1 . “Dad,” I say, “let’s take a trip. Fly and meet me!”

My father had just retired. He was _________ in his job, his thoughts, his life. While he woke up and took a warm shower, I screamed under a freezing waterfall in Peru. My father sees me drifting (游荡) _________, nothing to show for my 33 years but a passport full of funny _________. He wants me to _________, but I want him to find an adventure.

He agrees to travel with me and we meet four weeks later in Rapid City.

“What’s our first stop?” asks my father.

“What time is it?”

“Still don’t have a _________?”

An hour away is Mount Rushmore. As he stares up at the four Presidents carved in granite (花岗岩), “_________,” he says, “How was this done?”

The guide told us Gutzon Borglum _________14 years to the sculpture (雕像) and then left the final touches to his son. We stare up and I ask _________, “Would I ever devote my life to anything?”

No directions, no _________. I used to hear those words in my father’s __________. Now I hear them in my __________.

My father says, “I never __________ much with my father. We loved each other — but never said it. Whatever he could __________ me, he gave.”

That last __________ — it’s probably the same thing I’d say about my father. And what I’d want my child to say about me. I realize — maybe a __________ job won’t be as dull as I feared.

I tell my father I’ve decided to settle down, and I’m wearing a watch.

2 . I was very fond of hunting when I was a young man. In the autumn of 1995, I was _________ in the northwest of India. One evening, after hunting in the forest all day, I was returning alone to the place where I had _________ up my tent. I was tired and hungry. It was getting _________ and darker, and I was walking slowly _________ a narrow path. On my right was a wide river; on my left, a thick, dark forest. All of a _________ I saw two green eyes looking at me from among the trees. I knew it _________ be a man-eating tiger. The tiger was getting ready to _________ on me.

My heart _________. What could I do? Should I jump into the river and hope to save my life _________ swimming? I looked to the __________. In the river there was a big crocodile waiting to welcome me with its mouth __________ open. I was so __________ that I shut my eyes. And I thought it would be the end of my __________. I heard branches moving __________ the tiger roared (咆哮) and jumped. __________ then I opened my eyes. What do you think had happened? The tiger had jumped right over me and now was in the jaws (嘴) of the crocodile.