Unit9_passage_english_a
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Never Be a Quitter in Face of Life "Get yourself up and make something of yourself, buddy!" Though she has passed away, my mother's words are as clear in my head today as when I was a boy.
She may have had my interests at heart, but from my <2>________ at the time, her less than <3>______ approach to parenting was the <4>_________ of <5>______ <6>_________ treatment.
"<7>_____!” I <8>_____, "I have made something of myself. I am entitled to sleep late." "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a quitter." Her voice in my head is more powerful than my will to refuse, so I pull myself from bed.
My father died after five years of marriage. My mother didn't have any money after he died. She had three babies to care for and lots of bills to pay. She had just started college, but she had to quit to look for work. When we lost our house a couple of months later, she was left with nothing but <10>______ pieces of a life to pick up. My <11>______ grandmother who was dying had to be <12>_______ and we all had to take shelter with her brother Allen. She eventually found work as a <13>_____ at a supermarket at ten dollars a week.
Mother, although hopeful that I would make millions, never <14>______ herself about my abilities to do so, and so she pushed me toward working with words from an early age.
Words ran in her family. The most spectacular proof was my mother's first cousin Edwin. He was managing editor of The New York Times and had gained a name for himself while covering the Cuban <15>______ Crisis. She often used Edwin as an example of how far an <16>_______ man could get without much talent.
"Edwin James was no smarter than anybody else, though a little faster as a typist, and look where he is today," my mother said, and said, and said again.
Her early <17>______ of my own gift for words gave her purpose and from then on, her whole life started to <18>______ around helping me to develop my talents. Though very poor, she signed us up for a set of books for <19>_______ and <20>________ readers. One book arrived by mail each month for just 39 cents.
What I read with joy, though, were newspapers. I <21>______ up every word about <22>______ crimes, awful accidents and terrible acts committed against people in faraway wars and the <23>______ who had to escape from their home countries. Accounts of police <24>_______ and murderers dying in the electric chair <25>_______ me.
In 1947 I graduated from Johns Hopkins and applied for a job with the Baltimore Sun as a police reporter. Why they picked me was a mystery. It paid $30 a week. When I complained the wage was <26>_______ for a learned man, mother refused to <27>_______. "If you work hard at this job," she said, "maybe you can make something of it." After a while, I was given an assignment to cover <28>_______ at various African <29>________. Then, seven years after I started, I was assigned by the Sun to cover the White House. Reporting from the <30>_____ Office was as close to heaven as a <31>_______ could get. I looked forward to seeing the delight on my mother's face when I told her. <32>________ the <33>______ and upward course she had set for me, I should have known better.
"Well, Russ," she said, “if you work hard at this White House job, you might be able to make something of yourself."
Her weak praise didn't <34>________ to my achievement. No matter what I did, any accomplishment of mine only seemed <35>_______ in her eyes. This would often make me crazy. She would never congratulate me or make any <36>_______ that I was doing great things. There was always something negative to be said, even when I succeeded.
"Even if you get to the top, you have to watch out." She was always <37>_____ to point out, "The bigger they come, the harder they fall."
Uncle Edwin's success was a sincere <38>_______ during my early years as a reporter. What a <39>________, I thought, if I were to be hired by The Times thus proving my worth to my mother once and for all.
Then, out of my wildest childhood <40>_________, The Times came knocking. It was sad that Uncle Edwin had <41>______ by this time. Eventually, I would be offered one of the most prized assignments for which a reporter could possibly hope: a regular opinion piece in The New York Times.
It was proof that my mother's <42>_______ to push me toward literature from an early age had been absolutely right.
In 1979 I reached the <43>______ of my professional career winning a major award, <44>_______ the Pulitzer Prize. Unfortunately, my mother's brain and <45>_____ health collapsed the year before leaving her in a nursing home, out of touch with life <46>_______. She never knew of my Pulitzer.
