Dad taught me a lot about life, especially its hard times. I remembered one of his ___21___ one night when I was ready to ___22___ a political campaign I was losing, and wrote about it in my diary.
Tired, feeling the months of ___23___ in vain, I went up to my study to make some notes. I was looking for a pencil in the back of my desk drawer ___24___ I turned up one of Dad’s old business cards that he was proud of: Andrea Cuomo Italian-American Groceries --- Fine Imported Products. Then I thought about how he ___25___ with difficult situations. A lot of pictures ___26___ into my mind, but one scene came sharply into ___27___.
We had just moved to Holliswood, New York. We had our own house for the first time; it had some land around it, even trees. One, ___28___, was a great blue spruce (云杉) that must have been 40 feet tall.
Less than a week after we moved in, there was a terrible storm. We came home from the store that night to find the spruce pulled almost ___29___ from the ground and thrown onto the street. When my brother Frankie and I saw the spruce, our hearts ___30___. But not Dad’s.
The rain was falling. Then he ___31___ , “Ok, we’re going to push him up!” “ What are you talking about, Dad? The ___32___ are out of the ground!” “ Shut up, we’re going to push him up, he’s going to grow again.” We couldn’t say ___33___ to him. So we ___34___ him into the house and got what rope ___35___ was and tied it around the top of the tree that lay on the street, and then he stood up by the house, ___36___ me pulling on the rope, and Frankie in the street in the rain, ___37___ to push up the great blue spruce. In no ___38___ at all, we had him standing up straight again! Dad ___39___ the stakes (桩) in the ground, tied the rope from the trunk to the stakes, and said, “ Don’t worry. He’s going to grow again…”
I looked at the card and wanted to cry. I ___40 ___ wait to get back into the campaign.
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A.ideas B.lessons C.talks D.conversations
A.bury B.attempt C.trap D.quit
A.struggle B.operation C.performance D.application
A.as B.before C.while D.when
A.did B.occupied C.settled D.dealt
A.appeared B.bumped C.leapt D.burst
A.spot B.view C.scene D.site
A.in relief B.in need C.in particular D.in all
A.absolutely B.accidentally C.totally D.automatically
A.suffered B.carved C.sank D.infected
A.announced B.challenged C.barked D.distributed
A.trunks B.roots C.branches D.leaves
A.anything B.no C.nothing D.something
A.accompanied B.hiked C.joined D.followed
A.it B.that C.there D.this
A.along B.via C.by D.with
A.to help B.helped C.helping D.help
A.problem B.time C.way D.means
A.drove B.removed C.delivered D.dragged
A.needn’t B.wouldn’t C.shouldn’t D.couldn’t