Yours,

Li Hua

3 . It’s said that you don’t know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. And you also don’t know what it’s like for older people to travel until you accompany one on a trip.

After flying with my elderly father from Washington, D.C., to L.A. in July, I began to realize that a companion has important tasks that can make a journey easier for older people. Most of the tips have to do with flying, such as packing snacks, putting medicines in carry-ons and taking a light blanket, which was invaluable to my father because he tended to get cold.

I booked nonstop tickets on JetBlue to avoid tiring, confusing connections, and we flew directly into small, manageable Long Beach Airport. Even though my father could walk, I arranged with the airline for wheelchair assistance, which meant we got on board first.

When I took him back to the airport for his return flight to Washington, I got permission from JetBlue to wait with him at the gate instead of saying goodbye at the security checkpoint. I wished he’d had a first-class seat and access to a comfortable airline club. Better yet, I wish I had flown with him both ways. As I watched the attendant wheel him to the lift that took him from the tarmac (飞机跑道) to the plane, I felt like an anxious mom sending her child to school for the first time.

Things can go wrong on a plane trip. And then there is the horrifying story about Joe and Margie Dabney, who flew from Indianapolis to LAX in December. When they landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a wheelchair attendant met them to help with a connection. But somehow Margie, who had Alzheimer’s disease, disappeared.

I didn’t need to worry about my father wandering away; at 82, his mind was sharper than mine. But his hearing was poor, so I worried about what would happen if he missed an important announcement. Fortunately, everything went just fine. Careful planning made the trip successful.

Next time I travel with a senior, I’ll know better. I hope there will be a next time.

4 . Technological change is everywhere and affects every aspect of life, mostly for the better. However, social changes that are brought about by new technology are often mistaken for a change in attitudes.

An example at hand is the involvement of parents in the lives of their children who are attending college. Surveys (调查) on this topic suggest that parents today continue to be “very” or “somewhat” overly-protective even after their children move into college dormitories. The same surveys also indicate that the rate of parental involvement is greater today than it was a generation ago. This is usually interpreted as a sign that today’ s parents are trying to manage their children’s lives past the point where this behavior is appropriate.

However, greater parental involvement does not necessarily indicate that parents are failing to let go of their “adult” children.

In the context (背景) of this discussion, it seems valuable to first find out the cause of change in the case of parents’ involvement with their grown children. If parents of earlier generations had wanted to be in touch with their college-age children frequently, would this have been possible? Probably not. On the other hand, does the possibility of frequent communication today mean that the urge to do so wasn’t present a generation ago? Many studies show that older parents — today’ s grandparents — would have called their children more often if the means and cost of doing so had not been a barrier.

Furthermore, studies show that finances are the most frequent subject of communication between parents and their college children. The fact that college students are financially dependent on their parents is nothing new; nor are requests for more money to be sent from home. This phenomenon is neither good nor bad; it is a fact of college life, today and in the past.

Thanks to the advanced technology, we live in an age of bettered communication. This has many implications well beyond the role that parents seem to play in the lives of their children who have left for college. But it is useful to bear in mind that all such changes come from the technology and not some imagined desire by parents to keep their children under their wings.

6 . From my childhood on, my mother didn’t have a job. If she was asked to _______ a personal questionnaire, she would leave the question “Employment” _______. She believed that her job was to be my mother—full time.

There is an old photograph of my mother and father, taken in 1942. In the photo my mother looks very beautiful, I think. When I look at the photo, I see a woman full of _______ in life. If she had put her mind to getting a career, the whole world would have been in her hands. The story of her youth fully _______ this. She got a brilliant exam in one of the finest schools in the country.

_______ she has always been a housewife and mother. Everyone in the town _______ her for her great effort into charity work, but if someone asked her what she did _______ she answered that she was Robert Greene’s wife, and Robert’s mother.

What I _______ best from my childhood is how it felt to get home from school. She was always there waiting for us. Today there are probably many women seeing what she did as a _______ of my mother’s good abilities. I don’t make ________ either. But so many years later, I still remember how it felt to rush home—and there was mum, waiting for us.

Yours

Li Hua

8 . My parents ran a small eatery, and my first real job was shining diners’ shoes. My _______ increased as I grew older. At the age of twelve I worked as a _______ . Dad told me that I was the best “mop (拖把) guy” he’d ever had.

Working in the restaurant was a source of great pride because I was _______to the whole family. But my father made it clear that I had to meet certain _______to be part of the team. That’s to say, I had to be _______, hard-working and polite to the customers.

Except for the shoeshine job, I was never _______for any work I did. One day I told Dad he should give me $10 a week. He said, “Okay, then how about you paying me for your three meals a day?” This taught me that when you _______, you’d better know the other side’s arguments as well as your own.

After being away in the army for about two years, I came back home. I had just been promoted to captain and was full of _______as I walked into my parents’ eatery. The first thing Dad said was, “Welcome, my mop guy! OK, it’s the cleaner’s day off. But how about you cleaning up _______?”

“I can’t believe this!” I thought. “I’m an officer in the army!” But it didn’t matter. As far as Dad was concerned, I was just another member of the __________involved in a family eatery. Early the next morning, I reached for the mop.