I was up before the others, before the birds, before the sun. I drank a cup of coffee, wolfed down a piece of toast, put on my shorts and sweatshirt, and laced up my green running shoes. Then slipped quietly out the back door.
I stretched my legs, my hamstrings, my lower back, and groaned as I took the first few balky steps down the cool road, into the fog. Why is it always so hard to get started?
There were no cars, no people, no signs of life. I was all alone, the world to myself—though the trees seemed oddly aware of me. Then again, this was Oregon. The trees always seemed to know. The trees always had your back.
读书的时候，喜欢 放假时的校园，几位同学一起给Boss打工，不用上课，只做项目，到午饭时间，走过空空的校园； 或从外地回来，整个街道空荡荡的，哎，这才是我的故乡应有的模样啊，没有rush time, 没有行色匆匆的人。
到后面，和日本人发生冲突，以及ZF罚耐克的款。
I put my head on my desk. A few years earlier, when my fight had been with Onitsuka, I told myself the problem was rooted in cultural differences. Some part of me, shaped by World War II, wasn’t all that surprised to be at odds with a former foe. Now I was in the position of the Japanese, at war with the United States of America. With my own government.
This was one conflict I never imagined, and desperately didn’t want, and yet I couldn’t duck it. Losing meant annihilation. What the government was demanding, $25 million, was very nearly our sales number for all of 1977. And even if we could somehow give them a year’s worth of revenue, we couldn’t continue to pay import duties that were 40 percent higher.
So there was only one thing to do, I told Strasser with a sigh. “We’ll have to fight this with everything we’ve got.”
I DON’T KNOW why this crisis hit me harder, mentally, than all the others. I tried to tell myself, over and over, We’ve been through bad times, we’ll get through this.
结合当前的这条关于孟总的新闻 ，我想，their own government to their own company 也是这种情况，所以并非什么歧视那么简单吧。
这件事情对他的打击多大，以致于他做出小孩子才会有的行为，摔电话。这段充满喜感。可他当时多么痛苦。
But from behind my rising wall I didn’t know how. I lost the ability in 1977 to speak. It was either silence or rage with me. Late at night, after talking on the phone with Strasser, or Hayes, or Woodell, or my father, I couldn’t see any way out. I could only see myself folding up this business I’d worked so hard to build. So I’d erupt—at the telephone. Instead of hanging up, I’d slam the receiver down, then slam it down again, harder and harder, until it shattered. Several times I beat the living tar out of that telephone.
After I’d done this three times, maybe four, I noticed the repairman from the telephone company eyeing me. He replaced the phone, checked to make sure there was a dial tone, and as he was packing up his tools he said very softly: “This is . . . really . . . immature.”
I nodded.
“You’re supposed to be a grown-up,” he said.
I nodded again.
If a phone repairman feels the need to chastise you, I told myself, your behavior probably needs modifying. I made promises to myself that day.
Once again they wheeled Penny away, and once again I waited, and wilted, in the bullpen. This time I tried to do some paperwork, and when the doctor came and found me, and told me I had another son, I thought: Two sons. A pair of sons.
The ultimate pair count.
I went to Penny’s room and met my new boy, whom we named Travis. Then I did a bad thing.
Smiling, Penny said the doctors told her she could go home after two days, instead of the three they’d required after Matthew. Whoa, I said, hold on there, the insurance is willing to pay for another day in the hospital—what’s your hurry?
Might as well kick back, relax. Take advantage.
She lowered her head, cocked an eyebrow. “Who’s playing and where is it?” she said.
“Oregon,” I whispered. “Arizona State.”
She sighed. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, Phil. Go.”
