The Adoption
领养
When Paul Jobs was mustered out of the Coast Guard after World War II, he made a wager with his crewmates.
第二次世界大战后,保罗·乔布斯从海岸警卫队退伍时,与他的队员们打了一个赌。
They had arrived in San Francisco, where their ship was decommissioned, and Paul bet that he would find himself a wife within two weeks.
他们到达旧金山,在这里,他们的舰船退役了,保罗打赌说他要在两周之内给自己找到一个妻子。
He was a taut, tattooed engine mechanic, six feet tall, with a passing resemblance to James Dean.
他是个肌肉发达、有着文身的引擎机械师,6英尺高,长相酷似詹姆斯·迪恩(James Dean)。
But it wasn't his looks that got him a date with Clara Hagopian, a sweet-humored daughter of Armenian immigrants.
他约到了克拉拉·哈戈皮安 (Clara Hagopian),一个出身亚美尼亚移民家庭的甜美风趣的女孩子。
It was the fact that he and his friends had a car, unlike the group she had originally planned to go out with that evening.
女孩看上的并不是他的容貌,而是他和他的朋友们可以使用一辆轿车,这是她当晚原计划的出行对象们做不到的。
Ten days later, in March 1946, Paul got engaged to Clara and won his wager.
10 天以后,1946年3月,保罗与克拉拉订婚,同时也赢得了他的赌注。
It would turn out to be a happy marriage, one that lasted until death parted them more than forty years later.
事实证明这是一段幸福的婚姻,两人厮守了 40 多年,直至死亡将他们分开。
Paul Reinhold Jobs had been raised on a dairy farm in Germantown, Wisconsin.
保罗·莱因霍尔德·乔布斯(Paul Rdnhold Jobs )在威斯康星州日耳曼敦的一家奶牛场长大。
Even though his father was an alcoholic and sometimes abusive, Paul ended up with a gentle and calm disposition under his leathery exterior.
尽管父亲是个酒鬼,有时候还会虐待他,但在保罗粗犷的外表下还是有着一颗温柔宁静的心。
After dropping out of high school, he wandered through the Midwest picking up work as a mechanic until,
髙中退学后,他穿梭于中西部地区,做着机械师的工作,
at age nineteen, he joined the Coast Guard, even though he didn't know how to swim.
直到 19 岁那年加入海岸警卫队,虽然他并不会游泳。
He was deployed on the USS General M. C. Meigs and spent much of the war ferrying troops to Italy for General Patton.
他被安排在美国海军的梅格斯号运兵船(USS M.C. Meigs) 上,战争中的大多数时间都在为巴顿将军向意大利运输部队。
His talent as a machinist and fireman earned him commendations, but he occasionally found himself in minor trouble and never rose above the rank of seaman.
他作为一名机械师和锅炉工的天赋为他赢得了不少奖励,但他偶尔也会惹上一点儿小麻烦,所以军衔从来没有高过一等兵。
Clara was born in New Jersey, where her parents had landed after fleeing the Turks in Armenia,
克拉拉出生在新泽西州,这里也是她的父母逃离土耳其控制下的亚美尼亚之后落脚的地方。
and they moved to the Mission District of San Francisco when she was a child.
在她童年时,全家搬到了旧金山的米申区。
She had a secret that she rarely mentioned to anyone: She had been married before,but her husband had been killed in the war.
她有一个很少对外提及的秘密:她曾经结过婚,但她的丈夫在战争中身亡了。
So when she met Paul Jobs on that first date, she was primed to start a new life.
所以当她第一次和保罗约会时,心中已经准备好迎接崭新的生活了。
Like many who lived through the war, they had experienced enough excitement that, when it was over,
如同许多经历过战争的人一样,他们已经经历了太多的刺激,所以当战争结束之后,
they desired simply to settle down, raise a family, and lead a less eventful life.
他们渴望安定下来,生儿育女,过平静的生活。
They had little money, so they moved to Wisconsin and lived with Paul's parents for a few years, then headed for Indiana,
他们没有多少钱,所以搬到威斯康星州与保罗的父母一起居住了几年,然后又去了印第安纳州,
where he got a job as a machinist for International Harvester.
在那里,保罗找到了一份工作——在国际收割机公司(International Harvester)做机械师。
His passion was tinkering with old cars, and he made money in his spare time buying, restoring, and selling them.
他喜欢修理汽车,业余时间他靠买下旧车,修好后再卖出去赚钱。
Eventually he quit his day job to become a full-time used car salesman.
最终,他辞去了工作,成了一名全职的二手车商人。
Clara, however, loved San Francisco, and in 1952 she convinced her husband to move back there.
然而,克拉拉深爱着旧金山。1952 年,她终于说服丈夫,全家搬回了旧金山。
They got an apartment in the Sunset District facing the Pacific, just south of Golden Gate Park,
他们在日落区买下了一套公寓,地处金门公园南端,面朝太平洋。
and he took a job working for a finance company as a "repo man," picking the locks of cars whose owners hadn't paid their loans and repossessing them.
保罗在一家信贷公司找到了一份 “回收人” 的工作----撬开不能偿还贷款的车主的车锁,将车拖回,重新处置。
He also bought, repaired, and sold some of the cars, making a decent enough living in the process.
有时候他也会买下这样的车,修好后出售,靠赚到的钱过着小康生活。
There was, however, something missing in their lives.
但他们的生活中却始终缺少一样东西。
They wanted children, but Clara had suffered an ectopic pregnancy, in which the fertilized egg was implanted in a fallopian tube rather than the uterus, and she had been unable to have any.
他们想要孩子,但克拉拉经历过一次宫外孕而丧失了生育能力。
So by 1955, after nine years of marriage, they were looking to adopt a child.
到1955年,在结婚9年后,他们开始寻求领养一个孩子。