11-A. The Great American Garage Sale
Not long ago, Charles Erickson and his family decided to do some spring housecleaning. Sorting through their possessions, they came up with some 1,500 old, unwanted items - all sorts of things they wanted to get rid of. The Ericksons decided to do what a lot of other Americans are doing these days -- have a “garage sale.” They posted homemade signs throughout the neighborhood, ran an advertisement in the local newspaper, then set out the unwanted objects on the front yard of their home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and waited to see if any one would come. The Ericksons needn’t have worried. Eager buyers bought all but 50 of the items in one weekend, leaving the family $442 richer.
Garage sale, yard sale, basement sale - whatever they're called and wherever they're held, Americans are having them in ever-increasing numbers.
The variety of things put up for sale is really wonderful - dishes, books, used clothing, tools, tires, empty bottles, bicycles, furniture. A man in Atlanta, Georgia, even sold a full-size replica of a 1931 Ford.
\wouldn't believe the stuff people will buy,” says Mrs. Jerry McNeely of Houston, Texas, who has held two garage sales with friends. \you wouldn’t believe some of the things people will put out to sell.”
Why would Americans want to shop by searching among someone else’s castoffs?
Rising living costs are considered by almost everyone as a reason both for holding sales and for attending them. The seller makes a little extra money and the buyer saves quite a lot, since garage-sale items usually are priced at a very small part of their original cost.
But beyond that, they’re fun. Garage sales have become suburban social events, drawing people of all ages. Neighbors enjoy meeting new people, and some families even serve drinks and cakes. One psychologist suggests that people are fed up with the computerization of their lives - they may be searching for their roots. Many of the younger buyers say they are turned off by the poor quality of modern goods and are looking for remnants of a stronger and firmer era, when things were built to last.
Some people have made garage-sale shopping into a hobby; they spend their weekends going from sale to sale, hoping to run across a real treasure. Says one long-time weekend bargain hunter, \finding some fabulous painting stored away somewhere or something else of great value for a bargain price.
Diana McLellan, a reporter for the Washington Star-News, wrote, \is like the quality of mercy - it blessed him that gives and him that takes. It separates clothes, toys, pots, cups, forks and knives from their reluctant owners and places them in loving new homes.”
How long will all this enthusiasm continue? Says one recent seller, “Some day the people who are buying are bound to be faced with the same problem we had – getting rid of this stuff.”
【课文译文】
美国庭院甩卖，真棒
不久前，查里?埃里克森一家人决定进行一次春季大扫除。在整理东西的时候，他们发现大约有1500件旧的、不需要的东西——这些东西都是他们想处理掉的。埃里克森一家决定像许多其他美国人近来所做的那样——搞一次“庭院甩卖”。他们向四邻寄去自制的传单，并在当地的报纸上登了一则广告，然后把这些不想要的东西搬到他们家的前院里——他的家住在密歇根州布隆菲尔德山——看看有没有人来购买。埃里克森一家根本用不着担心，踊跃的买主在一个周末就买走了大部分东西，只剩下50件，这给埃里克林一家增加了442美元的额外收入。
车库甩卖，庭院甩卖，地下室甩卖，不论怎么称呼，也不论在什么地方举办，美国人越来越
大学英语自考教程 上册 A课文 中英对照11-12
