I went through four years of high school in Alabama, and became active in clubs and sports. I made a lot of friends and became a regular boy. But one thing was irregular about me: I managed those four years without ever having a friend visit my house.
I was ashamed of where I lived. We had a big family. Several of the members of the family were sleeping in one room, but that’s not so bad if you get along and we always did. As you get older, though, things get worse. We lived in a lot of old houses. Some of them were in bad shape ten years before we moved in. They were hot in summer and freezing in winter. I woke up every morning for a year and a half with dust on my face. It had fallen out of the ceiling during the night. When we boys got old enough to learn trades in school, we wanted to fix up the old house. We did try once. But when we tried to whitewash the old walls, the dust fell off the wall as the brush went across it. We ended up with the old walls looking even worse than before. The same goes for keeping a house like that clean. If you have a house full of children and rubbish, you will never keep it clean. Daddy used to shout at Mama about that, but she couldn’t do anything. I think Daddy knew it himself, but he had to let out his anger somewhere. And shouting at least isn’t as bad as hitting.
This was not during the Depression; this was in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I am thankful none of us children ever blamed our parents for this. It was not their fault. They were always looking for a house just a little better than the place we were living in. You have to understand that my parents worked a lot harder than most people. My mother was always at home, but for her that was a full-time job-and no fun, either. But my father worked his head off from the time I can remember, in factories or shops. It was hard labor. But no matter how much money Daddy earned, we never made much progress up the social ladder. That was how it was in those days in the United States.
只要大概意思..