The article review(文章导读):
UNIT 2 Values Part I Pre-Reading Task Listen to the recording two or three times and then think over the following questions: 1. Who is it about? 2. What happened to him one day? 3. Do you think it
Text(正文):
UNIT 2
Values
Part I Pre-Reading Task
Listen to the recording two or three times and then think over the following questions:
1. Who is it about?
2. What happened to him one day?
3. Do you think it was worthwhile to walk two or three miles to pay back the six and a quarter cents?
4. Is the story related to the theme of the unit — values?
The following words in the recording may be new to you:
dismay
n. 沮丧，失望
disturb
vt. 使不安
conscientious
a. 认真的，尽职的
Part II
Text A
Does being rich mean you live a completely different life from ordinary people? Not, it seems, if your name is Sam Walton.
THE RICHEST MAN IN AMERICA, DOWN HOME
Art Harris
He put on a dinner jacket to serve as a waiter at the birthday party of The Richest Man in America. He imagined what surely awaited: a mansion, a "Rolls-Royce for every day of the week," dogs with diamond collars, servants everywhere.
Then he was off to the house, wheeling past the sleepy town square in Bentonville, a remote Arkansas town of 9,920, where Sam Walton started with a little dime store that grew into a $6 billion discount chain called Wal-Mart. He drove down a country road, turned at a mailbox marked "Sam and Helen Walton," and jumped out at a house in the woods.
It was nice, but no palace. The furniture appeared a little worn. An old pickup truck sat in the garage and a muddy bird dog ran about the yard. He never spotted any servants.
"It was a real disappointment," sighs waiter Jamie Beaulieu.
Only in America can a billionaire carry on like plain folks and get away with it. And the 67-year-old discount king Sam Moore Walton still travels these windy back roads in his 1979 Ford pickup, red and white, bird dogs by his side, and, come shooting season, waits in line like everyone else to buy shells at the local Wal-Mart.
"He doesn't want any special treatment," says night manager Johnny Baker, who struggles to call the boss by his first name as a recent corporate memo commands. Few here think of his billions; they call him "Mr. Sam" and accept his folksy ways. "He's the same man who opened his dime store on the square and worked 18 hours a day for his dream," says Mayor Richard Hoback.
By all accounts, he's friendly, cheerful, a fine neighbor who does his best to blend in, never flashy, never throwing his weight around.
No matter how big a time he had on Saturday night, you can find him in church on Sunday. Surely in a reserved seat, right? "We don't have reserved seats," says Gordon Garlington III, pastor of the local church.
So where does The Richest Man in America sit? Wherever he finds a seat. "Look, he's just not that way. He doesn't have a set place. At a church supper the other night, he and his wife were in back washing dishes."
For 19 years, he's used the same barber. John Mayhall finds him waiting when he opens up at 7 a.m. He chats about the national news, or reads in his chair, perhaps the Benton County Daily Democrat, another Walton property that keeps him off the front page. It buried the Forbes list at the bottom of page 2. |
