“Dad,” I sai one day, “Let’s take a trip. Why don’t you fly out and meet me?”
My father had just retired after 27 years as a manager for IBM. His job filled his day, his thought and his life. While he woke up and took a warm shower, I screamed under a freezing waterfall in Peru. While he tied a tie and put on the same Swiss watch, I rowed a boat across Lake of the Ozarks.
My father saw me drifting aimlessly, nothing to show for my 33 years but a passport full of funny stamps. He wanted me to settle down, but now I want him to find an adventure.
He agreed to travel with me through some national parks. We met four weeks later in Rapid City.
“What is our first stop?” asked my father.
“What time is it?”
“Still don’t have a watch?”
Less than an hour away was Mount Rushmore. As he stared up at the four Presidents carved in rocks, his mouth and eyes opened slowly, like those of a little boy. “Unbelievable,” he said, “how was this done?”
Sculptor Gutzon devoted 14 years to this sculpture and then left the final touches to his son. We stared up and I asked myself, “Would I ever devote my life to anything?”No directions, no goals. I always used to hear those words in my father’s voice. Now I hear them in my own.
The next day we were at Yellowstone National Park, where we had a picnic. “Did you ever travel with your dad?” I asked. “Only once” he said. “I never spoke much to my father. We loved each other-but never said it. Whatever he could give me, he gave.”
The last sentence—it’s probably the same thing I’d say about my father—is what I would want my child to say about me.
In Glacier National Park, my father said, “I have never seen water so blue.” I have, in several places of the world. I can keep traveling, I realize- and maybe a regular job won’t be as dull as I feared.
Weeks after our trip, I called my father. “The photos from the trip are wonderful,” he said. “We have got to take another trip like that sometime.” I told him I had decided to settle down, and I’m wearing a watch.
8. What can we learn about the father from paragraph 2 and 3?
A.He followed the fashion. |
B.He got bored with his job. |
C.He was unhappy with the author’s lifestyle. |
D.He liked the author’s collection of stamps. |
9. What can be known about the author from the underlined paragraph?
A.He wants his children to learn from their grandfather. |
B.He comes to understand what parental love means. |
C.He learns how to communicate with his father. |
D.He hopes to give whatever he can to his father. |
10. What could be inferred about the author and his father from the end of the story?
A.The call solved their disagreements. |
B.The Swiss Watch has drawn them closer. |
C.They decided to learn photography together. |
D.They began to change their attitudes to life. |
11. What could be the best title for the passage?
A.Love nature, love life. | B.A son lost in adventure. |
C.A journey with dad. | D.The art of travel. |