loser, knew that I was, happily, a long-term winner in a much deeper way.

That night, I read to Mark the last stanza of the Betjeman poem that recaptured so beautifully our feelings of privilege and joy.

Ah! seaweed smells from sandy caves
And thyme and mist in whiffs,
In-coming tide, Atlantic waves
Slapping the sunny cliffs,
Lark song and sea sounds in the air,
And splendor, splendor everywhere.
Indeed. There had been enough splendor on that fine day to warm the hearts of a father and a son for a lifetime.

热点阅读

  • 1conditions for and limitations on working extra shifts or extra hours是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 2adjustment tax with different rates for different enterprises是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释范例
  • 3一场吸引了70万观众的中国展 Exhibition on China and Fashion Proves Golden for Met
  • 4adjustment tax with different rates for different enterprises是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 5企业必须寻找独特智慧 The path to enlightenment and profit starts inside the office
  • 6advocacy of industry and commerce as the basis for national strength是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释大纲
  • 7company on the basis of shares from its staff and workers是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 8brothers and sisters of uncles and aunts on the mother's side是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 9adjustment tax with different rates for different enterprises是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释大纲
  • 10fees paid for the transformation (of urban land)是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 11award rendered in the absence of the respondent是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释大纲
  • 12afforested zones holding off sandstorms是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 13(borrowing venture that applies for a loan must) satisfy the conditions for a loan是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 14中国面临非法集资之困 Failed China schemes pull down hundreds of thousands of investors
  • 15standard deviation of the arithmetic mean of a series of measurements是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 推荐阅读

  • 1father英语作文
  • 2aircraft using in flight the features of both aeroplane and rotorcraft是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 3award rendered in the absence of the respondent是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 4arrangement of exhaustion in industrial shaft furnaces是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 5budgeted funds handed over to the state coffers是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释大纲
  • 6advocacy of industry and commerce as the basis for national strength是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 7benefits and obligations which the enterprises shared are uneven是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释大纲
  • 8adjustment of coefficients of expansion between semiconductor device and heat sink是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 9benefits and obligations which the enterprises shared are uneven是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 10Additional Clauses for Supervising the Erection of Plants and Machinery Abroad是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 11父亲节(Father's Day)
  • 12Women and Men
  • 13award for outstanding achievement for research in social sciences是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释大纲
  • 14英语作文My Father
  • 15arrangement of heat exchangers in industrial shaft furnaces是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 16budgeted funds handed over to the state coffers是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释范例
  • 17Association Francaise de Normalisation French Standards Association是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释
  • 18Additional Clauses for Supervising the Erection of Plants and Machinery Abroad是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解释大纲
  • 19Father And Mother,I Love You——给爸爸、妈妈的一封信800字
  • 20balance of payments statistics based on the IMF (International Monetary Fund) standard是什么意思、英文翻译及中文解