Like so many who grew up in the Depression, his fear of poverty colored his life. He could not stand personal waste. If one of my brothers or I forgot to screw the cap back on the toothpaste tube, my father threw it out the bathroom window. We would have to go outside, even in the snow, to search for it in the evergreen bushes in front of the house. That was his way of reminding us not to waste anything. And to this day, I put uneaten olives back in the jar, wrap up the tiniest pieces of cheese and feel guilty when I throw anything away.
他和多数经历过大萧条的人一样，终生无法驱除对贫穷的恐惧。父亲无法忍受挥霍浪费。如果我们三个小孩刷完牙忘了旋紧牙膏盖子，他会把盖子丢到窗外，叫我们到外面找，即使是下雪天，也得受冻在屋前的常绿灌木丛里找寻盖子的下落，他希望借此提醒我们不要浪费。直到现在，我都会把没吃完的橄榄放回罐子里，把吃剩的乳酪包好，就算只剩下再小的一片也不丢掉，否则会觉得内疚。
I grew up in a cautious, conformist era in American history. I had enough adolescent vanity that I sometimes refused to wear the thick glasses I had needed since I was nine to correct my terrible eyesight. My friend starting in sixth grade, Betsy Johnson, led me around town like a Seeing Eye dog.
由于近视，我从九岁开始戴眼镜，渐渐长大后，有时虚荣心作祟，就会摘下又厚又重的眼镜，由小学六年级结识的好友贝琪·约翰逊充当“导盲犬”，带着我到市区逛街。
I was considered a tomboy all through elementary school. My fifth-grade class had the school's most incorrigible boys, and when Mrs. Krause left the room, she would ask me or one of the other girls to “be in charge.” As soon as the door closed behind her, the boys would start acting up and causing trouble, mostly because they wanted to aggravate the girls. I got a reputation for being able to stand up to them.
在小学里，我被认为是个假小子。五年级时，班上男同学无法无天，每次克劳斯夫人离开教室时，会请我或另一位女同学“负责”。老师才出门，男同学们马上就鼓噪作乱，多半是以触怒女生为乐。我常站出来帮女同学出气。
My sixth-grade teacher, Elisabeth King, drilled us in grammar, but she also encouraged us to think and write creatively, and challenged us to try new forms of expression. It was an assignment from Mrs. King that led me to write my first autobiography. I rediscovered it in a box of old papers after I left the White House, and reading it pulled me back to those tentative years on the brink of adolescence. I was still very much a child at that age, and mostly concerned with family, school and sports. But grade school was ending, and it was time to enter a more complicated world than the one I had known.
六年级老师伊丽莎白·金教的是枯燥的文法，但她鼓励我们在写作和思考时发挥创造性，逼我们尝试新的表达方式。我生平所写的第一篇自传也是出自金夫人布置的作业。离开白宫后，我在一堆装满旧作业的箱子里发现了这个剧本，重读之余，思绪也被拉回到那段即将迈入青春期的过渡岁月。那时我基本上还是个孩子，关心的事不外家人、学校和体育。不过小学即将结束，我也要进入一个更复杂的世界了。
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