289: Go Ask Your Father - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #289 | June 13, 2025 289: Go Ask Your Father Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 289 集 | 2025 年 6 月 13 日 289：去问问你的父亲 注意：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue: Prologue Ira Glass From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.
序言：序言 来自 WBEZ 芝加哥的 Ira Glass，这就是美国生活。
Hi, Dad, how are you doing?
嗨，爸爸，你好吗？
I'm doing fine.
我很好。
When Aric was a kid, his dad would leave for six months at a time.
当阿里克还是个孩子的时候，他的父亲一次会离开六个月。
He was in the Merchant Marines.
他曾在商船队服役。
He'd be in Guam or Scotland or God knows where, and Aric would record these cassettes and send them off to him.
他会在关岛或苏格兰或天知道在哪里，阿里克会录制这些磁带并发送给他。
Have you been in the desert?
你去过沙漠吗？
Did the Easter Bunny send you an Easter basket?
复活节兔子给你寄了复活节篮子吗？
If he did, you better make sure there's no lizards in it.
如果他这样做了，你最好确保里面没有蜥蜴。
Dad, when are you going to be coming back up to stay?
爸爸，你什么时候回来住？
I'm anxious to see you or at least hear your voice.
我渴望见到你，或者至少听到你的声音。
Yeah, send me a tape, Dad.
是的，给我一盘磁带，爸爸。
His request that his father record a tape for him is repeated over and over again on these tapes.
他要求父亲为他录制一盘磁带的请求在这些磁带上一遍又一遍地重复。
Here's Aric, probably four years later, on another tape, in seventh grade.
这是阿里克，大概四年后，在另一盘磁带上，七年级。
His hope that his dad would respond was so great that every cassette that he sent, he would only record on one side.
他非常希望父亲能够做出回应，以至于他寄来的每盘磁带都只录制一面。
The other side was blank for his dad to fill in and send back.
另一面是空白的，让他爸爸填写并发回。
Never did, though.
但从来没有这样做过。
You can use this tape to send me-- I want a tape back, bubba.
你可以用这盘磁带寄给我——我想要一盘磁带回来，布巴。
And I really hope you can get your hands on a tape recorder.
我真的希望你能得到一台录音机。
Well, I guess you did, or else you wouldn't be listening to it right now, but-- I just got my hair cut yesterday.
好吧，我想你已经听过了，否则你现在就不会听了，但是——我昨天刚剪了头发。
I don't know if you'd like it or not.
我不知道你是否愿意。
It's--
这是——
These recordings are filled with so much yearning that, even when Aric tells his dad about his haircut, you can hear it.
这些录音充满了如此多的渴望，即使当阿里克告诉他的父亲他的发型时，你也能听到。
Aric reads his dad a poem he's written about the environment.
阿里克给他的父亲读了一首他写的关于环境的诗。
He talks about the weather, two feet of snow.
他谈到了天气，两英尺厚的雪。
He plays his clarinet, though even this gets a nervous preamble.
他演奏着他的单簧管，尽管这也有一个紧张的序言。
I don't know.
我不知道。
I'll play my piece for you that I'm going to play tomorrow.
我会为你演奏我明天要演奏的曲子。
But my reed is-- it's a new reed and it's not fully soaked yet.
但我的芦苇是——它是一根新芦苇，还没有完全浸湿。
So there'll be squeaking.
所以会有吱吱声。
It'll be OK tomorrow because it's soaking right now.
明天就好了，因为现在正在湿透。
So I'll be squeaking.
所以我会吱吱叫。
OK, I'm going to play it now.
好的，我现在就去玩。
I know this is the saddest tape in the world that we're starting the show with this week, and I'm just doing it so I can talk about this choice.
我知道这是世界上最悲伤的磁带，我们本周将用它来开始演出，我这样做只是为了谈论这个选择。
As adults, we have this funny choice.
作为成年人，我们有这个有趣的选择。
Are we going to sit down with our parents and talk about the stuff that hurt us and didn't make sense to us when we were kids?
我们是否要和父母坐下来谈谈那些伤害我们并且在我们小时候对我们来说没有意义的事情？
And it's hard to know if it's worth it sometimes, if it's just going to make your parents feel bad.
有时很难知道这是否值得，因为这只会让你的父母感到难过。
And what are they going to say, anyway?
无论如何，他们会说什么？
But Aric's never understood why his father, in all those years, never sent him a tape back.
但艾里克一直不明白为什么他的父亲这么多年从来没有给他寄回一盘磁带。
Not once.
一次也没有。
So, not long ago, he got together with his father.
于是，不久前，他就和父亲在一起了。
Those tapes ripped the guts right out of me.
那些磁带简直把我的胆子都撕碎了。
They're from an era of my life that was so sad.
他们来自我生命中非常悲伤的时代。
This is Aric's dad.
这是阿里克的父亲。
Back when those tapes were sent, during the months when he wasn't away at sea, he was often just living out of his car, scraping by.
当这些磁带被寄出时，在他不在海上的几个月里，他经常住在车里，勉强度日。
He and Aric's mom split up pretty early.
他和阿里克的妈妈很早就分手了。
And I've got to say, this little encounter did not start so well.
我不得不说，这场小小的邂逅一开始并不顺利。
Aric played his father a bit at the old tape, and his dad cried and said it was killing him.
阿里克在旧磁带上播放了一段他父亲的歌曲，他的父亲哭着说这快要了他的命。
It was just too sad, too hard to listen to, knowing all the ways he'd let Aric down back then.
这太悲伤了，太难听了，因为他知道当时他让艾里克失望了。
And then, finally, Aric asked him the question that he brought him there to ask him-- why he never sent a tape back.
最后，阿里克问了他带他去问他的问题——为什么他从来不发回一盘磁带。
And his dad was as honest as he could be.
他的父亲非常诚实。
I don't know.
我不知道。
I can't answer that.
我无法回答这个问题。
I was a failure, a total failure in that.
我是一个失败者，彻底的失败者。
I guess I figured I'd get home and talk to you.
我想我应该回家和你谈谈。
I should have had the strength to do it.
我应该有力量去做这件事。
I didn't have the strength to do it.
我没有力气这么做。
That's my only answer.
这是我唯一的答案。
I didn't have the strength to do that.
我没有力气这么做。
And why didn't you?
你为什么不呢？
Aric's Dad I don't know.
阿里克的爸爸我不知道。
I believe you.
我相信你。
Aric's Dad It's my only answer.
阿里克的爸爸这是我唯一的答案。
Sorry.
对不起。
You know that?
你知道吗？
You know how sorry I am about that?
你知道我对此有多遗憾吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Aric's Dad That ain't worth much, I guess, but--
阿里克的爸爸那不值多少钱，我想，但是——
No, it is.
不，是的。
Aric's Dad It's all I can do.
阿里克的爸爸 这就是我所能做的。
Was that satisfying?
这样满意吗？
Aric Knuth No. No, I don't know.
阿里克·高德纳 (Aric Knuth) 不，不，我不知道。
No, it wasn't satisfying.
不，这并不令人满意。
But yes, I think I did believe him.
但是，是的，我想我确实相信他。
I talked to Aric about all this on the phone.
我在电话中与阿里克谈论了这一切。
I have two completely different understandings of my dad in my head.
我脑子里对爸爸有两种完全不同的理解。
One is that dad I knew and missed and was really mad at as a kid, and one is the dad I know now.
一位是我小时候认识、想念并且非常生气的父亲，一位是我现在认识的父亲。
And I don't know.
我不知道。
I feel like maybe asking him those questions, I wanted to conjure up that younger version and see what a total jerk he was so that I could really be mad at him.
我觉得也许可以问他这些问题，我想想象出那个年轻的版本，看看他是多么的混蛋，这样我就可以真正生他的气。
It didn't happen.
它没有发生。
And I just saw the dad that I've known for the past few years.
我刚刚见到了我过去几年认识的父亲。
And I'm not really mad at him.
我并不是真的生他的气。
Right.
正确的。
You're still mad at that young dad.
你还在生那个年轻爸爸的气。
But he's gone.
但他已经走了。
And there's this sweet, kind of sad, loving, older guy there now.
现在有一个可爱的、有点悲伤的、充满爱的、年长的男人在那里。
But how unsatisfying for you and for everyone who wants to confront their parents, given the fact that the people who they're mad at are sort of gone and have been replaced by these kinder, gentler, more sensitive people.
但对于你和每个想要面对父母的人来说，这是多么令人不满意，因为那些让他们生气的人已经消失了，取而代之的是这些更友善、更温和、更敏感的人。
Totally unsatisfying.
完全不满意。
And I think probably then confronting your parents never works.
我想，面对你的父母可能永远不会起作用。
Confronting your parents never works because by the time you get around to doing it, your parents are totally different people.
面对你的父母永远不会起作用，因为当你开始这样做时，你的父母已经完全是不同的人了。
Yeah.
是的。
Aric Knuth They're gone, and there are these different beings sitting in front of you when you confront them.
阿里克·克努斯（Aric Knuth） 他们走了，当你面对他们时，这些不同的存在就坐在你面前。
The problem, of course, is that we still have our questions about the past, whether or not those people we've got beef with are still around to answer the questions.
当然，问题在于我们仍然对过去抱有疑问，那些与我们有过争执的人是否仍然在身边回答这些问题。
Today on our radio show, we have stories of two people who head off bravely for answers, despite these odds.
今天，在我们的广播节目中，我们讲述了两个人尽管困难重重，勇敢前行寻找答案的故事。
Act One is about a man who's handed a mystery that he could really use his father's help in unraveling.
第一幕讲述了一个男人遇到了一个谜团，他确实需要父亲的帮助才能解开这个谜团。
But unfortunately, his father is dead.
但不幸的是，他的父亲去世了。
In Act Two, we have a son, a father, and questions so unusual that their answers may require an army of Russian lumberjacks, a giant circular trench in the Sahara Desert, and possibly-- just possibly-- a website.
在第二幕中，我们有一个儿子、一个父亲，以及一些如此不寻常的问题，以至于他们的答案可能需要一支俄罗斯伐木工大军、撒哈拉沙漠中的一条巨大的圆形壕沟，以及可能——只是可能——一个网站。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, Make Him Say Uncle.
第一幕，让他说叔叔。
This is the story of a family.
这是一个家庭的故事。
And every family has a black sheep.
每个家庭都有一只害群之马。
In Lenny's family growing up, it was Uncle Abie.
在莱尼的成长过程中，他的名字就是阿比叔叔。
Uncle Abie was the person in my family that I was always told, don't be like Abie.
阿比叔叔是我家里的人，我总是被告知，不要像阿比那样。
Don't be like Abie.
别像阿比那样。
You know, there was like-- he was like a model of what not to be.
你知道，他就像是一个不应该成为的人的典范。
My father would always say to me, don't read in bed at night.
我父亲总是对我说，晚上不要在床上看书。
Uncle Abie reads in bed.
阿比叔叔在床上看书。
And what was bad about that was that you need a book as a crutch to go to sleep at night.
不好的是你需要一本书作为晚上睡觉的拐杖。
Or Uncle Abie read on the toilet.
或者阿比叔叔在厕所里看书。
Now, don't read on the toilet.
现在，不要在厕所里看书。
That's bad.
那很糟糕。
It's not clean.
它不干净。
Uncle Abie was always an hour late for everything.
阿比叔叔做任何事情总是迟到一个小时。
Uncle Abie went out with a string of women when he was single, in a way that seemed unsavory to Lenny's parents.
阿比叔叔单身时曾与一串女人约会，这种方式让莱尼的父母感到不舒服。
Uncle Abie couldn't be trusted.
阿比叔叔不可信。
There are all kinds of things about Uncle Abie to avoid.
关于阿比叔叔，有各种各样的事情需要避免。
So Uncle Abie didn't come around much, even though he lived right in the neighborhood.
所以阿比叔叔虽然就住在附近，但并不常来。
This was in the Bronx in the 1950s.
这是 20 世纪 50 年代的布朗克斯区。
Lenny's dad operated a sewing machine at a factory in the garment district.
莱尼的父亲在服装区的一家工厂操作一台缝纫机。
His mom did alterations in a department store.
他的妈妈在一家百货公司做过改造。
There wasn't much money.
钱不多。
Lenny and his older brother and his parents lived in a one-bedroom apartment.
莱尼和他的哥哥以及父母住在一间卧室的公寓里。
So fast forward several decades.
如此快进几十年。
Lenny grows up, moves out.
莱尼长大了，搬了出去。
And by the time he's 31, his mom had passed away.
当他 31 岁时，他的母亲去世了。
His father was in the hospital with cancer.
他的父亲因癌症住院。
And Lenny's visiting his dad there.
莱尼正在那里拜访他的父亲。
And Abie comes in and he pulls me aside and he says, I have a secret to tell you, but I can't tell you until your father dies.
阿比进来了，他把我拉到一边说，我有一个秘密要告诉你，但直到你父亲去世我才能告诉你。
So I just was like, OK, leave me alone, you know?
所以我就想，好吧，别打扰我，你知道吗？
And I just didn't-- I said, fine.
我只是没有——我说，好吧。
So then my father did die.
所以后来我父亲就死了。
And it was about a week after my father died, just a little bit after the funeral.
那是我父亲去世后大约一周，葬礼刚结束不久。
And Abie called up, and we were talking about some pieces of furniture that he-- actually, he had gone to my father's apartment and taken furniture without asking us.
阿比打电话来，我们正在谈论一些家具，实际上，他未经我们同意就去了我父亲的公寓，拿走了家具。
Wow.
哇。
Lennard Davis And we're talking about the furniture.
伦纳德·戴维斯（Lennard Davis）我们正在谈论家具。
And then I said to him, so what's the secret?
然后我对他说，那么秘密是什么？
And there's this long pause, and then he says, no, no, forget it.
停顿了很长时间，然后他说，不，不，算了。
No, never mind.
不，没关系。
And I go, come on.
我走了，来吧。
You said there was a secret.
你说有一个秘密。
I mean, you said this.
我的意思是，你说的是这个。
What is it?
它是什么？
And he said, I really don't want to talk about it.
他说，我真的不想谈论这件事。
I kind of nudged him and finally he said, OK, I'll tell you the secret.
我碰了碰他，最后他说，好吧，我告诉你这个秘密。
And I said, what is it?
我说，那是什么？
And he said, I'm your father.
他说，我是你的父亲。
And there was just this-- this was just completely out of the blue.
就是这样——这完全是出乎意料的。
There was no clues in my upbringing.
我的成长过程中没有任何线索。
There was nothing.
什么也没有。
And my father had just died, and I'm in the process of mourning him and thinking about my connection to him.
我的父亲刚刚去世，我正在哀悼他并思考我与他的联系。
So I said, what do you mean?
所以我说，你什么意思？
And he said, well, your parents tried to have you for a long time-- and there's 10 years between me and my brother.
他说，好吧，你的父母想生你很长时间了——而我和我哥哥之间相差了 10 年。
Then your father came to me at my workshop, and he had a jar.
然后你父亲来到我的工作室来找我，他有一个罐子。
And he came over and he gave it to me and explained that he needed some semen.
他走过来，把它给了我，并解释说他需要一些精液。
So he said he went in the bathroom and he produced the semen and came back.
所以他说他去了洗手间并产生了精液然后回来了。
And then he said, nine months later, you were born.
然后他说，九个月后，你出生了。
Again, it just seemed completely preposterous-- I mean the whole idea.
再说一遍，这似乎完全荒谬——我指的是整个想法。
Then Abie, kind of sensing that I was probably fairly freaked out, said, don't worry, though, because your father told me that they mixed the sperm together.
然后阿比感觉到我可能相当害怕，他说，不过别担心，因为你父亲告诉我他们将精子混合在一起。
They mixed the two brothers?
他们把两兄弟混在一起了？
His sperm and your dad's sperm?
他的精子和你爸爸的精子？
Right.
正确的。
So there's a chance-- there's some statistical chance, I guess.
所以有一个机会——我想有一些统计上的机会。
And the other thing that he said on the phone was he said, you know, you're a smart fella.
他在电话里说的另一件事是，你知道，你是一个聪明的小伙子。
And I've watched you at school and all of your accomplishments and I've always thought it's because of me.
我在学校看到了你所取得的所有成就，我一直认为这是因为我。
And is that like the most horrible thing you can imagine, when he says that?
当他这么说的时候，你能想象到最可怕的事情吗？
Is that very much like a Darth Vader--
这很像达斯·维德吗——
Absolutely.
绝对的。
I was in a complete, total state of shock.
我完全处于震惊之中。
And I just thought, wow, whose movie am I in?
我只是想，哇，我在谁的电影里？
The whole thing was completely bizarre.
整件事实在是太奇怪了。
It felt like someone had spun me around like 100 times and I was just standing there, reeling and trying to put the details together.
感觉就像有人把我转了 100 圈，而我只是站在那里，晕头转向，试图把细节拼凑起来。
And it seemed kind of crazy.
这看起来有点疯狂。
And especially the details, like when he told me it was about artificial insemination.
尤其是细节，比如他告诉我这是关于人工授精的。
I thought, that's got to be really early for artificial insemination.
我想，人工授精还早呢。
So I went up to the medical library at Columbia and I just started looking it up.
所以我去了哥伦比亚大学的医学图书馆，开始查找。
And sure enough, I found these documents that said that in the early-- actually, I probably would be one of the early artificial insemination babies in the United States.
果然，我发现这些文件说，在早期——实际上，我可能是美国早期人工授精婴儿之一。
But in the early days, they asked for a family member, which of course they never do now, and they also did mix the sperm.
但在早期，他们要求有一个家庭成员，当然现在他们从来没有这样做过，而且他们也确实混合了精子。
I found that detail.
我发现了这个细节。
And that was the detail that seemed to me the craziest.
在我看来，这就是最疯狂的细节。
The mixing the sperm?
精子混合？
Lennard Davis Yeah.
伦纳德·戴维斯 是的。
And they don't do it anymore because obviously it doesn't do anything, other than make the person who wants to be-- who has been trying to be the father feel better.
他们不再这样做了，因为显然这没有任何作用，除了让那些想成为父亲的人——一直试图成为父亲的人感觉更好一些。
It's such a beautiful idea, though.
不过，这是一个非常美好的想法。
It's like a firing squad, but in reverse.
这就像行刑队，但相反。
That is absolutely true.
这是绝对正确的。
Ira Glass Like in a firing squad, each person would choose to believe they weren't the one who hit the prisoner.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass） 就像在行刑队中一样，每个人都会选择相信自己不是击中囚犯的人。
And in this, everybody would choose to believe they were the one.
在这一点上，每个人都会选择相信自己就是那个人。
Right.
正确的。
So I did that research.
所以我做了这项研究。
And then the other thing that was interesting was that my father was this amazing cheapskate, and he never had a checkbook because he wanted to deal straight in cash.
另一件有趣的事情是，我父亲是个了不起的小气鬼，他从来没有支票簿，因为他想直接用现金进行交易。
So he had kept these meticulous notebooks of everything he spent, and particularly medical things.
所以他小心翼翼地记下了他所花费的一切，尤其是医疗方面的事情。
And I found this notebook with all of his expenses going back to the year I was born.
我找到了这本笔记本，上面写着他所有的开支，可以追溯到我出生那一年。
Going back to the year you were born, but not before?
回到你出生的那一年，但不是之前？
Not before, yeah.
以前没有，是的。
Ira Glass Oh.
艾拉·格拉斯 哦。
So was it helpful?
那么有帮助吗？
Well, yeah, because it listed the name of the gynecologist.
嗯，是的，因为它列出了妇科医生的名字。
So I figured, OK, I'm going to track him down.
所以我想，好吧，我要找到他。
So I called up.
于是我就打电话了。
He was dead.
他死了。
But his wife answered the phone and she said that his records all went to some other guy.
但他的妻子接了电话，她说他的记录都转到了其他人那里。
So I tried to find that guy.
所以我试图找到那个人。
Called him for two weeks, I remember, and his line was constantly busy.
我记得给他打了两个星期的电话，他的电话一直占线。
And then when I reached him, it turned out he had just died, like, that week.
然后当我找到他时，发现他就在那一周刚刚去世。
Part of that time, what I was wondering about was-- I went back and thought, is there any clues?
有一段时间，我想知道的是——我回去想，有什么线索吗？
If this was true, why were there no clues?
如果这是真的，为什么没有任何线索？
And the only clue I could up with-- the only clues I could come up with was this idea that I just never felt part of that family.
我能想到的唯一线索——我能想到的唯一线索就是我从来没有感觉到自己是那个家庭的一部分。
Though everybody has that feeling at one point or another when they're a kid.
尽管每个人在小时候都会有过这样的感觉。
Right, absolutely.
对，绝对是。
Only everybody doesn't have the opportunity to find out that the feeling is true.
只是每个人都没有机会去发现这种感觉的真实性。
My brother, by his own admission, he said, we never felt like you were one of us.
我的兄弟，他自己承认，我们从来没有觉得你是我们中的一员。
[LAUGHING] Lennard Davis "You're really different from us," is the way he put it.
[笑] 伦纳德·戴维斯 “你真的和我们不同，”他是这么说的。
My father and my brother very much are very controlled people.
我的父亲和我的兄弟都是非常克制的人。
Everything had to be in its place.
一切都必须就位。
Everything was orderly.
一切都井然有序。
And I was like this little spark.
我就像这个小火花。
I was going around trying to have a good time.
我四处走动，试图玩得开心。
I was very-- the way they described me as a kid is overly sensitive.
我非常——他们描述我小时候的方式过于敏感。
And you mean overly sensitive like, literally, you were just an emotional kid, like a normal emotional kid?
你的意思是过于敏感，从字面上看，你只是一个情绪化的孩子，就像一个正常情绪化的孩子一样？
Yeah, like I cried a lot.
是的，就像我哭了很多次一样。
I now, after having children, realized I wasn't particularly oversensitive.
现在，在有了孩子之后，我意识到我并不是特别过度敏感。
I was just normal.
我只是正常人。
I lived in a kind of imaginative, fantasy world that, to them, I seemed like I was different.
我生活在一个充满想象力、幻想的世界里，对他们来说，我似乎与众不同。
And because he seemed different, Lenny got a lot of-- not punishments, exactly.
因为他看起来与众不同，莱尼受到了很多——确切地说，不是惩罚。
It was more like a steady stream of never-ending reminders to simmer down, settle down, be a nice boy, be more like them.
这更像是源源不断的不断提醒我们要冷静下来，安定下来，做一个好男孩，更像他们。
And of course, in there somewhere, don't be like Uncle Abie.
当然，在某个地方，不要像阿比叔叔那样。
Any burst of enthusiasm, any odd thoughts expressed out loud, any impulsive deed or comment could be cut short by his parents, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently.
任何爆发的热情，任何大声表达的奇怪想法，任何冲动的行为或评论都可能被他的父母打断，有时温和，有时不那么温和。
So 1985, my Uncle Abie died.
1985年，我的叔叔阿比去世了。
It was four years after my dad died.
那是我父亲去世四年后。
And I went to the funeral with my wife.
我和妻子一起去参加葬礼。
And nobody was there.
那里没有人。
My Uncle Abie was the kind of guy that, I don't know, everyone hated him?
我的阿比叔叔是那种，我不知道，每个人都讨厌他的人？
He was obnoxious.
他很令人讨厌。
There was literally no one there.
那里根本就没有人。
I've never been to a funeral with nobody there.
我从来没有参加过没有人在场的葬礼。
It was somewhere way out in Long Island.
那是在长岛某个偏僻的地方。
It was me and my wife, his son and his family, and, like, one neighbor from the old neighborhood in the Bronx.
这是我和我的妻子，他的儿子和他的家人，还有一位来自布朗克斯老街区的邻居。
And after the funeral was over, I go and talk to the Les, who is Abie's son, and I said, look, I don't know if you ever heard the story.
葬礼结束后，我去和阿比的儿子莱斯谈话，我说，听着，我不知道你是否听说过这个故事。
And I told him the story about this.
我告诉了他这个故事。
About the jar and the whole thing.
关于罐子和整个事情。
And Les says, I'm sure that's not true.
莱斯说，我确信那不是真的。
And I said, really?
我说，真的吗？
Why?
为什么？
He said, well, I've got to tell you.
他说，好吧，我必须告诉你。
At around that time, my father was delusional.
大约在那个时候，我的父亲陷入了妄想。
In fact, we had to lock him up.
事实上，我们不得不把他关起来。
We had to put him away in an institution because he was hearing voices.
我们不得不把他送进一个机构，因为他听到了声音。
So he said, I don't think that anything he said would have been too accurate.
所以他说，我认为他所说的任何事情都不会太准确。
So he was like, nah, nah.
所以他就像，不，不。
It's probably not true.
这可能不是真的。
So that was the thing that completely put the whole thing to rest in my mind for a long time.
所以这件事让整个事情在我的脑海里消失了很长一段时间。
At that point, my wife said, look, what difference does it make?
那时，我妻子说，你看，这有什么区别？
You grew up with your father.
你是和你父亲一起长大的。
You thought he was your father.
你以为他是你的父亲。
That's really the thing that's important.
这确实是重要的事情。
So you'll never know, and just leave it at that.
所以你永远不会知道，就这样吧。
It seemed like, yeah, that's true.
看起来，是的，确实如此。
Just get on with your life.
继续你的生活吧。
And Lenny does get on with his life.
莱尼确实继续他的生活。
For over 15 years, he pretty much let the question rest right there.
15 年来，他几乎一直把这个问题搁置在那里。
Can I ask you a couple of really basic questions before we go into what happens next?
在我们讨论接下来发生的事情之前，我可以问你几个非常基本的问题吗？
Sure, absolutely.
当然，绝对。
Ira Glass Who do you look like?
艾拉·格拉斯 你长得像谁？
OK.
好的。
Lennard Davis Yeah.
伦纳德·戴维斯 是的。
But I've always felt that I have my father's body type.
但我一直觉得我有我父亲的体型。
He was stringy, his stringy muscles.
他身体很紧，肌肉很紧。
I look like I'm a runner.
我看起来像个跑步者。
And Uncle Abie?
阿比叔叔呢？
What did Uncle Abie's body look like?
阿比叔叔的身体是什么样子的？
He was kind of squarer, solid, chunkier.
他比较方正、结实、粗壮。
The other detail about Abie, which wasn't a genetic thing, was that he had this huge cleft in his skull from some childhood accident.
关于阿比的另一个细节，这不是遗传因素，是他的头骨上有一个巨大的裂缝，这是由于童年的一次事故造成的。
I always thought he got hit in the head with an ax or something and he had, like, this dent in his skull.
我一直以为他的头部被斧头之类的东西击中了，他的头骨上有一个凹痕。
The whole thing about Abie was kind of like repulsion toward him.
阿比的整个事情有点像是对他的排斥。
As years passed, for Lenny, this question about his father and Uncle Abie is like a cut that never quite heals right.
随着时间的流逝，对于莱尼来说，这个关于他父亲和阿比叔叔的问题就像一个永远无法完全愈合的伤口。
It's a hard question to have sitting in the back of your mind.
这是一个很难放在心上的问题。
What if your parents were lying to you your entire childhood about something so basic?
如果你的父母在你整个童年都在这么基本的事情上对你撒谎怎么办？
And finally, a couple of years ago, the miracle that is American science conspired with the miracle that is online shopping to make DNA tests ubiquitous enough and cheap enough for anybody.
最后，几年前，美国科学的奇迹与网上购物的奇迹相结合，使 DNA 测试变得无处不在，而且对任何人来说都足够便宜。
And Lenny decided to see if it would be possible to settle the question of who his father was once and for all with a DNA test.
莱尼决定看看是否有可能通过 DNA 测试一劳永逸地解决他父亲是谁的问题。
So he looked for envelopes that his dad might have licked to get a remnant of DNA.
因此，他寻找他父亲可能曾舔过的信封来获取残留的 DNA。
And he found some.
他找到了一些。
Excited by this, he moved to the next step.
他对此感到兴奋，开始进行下一步。
So I called my cousin, Lesley, up.
所以我打电话给我的表弟莱斯利。
And I said to him, look, I'm thinking about trying to do this in a more serious way.
我对他说，看，我正在考虑尝试以更认真的方式来做这件事。
How do you feel about it?
你对此有何感想？
He was OK about it.
他对此表示同意。
At the end of the conversation, which I had basically called to ask him if he could find some letters for me, there was a pause on the phone.
谈话结束时，我打电话主要是问他是否能为我找到一些信件，电话里停顿了一下。
And then he says, by the way, I've got to tell you.
然后他说，顺便说一句，我必须告诉你。
You remember the last time you asked me about did I know about this?
你还记得上次你问我我知道这件事吗？
And I said I didn't know.
我说我不知道。
He said, I lied to you.
他说，我骗你的。
And I said, what?
我说，什么？
He said, I lied to you.
他说，我骗你的。
And he said, well, when I was 12 years old, Abie took me aside and told me that same story he told you, way before my father died.
他说，好吧，当我 12 岁的时候，阿比把我拉到一边，告诉我他在我父亲去世之前告诉过你的同样的故事。
And he said, don't ever tell Lenny.
他说，永远不要告诉莱尼。
Abie said to him, don't tell Lenny.
阿比对他说，别告诉莱尼。
Swear you'll never tell him.
发誓你永远不会告诉他。
So-- wow.
所以——哇。
When he said that, then I thought, this has got to be true because here's Abie telling Lesley, like 30, 40 years before my father died, that this story happened, that this thing happened.
当他这么说时，我想，这一定是真的，因为大约在我父亲去世前 30、40 年，阿比告诉莱斯利，这个故事发生了，这件事发生了。
So that was really a turning point.
所以这确实是一个转折点。
Yeah.
是的。
Suddenly, it seems like it's probably true.
突然间，似乎这可能是真的。
Exactly.
确切地。
Then I tilt over to thinking like, wow, then it must be true.
然后我开始想，哇，那这一定是真的。
But I don't know.
但我不知道。
There's just, I don't know-- there's something fishy about the story.
只是，我不知道——这个故事有些可疑。
There's something that I don't quite believe or I just find it hard to believe that there isn't-- that I could have grown up and nobody would-- you know how like, in a movie, someone would take you aside and whisper to you, (WHISPERING) hey, there's something you don't know about yourself.
有些事情我不太相信，或者我只是觉得很难相信不存在——我本可以长大，而没有人会——你知道，在电影中，有人会把你拉到一边，对你低声说，（低声）嘿，有一些你不了解自己的事情。
There was just nothing of that.
根本就没有这样的事。
But somebody did do that.
但确实有人这么做了。
They did it in 1981, when your dad died.
他们是在 1981 年这么做的，当时你父亲去世了。
That's true.
这是真的。
That's true.
这是真的。
But there's something about Abie-- I guess I still feel there's something unreliable about him, that there's something, I don't know, self-interested.
但阿比身上有一些东西——我想我仍然觉得他有一些不可靠的东西，有一些，我不知道，自私的东西。
In a funny kind of way, for the story to work, for it to point to Abie, it all depends on whether you trust Abie or not.
以一种有趣的方式，为了让这个故事成功，为了它指向阿比，这一切都取决于你是否信任阿比。
Do I trust Abie?
我信任阿比吗？
Because if I trust Abie, then what he told me and what he told his son is true.
因为如果我相信阿比，那么他告诉我和他儿子的都是真的。
But if I don't trust Abie, if I doubt Abie, then the story's not true.
但如果我不信任阿比，如果我怀疑阿比，那么这个故事就不是真的。
So it goes back to that whole-- it takes me back to that whole conflict with me and Abie as a child.
所以这又回到了那个整体——它让我回到了小时候我和阿比之间的整个冲突。
Abie's not trustworthy.
阿比不值得信任。
Don't believe him.
别相信他。
And the circumstantial evidence that might make you feel, "yeah, the story points that way" isn't enough for me.
间接证据可能会让你觉得“是的，故事是这样的”对我来说还不够。
But I don't know.
但我不知道。
There's a joke.
有一个笑话。
I've got to tell you this joke.
我必须告诉你这个笑话。
So there's this guy, and he thinks his wife is cheating on him, so he hires a detective.
有这样一个人，他认为他的妻子对他不忠，所以他雇了一名侦探。
And he says to the detective, I've got to tell you that I think my wife is cheating on me, but I just have this element of doubt, and I want to clear it up.
他对侦探说，我必须告诉你，我认为我的妻子在欺骗我，但我只是有这个怀疑，我想澄清它。
So the detective says, OK, I'll follow her and I'll give you a report.
所以侦探说，好吧，我会跟踪她，然后给你一份报告。
So he comes back, like, two weeks later and he's got all these photographs.
所以两周后他回来了，他拿到了所有这些照片。
And he says, well, here you see there's a photograph.
他说，好吧，你看这里有一张照片。
You're leaving home.
你要离开家了。
Then there's a photograph of this man ringing the doorbell.
然后有一张这个男人按门铃的照片。
Then your wife and he go out.
然后你的妻子和他出去了。
And then they go to this hotel, and I was able to photograph them, see them embracing in front of the hotel.
然后他们去了这家酒店，我能够给他们拍照，看到他们在酒店门前拥抱。
Then they go in the hotel, and I telephoto lens up to the room.
然后他们进了酒店，我用长焦镜头到了房间。
They go in the room.
他们走进房间。
They take off all their clothes.
他们脱掉所有衣服。
And then they close the shades.
然后他们关上百叶窗。
And the guy goes, see?
那家伙就走了，明白吗？
That's what I mean-- that element of doubt.
这就是我的意思——怀疑的因素。
[LAUGHING] Lennard Davis And I sort of feel like that in this story.
[笑] 伦纳德·戴维斯 (Lennard Davis) 在这个故事中我也有类似的感觉。
Every time I come to a place, I have this element of doubt.
每次我来到一个地方，我都会有这样的疑问。
And then it seems to clear up, and it seems not to.
然后事情似乎变得清晰起来，又似乎没有。
And so I am like the guy in the joke.
所以我就像笑话中的那个人。
I want to have it more certain.
我想要更确定。
The thing people always say is, well, you don't get a choice about your parents.
人们总是说，好吧，你对父母没有选择的余地。
And in a weird way, I have a choice.
以一种奇怪的方式，我有一个选择。
There's parts of me that wants my father to win and there's parts of me that wants Abie to win.
我的一部分希望我父亲获胜，而我的一部分则希望阿比获胜。
Which part what's your dad to win and which part wants Abie to win?
你爸爸希望赢得哪一部分，而希望阿比赢得哪一部分？
What's the advantage of each?
各自的优点是什么？
I guess the part that wants my father to win is the part that just wants to have that kind of consoling structure of you know your past.
我想，希望我父亲获胜的部分就是希望拥有一种让你了解自己的过去的安慰结构。
If you looked at home movies and you reran them and you saw yourself and your parents and you said, "Oh look, there's me and there are my parents and here is my father doing this or my mother doing that," as opposed to, if you reran them and you saw a person who wasn't your father, who knew on some level that he wasn't your father, trying to be your father-- it just complicates the whole issue.
如果你看家庭电影，你重播它们，你看到你自己和你的父母，你说，“哦，看，这是我，那是我的父母，这是我父亲在做这个或我母亲在做那个，”相反，如果你重播它们，你看到一个不是你父亲的人，他在某种程度上知道他不是你父亲，试图成为你的父亲——这只会让整个问题变得复杂。
There's something about the continuity and the way you thought of yourself your whole life that you want to keep going.
你一生中的连续性和对自己的看法是你想要继续下去的。
The other side of that is I don't particularly like my father.
另一方面是我不太喜欢我的父亲。
He was a difficult man.
他是一个很难相处的人。
He had an explosive temper.
他脾气暴躁。
Like, if I cried, my father would laugh at me.
就像，如果我哭了，我父亲就会嘲笑我。
He'd make fun of me for crying.
他会嘲笑我哭。
He could be very intolerant.
他可能非常不宽容。
He would ridicule me and shame me.
他会嘲笑我，羞辱我。
And that's a part that I wouldn't mind saying goodbye to or distancing myself from.
这是我不介意告别或远离的部分。
Not that Abie was better, but it would allow me to detach myself from something that's sort of complicated and painful.
并不是说阿比更好，但它能让我摆脱那些复杂而痛苦的事情。
Of course, at Lenny's age, what does detaching himself mean?
当然，到了莱尼这个年纪，脱离自己意味着什么？
He's already detached himself when he moved out at age 16.
当他16岁时搬出去时，他就已经脱离了自己。
He detached himself when he went to college, when he made his own friends, when he found a wife, when he turned himself into an adult who's very different from either his dad or his uncle.
当他上大学时，当他结交了自己的朋友时，当他找到妻子时，当他把自己变成一个与他的父亲或叔叔截然不同的成年人时，他就脱离了自己。
If you're 55, and you're fully formed, and your parents are long dead, and your own kids are actually completely grown, how much hold do your parents really have on you at that point?
如果你已经55岁了，你已经完全成熟了，而你的父母早已去世，而你自己的孩子实际上已经完全长大了，那么此时你的父母对你到底有多大的影响力呢？
How much more independence from them can you possibly need?
您可能还需要多少程度的独立性？
And yet somehow, even at that age, Lenny says it's still possible to daydream about the parents who you'd rather have had.
然而，莱尼说，不知何故，即使在那个年纪，你仍然可能会幻想自己想要拥有的父母。
So if you got to choose-- if you got to imagine your dad going around and collecting other samples besides from your Uncle Abie, who would you want to choose?
所以，如果你必须选择——如果你必须想象你的父亲除了从你的阿比叔叔那里收集其他样本之外，你会选择谁？
Oh.
哦。
Hm.
嗯。
Ira Glass He can roam all of New York City in the year 1948.
艾拉·格拉斯 (Ira Glass) 1948 年，他可以漫步整个纽约市。
Who do you want him to stop by?
你想让他去拜访谁？
That's a good question.
这是个好问题。
You know, two people are coming to mind.
你知道，我想到了两个人。
One was this guy who lived across the hall who was a-- he was a podiatrist and his name was Nathan Zuckerman.
其中一个是住在大厅对面的这个人，他是一名足病医生，他的名字叫内森·祖克曼。
And he had an office a couple blocks away from where we lived.
他的办公室距离我们住的地方几个街区。
And in the office was the one room that was, like, the podiatrist room, and then there was the waiting room.
办公室里有一个房间，就像足病室，然后是候诊室。
And then there was what felt like 100 rooms back behind there with all kinds of electronic equipment.
后面好像有 100 个房间，里面有各种电子设备。
He was just an electronics hobbyist, like an old radio hobbyist?
他只是一个电子爱好者，就像一个老收音机爱好者？
Yeah, exactly.
是的，完全正确。
Yeah.
是的。
But I would just turn everything on and turn knobs and hear all kinds of whoa-oh-whoa-oh sounds.
但我只要打开所有东西，转动旋钮，就会听到各种哇哦哇哦的声音。
And I used to go there every day after school and just go in there.
我以前每天放学后都会去那里，然后就进去。
And there would be all these old ladies waiting for their bunions to be removed.
所有这些老太太都会等待切除拇囊炎。
Then I'd just go in the back and work on my science projects.
然后我就去后面做我的科学项目。
He would come back and he would help me.
他会回来并帮助我。
It was really a nice relationship.
这确实是一种很好的关系。
And so if he were the guy, that would be good.
所以如果他是那个人，那就太好了。
If he were the guy, yeah.
如果他是那个人，是的。
Ira Glass Like the whole thing actually gives you solace in a way that it doesn't with Uncle Abie.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass）：整件事实际上给了你安慰，但阿比叔叔却没有。
Yeah, exactly.
是的，完全正确。
I mean, if we only got to pick our parents.
我的意思是，如果我们只能选择我们的父母就好了。
Do you feel bad at all for thinking that it's possible that your dad isn't your dad?
你是否因为想到你的父亲可能不是你的父亲而感到难过？
Yeah, I really do.
是的，我真的这么做。
I mean, in a weird way, it feels like I'm doing the act of dis-parenting my father.
我的意思是，以一种奇怪的方式，感觉就像我在做与父亲断绝关系的行为。
All right, I'll show you.
好吧，我给你看看。
I'm no longer going to be your son.
我不再是你的儿子了
Right.
正确的。
Right.
正确的。
That feels definitely bad.
那感觉肯定很糟糕。
That feels kind of mean.
感觉有点刻薄啊
Back in 2005, when we first broadcast today's show, Lenny met a guy named Wayne Grody, who was the doctor who ran the molecular diagnostic laboratory, the DNA lab, at UCLA.
早在 2005 年，当我们第一次播出今天的节目时，莱尼遇到了一个名叫韦恩·格罗迪 (Wayne Grody) 的人，他是加州大学洛杉矶分校分子诊断实验室 DNA 实验室的医生。
Grody told him that, for paternity tests, you want more DNA than is usually found on an envelope or a stamp.
格罗迪告诉他，在进行亲子鉴定时，你需要的 DNA 比通常在信封或邮票上找到的 DNA 还要多。
But Wayne also told him that there's often a really reliable source of DNA from people who have already died, and that's that, in most hospitals, when they take a biopsy or a tissue sample of any kind, they'll preserve a scrap of it in paraffin wax, just in case it'll be handy someday in reconfirming a diagnosis or in an epidemiological study or as part of a legal case.
但韦恩还告诉他，死者身上往往有非常可靠的 DNA 来源，那就是，在大多数医院，当他们进行活组织检查或任何类型的组织样本时，他们都会将一小部分保存在石蜡中，以防万一有一天它可以方便地重新确认诊断或流行病学研究或作为法律案件的一部分。
Wayne told Lenny to check with all the hospitals that his dad was ever in.
韦恩告诉莱尼去检查他父亲曾经住过的所有医院。
So Lenny did.
莱尼就这么做了。
And he found a fragment of his dad's tissue from the 1970s at the Columbia Medical Center in New York.
他在纽约哥伦比亚医学中心发现了他父亲 20 世纪 70 年代的组织碎片。
And then, before he knew it, Lenny was standing in Wayne Grody's DNA lab in California, talking to a lab technician named JJ.
然后，在他意识到之前，莱尼已经站在加州韦恩·格罗迪的 DNA 实验室里，与一位名叫 JJ 的实验室技术人员交谈。
Your DNA actually is here.
你的 DNA 实际上就在这里。
Lennard Davis Can I have a look?
伦纳德·戴维斯 我可以看一下吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Actually, it's very-- it's supposed to be clear.
事实上，这应该是很清楚的。
It's just a tiny little bit.
这只是一点点而已。
It looks like maybe, if I were crying, it would be about five tears.
看起来，如果我哭的话，大概会流五滴眼泪。
A technician named Dawn shows him another sample, which she insists is less like tears and more like a floating piece of lint.
一位名叫多恩的技术人员向他展示了另一个样本，她坚称该样本不太像眼泪，而更像是一块漂浮的棉绒。
Then he's shown a little slice of wax the size of a fingernail with a little black line embedded in it.
然后他给他看了一小片指甲大小的蜡，里面嵌着一条小黑线。
The line is tissue.
线是组织。
They cut it in slices, and this is one slice that I saved.
他们把它切成片，这是我保存的一片。
That's one slice?
那是一片吗？
So that little piece of paraffin that you have there is where my father resides.
所以你那里的那一小块石蜡就是我父亲居住的地方。
So Dawn just kind of put that back in a little drawer under a desk.
所以黎明只是把它放回桌子下面的小抽屉里。
And that's where my dad is now-- in the drawer.
这就是我父亲现在所在的地方——抽屉里。
He's in the drawer.
他在抽屉里。
Dr. Grody warns Lenny that it could take weeks to get accurate results.
格罗迪博士警告莱尼，可能需要数周时间才能获得准确的结果。
And there's no guarantee, with tissue so old, they'll be able to salvage enough DNA to make a real determination if his dad is Uncle Abie or if his dad is Morris, the man he thought was his dad.
而且无法保证，由于组织如此古老，他们能够挽救足够的 DNA 来做出真正的决定，如果他的父亲是阿比叔叔，或者他的父亲是莫里斯，他认为那个人是他的父亲。
Lenny goes home to wait.
莱尼回家等待。
We give him a tape recorder to have on hand in case he gets any news.
我们给了他一台录音机，供他随身携带，以防他收到任何消息。
A month passes.
一个月过去了。
Then a letter arrives.
然后一封信到了。
OK, let's put this in context here.
好的，让我们把这个放在上下文中。
The envelope arrived today.
信封今天到达。
It's sitting right over here.
它就坐在这儿。
And I'm looking at it, and I know that inside this envelope is the answer.
我看着它，我知道这个信封里面就是答案。
I'm going to find out who my father is, or if my father is my father.
我要找出我的父亲是谁，或者我的父亲是否是我的父亲。
The answer is sitting right there in the envelope.
答案就在信封里。
And I am really nervous right now.
我现在真的很紧张。
I'm kind of excited about it.
我对此感到有点兴奋。
I'm kind of dreading it.
我有点害怕它。
OK.
好的。
Let's see.
让我们来看看。
Whoa, this is scary.
哇，这太可怕了。
It says, "I'm writing to tell you--" it's from Wayne.
上面写着：“我写信是想告诉你——”这是韦恩写的。
He says, "I'm writing to tell you that we have now concluded--" I almost can't read this.
他说：“我写信是想告诉你，我们现在已经得出结论——”我几乎看不懂这个。
This is really weird.
这实在是太奇怪了。
I'm getting very scared about this.
我对此感到非常害怕。
"We have now concluded paternity testing." Blah, blah, blah.
“我们现在已经完成了亲子鉴定。”巴拉，巴拉，巴拉。
"The results indicate that Mr-- Morris is excluded as a possible father of yours." There's all the rest that I'm not going to even read that.
“结果表明，莫里斯先生被排除在你父亲的可能范围之外。”剩下的一切我都不会读。
So my father is not my father.
所以我的父亲不是我的父亲。
Morris is not my father.
莫里斯不是我父亲。
[SIGH] It makes me feel really sad.
[叹息]这让我感到非常难过。
My father is not my father.
我的父亲不是我的父亲。
There's a part of me that's going like, I knew it.
我的一部分感觉就像，我知道这一点。
But there it is.
但它就在那里。
It's just in definitive print.
它只是最终印刷版。
"Results indicate that Mr. Morris," it says, "is excluded as a possible father of yours by mismatches we have observed." And it says that, "We find a DNA pattern in the child which is not present in that of the alleged father, meaning that it must have been contributed by another man." Wow.
报告称：“结果表明，由于我们观察到的不匹配情况，莫里斯先生被排除在你父亲的可能之外。”报告称，“我们在孩子身上发现了一种 DNA 模式，而所谓的父亲的 DNA 模式中并不存在，这意味着它一定是由另一个男人贡献的。”哇。
I guess I feel abandoned.
我想我有一种被抛弃的感觉。
I know that doesn't make any sense.
我知道这没有任何意义。
But I feel like I was abandoned by my father.
但我感觉自己被父亲抛弃了。
Then there's this next wave of feeling that's coming up, and it's like, aha, see?
然后下一波感觉即将出现，就像，啊哈，看到了吗？
That was right.
没错。
I was right.
我是对的。
The feelings I had of not being part of my family, of being the one who was just bad for being the other is true.
我的感觉是，我不再是我家庭的一员，我只是因为成为另一个人而变得不好。
That really is true.
这确实是真的。
That was going through their heads.
他们脑子里一直在想这个问题。
And my father had this really tough row to hoe.
我的父亲经历了这场非常艰难的争吵。
And I'm sort of feeling sorry for him, really, knowing what he went through, how difficult that was, and all the pretense and trying to rise above it and be noble.
我有点为他感到难过，真的，我知道他经历了什么，那是多么困难，以及所有的假装并试图超越它并变得高尚。
I feel like he did a great job on that.
我觉得他在这方面做得很好。
He really did, in the sense that he never let me know.
他确实做到了，从某种意义上说，他从未让我知道。
He just kept the secret, both of them.
他只是保守了两个人的秘密。
They went to their graves without even letting me know.
他们甚至没有通知我就去了他们的坟墓。
And they must have thought, there's no way he's ever going to know.
他们一定认为，他永远不会知道。
And now I know.
现在我知道了。
Now, at 55 years old, I know that Morris is not my father.
现在，55 岁的我知道莫里斯不是我的父亲。
In a weird way, I almost feel better about him for that.
奇怪的是，我几乎因此对他感觉好多了。
A week after he opened the letter, Lenny came back into the studio.
打开信一周后，莱尼回到工作室。
And he told me that the DNA test showed something else that was completely unexpected.
他告诉我 DNA 测试显示出一些完全出乎意料的东西。
There are six genetic markers that would have indicated paternity.
有六种遗传标记可以表明亲子关系。
Lenny's dad only had a match on one of those.
莱尼的父亲只匹配了其中的一个。
If he were Lenny's uncle, you'd expect he'd have three matches, since brothers share half their DNA.
如果他是莱尼的叔叔，你会认为他会打三场比赛，因为兄弟们有一半的 DNA。
And this raises a whole new question.
这提出了一个全新的问题。
I had been operating on the assumption that, if my father wasn't my father, then my uncle was my father, and that, if my uncle was my father, my father was my uncle-- which, of course, sounds like some kind of camp song.
我一直在这样的假设下运作：如果我的父亲不是我的父亲，那么我的叔叔就是我的父亲，如果我的叔叔是我的父亲，我的父亲就是我的叔叔——当然，这听起来像是某种营地歌曲。
It's still statistically possible that my uncle could be my father, but, in fact, it's probably more likely that there was another donor.
从统计数据来看，我的叔叔可能是我的父亲，但事实上，更有可能是有另一个捐赠者。
And who might that have been?
那可能是谁？
Just somebody who worked at the hospital?
只是在医院工作的人吗？
It could have been anybody.
可能是任何人。
I mean, if this was done in a hospital-- it probably wasn't.
我的意思是，如果这是在医院进行的——可能不是。
It was probably done in a doctor's office.
这可能是在医生办公室完成的。
And one of the standard things that happened back in 1949, '48, was that the doctor himself sometimes was the donor, or sometimes it could have been a medical student.
早在 1949 年，即 48 年，发生的一件常见的事情就是，医生本人有时就是捐赠者，有时也可能是一名医学院的学生。
Lenny, both your parents have been dead for decades, but if what you're saying is right, you might have a living parent, like, in New York right now.
莱尼，你的父母都已经去世几十年了，但如果你说的是对的，你可能还有一个活着的父母，就像现在在纽约一样。
Yeah.
是的。
Ira Glass Knowing that he could be out there and alive, your actual dad, doesn't that make you want to find him?
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass）：知道他可能还活着，你的亲生父亲，这难道不会让你想要找到他吗？
No. In a way, I'd just like him to kind of wander along in his life and let me wander along in mine.
不。在某种程度上，我只是希望他在他的生活中漫步，也让我在我的生活中漫步。
I think I've had enough parents.
我想我已经有足够的父母了。
I think I know enough now.
我想我现在知道得足够多了。
I don't think I need to know more.
我认为我不需要了解更多。
Which is to say, in the end, it doesn't matter as much to Lenny who his father is as who his father isn't.
也就是说，最终，对于莱尼来说，他的父亲是谁并不重要，而他的父亲是谁并不重要。
From the day that Lenny's Uncle Abie first told him on the phone about his father to the day that Lenny got the letter where the other shoe dropped, it was 24 years.
从莱尼的叔叔阿比第一次在电话里告诉他父亲的事到莱尼收到那封信的那一天，已经过去了24年。
And in the recording that he made that day, Lenny talked about how one of the strangest things about the whole experience was that now he couldn't go and talk to the people who he most needs to talk to about the whole thing.
在那天录制的录音中，莱尼谈到整个经历中最奇怪的事情之一就是现在他无法去和他最需要谈论整个事情的人交谈。
This is even made so much stranger by the fact that my mother and father are dead.
我的父母都去世了，这甚至让这件事变得更加奇怪。
And I should be able to go over and see them and say, so what was this all about?
我应该能够走过去看看他们并问他们，这到底是怎么回事？
And I would say, it's OK.
我想说，没关系。
I think I'd actually end up comforting them, in a weird way.
我想我实际上最终会以一种奇怪的方式安慰他们。
You did all right.
你做得很好。
You did what you had to do.
你做了你必须做的事。
You did what the doctors told you to do.
你做了医生告诉你做的事。
You thought that keeping the secret forever-- that it would be devastating for me to find out.
你认为永远保守这个秘密——如果我发现的话将会是毁灭性的。
But I would say, I'm not devastated.
但我想说，我并没有崩溃。
I still love you.
我依然爱你。
I love you very much.
我非常爱你。
And I guess, if I were really being honest, then I would say, but you didn't have to.
我想，如果我真的很诚实，那么我会说，但你不必这样做。
You could have let me just grow up the way I would have.
你本可以让我按照我想要的方式成长。
You didn't have to try to shape me and change me so I wouldn't be like Abie.
你不必试图塑造我并改变我，这样我就不会像阿比一样。
And you didn't have to fear the difference that you would see in me.
你不必担心你会在我身上看到的不同。
And then I think I would just say thank you.
然后我想我只想说谢谢。
Thank you for doing the impossible and for having me.
谢谢你完成了不可能的事并拥有了我。
And then probably we'd just get into a fight with each other or something.
然后我们可能会互相打架或者发生什么事情。
Or just go have some really bad food that my mother made.
或者去吃一些我妈妈做的非常难吃的食物。
Lenny Davis is a distinguished professor of English at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
伦尼·戴维斯是芝加哥伊利诺伊大学的杰出英语教授。
In the years since we first broadcast this story, he's had additional genetic testing that shows that, indeed, Uncle Abie is most likely his dad.
自从我们第一次播出这个故事以来的几年里，他进行了额外的基因测试，结果表明，阿比叔叔确实很可能是他的父亲。
He wrote a book about his experience.
他根据自己的经历写了一本书。
It's called Go Ask Your Father.
这就是所谓的去问你的父亲。
Coming up, a dad in one of the most misunderstood, maligned professions in the world.
接下来，一位父亲从事世界上最被误解、最受诽谤的职业之一。
And no, I'm not talking about insurance salesman, car salesman, lawyer, telephone solicitor, or member of the United States Congress.
不，我不是在谈论保险推销员、汽车推销员、律师、电话律师或美国国会议员。
That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.
稍后，芝加哥公共广播电台将继续我们的节目。
It's This American Life.
这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our program, of course, we choose some theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme.
当然，每周我们的节目都会选择一些主题，为您带来关于该主题的各种不同类型的故事。
Today's show, which we first broadcast years ago, back in 2005, Go Ask Your Father, stories in which grown people seek answers from their own parents.
今天的节目是我们几年前（即 2005 年）首次播出的节目《去问你的父亲》，讲述了成年人向自己的父母寻求答案的故事。
And there definitely are certain answers that they would prefer to hear, and only sometimes do they get them.
他们肯定更愿意听到某些答案，但只有有时他们才能得到答案。
We have arrived at Act Two of our program.
我们已经进入了计划的第二幕。
Act Two, My Favorite Martian.
第二幕，我最喜欢的火星人。
Paul Tough tells the story.
保罗·图赫讲述了这个故事。
This is a story about fathers and sons.
这是一个关于父亲和儿子的故事。
And it is a story about communication with alien beings.
这是一个关于与外星人交流的故事。
It begins in the 1820s in Germany, where an astronomer and mathematician named Carl Friedrich Gauss was working as the director of the observatory in the town of Gottingen.
故事开始于 1820 年代的德国，当时天文学家兼数学家卡尔·弗里德里希·高斯 (Carl Friedrich Gauss) 担任哥廷根镇天文台台长。
After the death of, first, one wife, and then a second, he began to spend every evening at the observatory, staring up through his telescope at the moon and the stars.
在先是一位妻子去世后，然后是第二位妻子去世后，他开始每天晚上都在天文台度过，通过望远镜凝视月亮和星星。
Could it be, he wondered on those lonely nights, that, far away in those distant specks of light, there was life?
在那些孤独的夜晚，他想知道，在遥远的那些遥远的光点中，是否有生命存在？
That people just like him were staring back through their own telescopes?
像他一样的人正在通过自己的望远镜回望？
Since the first moment that humans began dreaming of communicating with beings from other worlds, there have been two schools of thought on how best to go about it.
自从人类开始梦想与其他世界的生物进行交流以来，关于如何最好地实现这一目标，一直存在两种思想流派。
One strategy is simply to observe, to look through telescopes, to listen to radio waves beaming down at us from space.
一种策略就是简单地观察，通过望远镜观察，聆听从太空向我们发射的无线电波。
The second is the active approach, to try to make contact ourselves.
第二是积极主动，尝试与自己接触。
Gauss was the first person to suggest this latter approach, to say that it was we who should make contact with them.
高斯是第一个提出后一种方法的人，他说我们应该与他们接触。
But how?
但如何呢？
This question is hard enough to answer today, when we've got rocket ships and lasers and transistor radios.
今天，当我们有了火箭飞船、激光器和晶体管收音机时，这个问题就很难回答了。
Gauss lived in an era of sextants and quill pens and leeches, none of which were very useful when it came to sending messages into space.
高斯生活在一个充满六分仪、羽毛笔和水蛭的时代，这些东西在向太空发送信息时都没有多大用处。
So remember those limitations when I describe Gauss' two proposals, which might sound a little crude.
因此，当我描述高斯的两个建议时，请记住这些限制，这可能听起来有点粗糙。
Idea one, deploy an army of Russian lumberjacks to clear cut thousands of square miles of Siberian forest in the precise shape of a right triangle, with huge markings along each side demonstrating the Pythagorean theorem.
想法一：部署一支俄罗斯伐木工人大军，将西伯利亚数千平方英里的森林砍伐成直角三角形，每边都有巨大的标记，展示毕达哥拉斯定理。
Idea two, dig a giant, circular trench in the Sahara Desert hundreds of miles in diameter, a perfect circle.
想法二，在撒哈拉沙漠挖一条巨大的圆形沟渠，直径数百英里，是一个完美的圆形。
Fill the trench with millions of gallons of kerosene.
用数百万加仑的煤油填充沟渠。
Wait until nightfall, and then set it on fire.
等到夜幕降临，然后点火。
But no one would spring for the kerosene, and so Gauss turned his attention back to non-Euclidean geometry.
但没有人愿意接受煤油，因此高斯将注意力转回到非欧几里得几何上。
And for 150 years, no one had a single good idea.
150 年来，没有人提出过任何好主意。
Then rocketry was invented, and Alan Shepard played golf on the moon.
后来火箭技术发明了，艾伦·谢泼德在月球上打高尔夫球。
And all of a sudden, the stars seemed closer than ever.
突然之间，星星似乎比以往任何时候都更近。
Over at NASA, somebody had a brainstorm.
在美国宇航局，有人进行了一次头脑风暴。
Let's send the aliens a plaque.
让我们给外星人寄一块牌匾吧。
So in April 1973, Pioneer 11 was launched into space, and bolted onto it was a gold plaque.
于是，1973 年 4 月，先锋 11 号发射升空，上面拴着一块金色的牌匾。
Maybe you've seen it.
也许你已经看过了。
It's got a diagram of the solar system, some mathematical notations, and a drawing of a naked Caucasian woman and man, the man with his right hand raised at a 90 degree angle.
上面有一张太阳系图、一些数学符号，以及一幅裸体的白人妇女和男子的图画，其中男子右手以 90 度角举起。
32 years later, this calling card is more than 4 billion miles from Earth, at the outer regions of our solar system.
32 年后，这张名片距离地球超过 40 亿英里，位于太阳系的外围区域。
At some point, maybe tomorrow, maybe in 100 million years, someone will find Pioneer 11, or so the theory goes.
在某个时刻，也许明天，也许一亿年后，有人会找到先锋 11 号，或者理论上是这样的。
And when they see the plaque, they will get the message.
当他们看到牌匾时，他们就会得到信息。
Greetings from planet Earth.
来自地球的问候。
This is what we look like.
这就是我们的样子。
We are waving hello to you, and we are nude.
我们正在向你挥手问好，我们是裸体的。
In 1974, a year after the launch of Pioneer 11, an American astronomer named Frank Drake took the next step and sent a radio message into space, beamed from a giant radio telescope in Puerto Rico and aimed at a star cluster 21,000 light years away.
1974 年，即先锋 11 号发射一年后，一位名叫弗兰克·德雷克 (Frank Drake) 的美国天文学家采取了下一步行动，从波多黎各的巨型射电望远镜向太空发送了一条无线电信息，目标是 21,000 光年外的星团。
The message was a series of ones and zeros that could be rearranged to form a diagram that showed a stick figure of a human.
该消息是一系列的 1 和 0，可以重新排列以形成一个显示人类简笔画的图表。
Innocuous enough, it would seem.
看起来似乎是无伤大雅的。
And yet, Drake's message drove the astronomy establishment completely crazy.
然而，德雷克的消息让天文学界彻底疯狂。
International rules were drawn up, and since that day, no official radio message has ever been sent into space.
国际规则已经制定，从那天起，没有任何官方无线电消息被发送到太空。
But that doesn't mean that freelancers have quit trying to make contact on their own.
但这并不意味着自由职业者已经放弃尝试自己建立联系。
They have not.
他们没有。
And I can tell you this because one of them is my father.
我可以告诉你这一点，因为其中之一就是我的父亲。
In the mid-1970s, my father, a mild-mannered university professor, concluded that there had to be more to life than commuting to work every day in his red Toyota Corolla and coming home every night to the quiet house on the sleepy street where his family was waiting for him.
在 20 世纪 70 年代中期，我的父亲（一位性格温和的大学教授）得出的结论是，生活不能只是每天开着他的红色丰田卡罗拉上班，每晚回到家，回到昏昏欲睡的街道上安静的房子，家人正在那里等他。
When he was about the age I am today, he started looking for something new, experimenting with LSD and open marriage and extrasensory perception and listening over and over to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, until finally, at about the time that Frank Drake was beaming his lonely message out into space, my father left his family behind and set off onto uncharted waters.
当他和我现在这个年纪的时候，他开始寻找新的东西，尝试LSD、开放式婚姻和超感官知觉，一遍又一遍地听平克·弗洛伊德的《月之暗面》，直到最后，大约在弗兰克·德雷克向太空发射他孤独的信息时，我父亲离开了家人，踏上了未知的水域。
From this description, my father might sound like a real Peter Fonda type.
从这个描述来看，我的父亲可能听起来像真正的彼得·方达类型。
But in fact, he is anything but.
但事实上，他绝非如此。
He is a lover of office products, a man who thinks there is no decision, no matter how intimate and emotional, that cannot be made more effectively by drawing up a few lists and charts.
他是办公产品的爱好者，他认为任何决定，无论多么亲密和情感，都不能通过制定一些清单和图表来更有效地做出。
At one point, a couple of years into his relationship with the woman he lived with after moving out of our house, he explained to me that he had come up with a system to eliminate the arguments that had begun to crop up between the two of them.
有一次，在他搬出我们的房子后与同居的女人建立关系几年后，他向我解释说，他想出了一个系统来消除他们两人之间开始出现的争吵。
If they had a disagreement-- let's say about what they wanted to eat for dinner-- they would each simply assign a number out of 10 to how strongly they felt about their preference.
如果他们有分歧——比如说他们晚餐想吃什么——他们每个人都会简单地分配一个数字（满分 10 分）来表示他们对自己偏好的感受有多强烈。
So their conversations included sentences like, "I'm a seven on chicken." If his number was higher than hers, they'd have chicken.
所以他们的谈话包括这样的句子：“我对鸡肉有七分。”如果他的数字比她的多，他们就会吃鸡肉。
It might seem a little strange that a man who often has trouble making contact with the human beings around him has focused his energies on attempts to make contact with extraterrestrials.
一个经常与周围人类接触有困难的人却将精力集中在尝试与外星人接触上，这似乎有点奇怪。
Strange, and at the same time, entirely fitting.
奇怪，同时又完全合适。
Over the last few years, my father has been building his own giant flaming moat of kerosene.
在过去的几年里，我父亲一直在建造他自己的巨大的燃烧煤油护城河。
It is a page on the world wide web, and it is titled, "An Invitation to ETI," which stands for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
这是万维网上的一个页面，标题为“ETI 邀请”，它代表外星智慧生物。
This is how the page reads.
这就是页面的读取方式。
"Hello, ETI.
“你好，ETI。
We assume you are a highly advanced form of alien intelligence that originally came to Earth from some other place in the universe.
我们假设你是一种高度先进的外星智能，最初是从宇宙的其他地方来到地球的。
We welcome you here.
我们欢迎您来到这里。
With respect and a spirit of friendship, we invite you to make contact.
本着尊重和友谊的精神，我们邀请您进行联系。
Feel free to use whatever form of communication you prefer-- email, fax, telephone, or a face-to-face conversation."
您可以随意使用您喜欢的任何沟通方式——电子邮件、传真、电话或面对面交谈。”
It's easy to make fun of my father's project, but there is a logic to it, as unlikely as it sounds.
人们很容易取笑我父亲的项目，但其中有一个逻辑，尽管听起来不太可能。
A series of premises, each of which, taken alone, makes a certain sense.
一系列前提，其中每一个单独来看都有一定的意义。
My father is right that there probably is life somewhere else in the universe.
我父亲的观点是对的，宇宙中的其他地方可能存在生命。
If other civilizations have developed, they probably are a lot more advanced than we are.
如果其他文明已经发展起来，他们可能比我们先进得多。
He has a point when he says that there's no particular reason to assume that extraterrestrials would choose to communicate via radio signals.
他说没有特别的理由认为外星人会选择通过无线电信号进行通信，这是有道理的。
He can even be convincing when he says that these alien civilizations might instead have sent probes to our planet to monitor us and our communication media, including the internet.
当他说这些外星文明可能向我们的星球发送探测器来监视我们和我们的通信媒体（包括互联网）时，他甚至可以令人信服。
It's only when you put it all together, when you're actually sitting there, staring at the fax machine, waiting for the alien message to arrive, that the project suddenly seems a little dubious.
只有当你把所有这些放在一起时，当你真正坐在那里，盯着传真机，等待外星人消息到达时，这个项目突然显得有点可疑。
In five years, my father has received about 60 messages through his website, and they were all pranks-- emails from smart alecks who thought it might be a good chuckle to impersonate an alien for a while.
五年来，我父亲通过他的网站收到了大约 60 条消息，它们都是恶作剧——来自自作聪明的人的电子邮件，他们认为暂时冒充外星人可能会很好笑。
My father wrote back to all 60 of them, asking them for proof that they were really aliens.
我父亲给他们全部 60 个人回信，要求他们提供证据证明他们确实是外星人。
A couple of them kept the charade going for a few rounds, but eventually they all gave up and admitted they were only human.
他们中的几个人把这个猜谜游戏持续了几轮，但最终他们都放弃了，并承认自己只是人类。
And then, late last year, a breakthrough.
然后，去年年底，出现了突破。
In November, my father received an email from a man named Harold, who seemed different than the jokers he usually heard from.
11 月，我父亲收到了一封来自一个名叫哈罗德 (Harold) 的人的电子邮件，他似乎与他通常听到的爱开玩笑的人不同。
Harold didn't claim to be an extraterrestrial.
哈罗德并没有声称自己是外星人。
Instead, he said, he had obtained physical evidence of alien life and he was offering to submit it to rigorous scientific testing.
相反，他说，他已经获得了外星生命的物理证据，并愿意将其提交给严格的科学测试。
This evidence, he explained, was an alien probe, an energy field embedded in his body.
他解释说，这个证据是一个外星探测器，一个嵌入他体内的能量场。
He said that it emitted radio waves that could be detected by conventional instruments.
他说它发射的无线电波可以被传统仪器探测到。
My father was skeptical, but intrigued.
父亲对此表示怀疑，但也很感兴趣。
He talked it over by email with the board of advisors he had assembled when he set up his website, and they decided that, for the first time in the history of this project, they should put an alien claim to the test.
他通过电子邮件与他在建立网站时组建的顾问委员会讨论了这个问题，他们决定，在这个项目的历史上第一次，他们应该对外星人的主张进行测试。
Which is how I wound up driving out to a warehouse in New Jersey one winter morning to meet my father, who had flown down from Toronto for the day.
就这样，一个冬天的早晨，我开车去新泽西州的一个仓库去见我的父亲，他当天从多伦多飞来。
I went because I wanted to see my father at work, because I thought it might give me a chance to connect to a part of his life that meant a lot to him, even if I didn't really understand just why.
我去是因为我想看看父亲在工作中，因为我认为这可能会让我有机会接触到他生活中对他意义重大的部分，即使我并不真正明白为什么。
It also crossed my mind that, if evidence of alien life was going to be found in suburban New Jersey, it wouldn't hurt to be the one guy there with a tape recorder.
我还想到，如果要在新泽西郊区发现外星生命的证据，那么成为那里唯一一个拥有录音机的人也没什么坏处。
When I first spotted my father, he looked a little weak and off balance.
当我第一次见到父亲时，他看起来有点虚弱，失去平衡。
A couple of years ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
几年前，他被诊断出患有帕金森病。
And although it hasn't incapacitated him yet, he gets tired easily these days.
虽然还没有让他丧失行动能力，但这些天他很容易感到疲倦。
It affects the way he talks, too.
这也会影响他说话的方式。
Sometimes he has to start a word three times before he finishes it once.
有时他必须先开始一个单词三遍才能完成一次。
But he seemed glad to be there, catching up with two members of his advisory board who were also there for the test.
但他似乎很高兴能在那里，并赶上了他的顾问委员会的两名成员，他们也在那里参加了测试。
One, named Paul, was an aerospace engineer, a bearded, energetic man who laughed a lot.
其中一个名叫保罗，是一名航空航天工程师，留着胡子，精力充沛，经常笑。
The other, Richard, was tall and laconic, with long, gray hair.
另一个名叫理查德，身材高大，言谈简洁，有一头灰色的长发。
He owned his own electronics firm, and it was his warehouse where we were going to run the test.
他拥有自己的电子公司，我们将在他的仓库进行测试。
It was nice to watch these guys interact with my dad.
很高兴看到这些人与我父亲互动。
They looked up to him, in a way.
在某种程度上，他们尊敬他。
There was no sign of Harold, and for a while, we thought maybe he wouldn't show up.
没有哈罗德的踪影，有一段时间，我们以为他可能不会出现。
But then he walked in and launched right into what sounded like a prepared speech.
但随后他走进去，开始发表听起来像是准备好的演讲。
But I have a little presentation.
但我有一个小介绍。
Do we have a chalkboard?
我们有黑板吗？
Or paper?
还是纸？
Harold is wearing baggy khaki pants and a white Oxford shirt that looked like it had been packed inside a duffel bag for a few days and then unfolded that morning.
哈罗德穿着宽松的卡其色裤子和白色牛津衬衫，看起来像是在行李袋里装了几天，然后在那天早上打开的。
He had a kind of '40s hat on-- not a fedora, but a round hat, more casual, almost a fishing hat.
他戴着一顶 40 年代的帽子——不是软呢帽，而是一顶圆帽，更随意，几乎是一顶钓鱼帽。
He was clean-shaven and olive-skinned and animated.
他胡子刮得干干净净，橄榄色皮肤，充满活力。
We all followed him into the library for his presentation.
我们都跟着他走进图书馆听他的演讲。
And I'm going to do a demonstration with an RF detector to show that I am emitting radio frequencies.
我将使用射频探测器进行演示，以表明我正在发射无线电频率。
And exactly how, why, and where they're going, we will determine in the lab.
我们将在实验室中确定它们的具体去向、原因和去向。
What he was saying-- that he himself was emitting radio signals that were being monitored by an alien spaceship-- didn't make a whole lot of sense.
他所说的——他自己正在发射被外星飞船监测到的无线电信号——没有多大意义。
But there was something about the way he was talking.
但他说话的方式有些问题。
He acted just like a scientist.
他的表现就像一位科学家。
He had the lingo down, saying things like "gigahertz" and "RF" instead of "radio frequency." And when he drew diagrams on the whiteboard, they looked convincing, full of vectors and arrows and numbers.
他把行话记了下来，说的是“千兆赫”和“射频”，而不是“无线电频率”。当他在白板上画图表时，它们看起来很有说服力，充满了矢量、箭头和数字。
Then he started unpacking his equipment.
然后他开始拆开他的设备。
At this point, I'll demonstrate the radio frequency.
此时，我将演示无线电频率。
He removed a Tupperware container from his knapsack and revealed a little device that looked like a computer circuit board, about 2 inches long.
他从背包中取出一个特百惠容器，露出一个看起来像计算机电路板的小装置，长约 2 英寸。
Then he put it into his mouth.
然后他把它放进嘴里。
[RAPID BEEPING] It started to make noise.
[快速的蜂鸣声]它开始发出噪音。
What you have just seen is the activation of an RF detector by transmission from an electric field anomaly placed next to my vocal cords that it transmits back to the extraterrestrials.
你刚刚看到的是射频探测器通过来自我声带旁边的异常电场的传输被激活，并将其传输回外星人。
I looked over at my father to try to figure out what he made of all this, but it was hard to tell just what he was thinking.
我看着父亲，试图弄清楚他对这一切的看法，但很难说出他到底在想什么。
And then it was time for the test.
然后就到了测试的时间了。
We all went downstairs to the lab, which was equipped with a huge radio wave detector.
我们都下楼来到了实验室，那里配备了一个巨大的无线电波探测器。
The idea was that it would measure the waves coming out of Harold's head.
这个想法是它可以测量从哈罗德头上发出的波浪。
Richard talked him through it.
理查德向他讲述了这件事。
I guess the next step is for you to go in the room.
我想你下一步就是进房间了。
Would you care to remove your hat first, please?
请您先把帽子摘下来好吗？
Oh, sure.
哦，当然。
Paul Tough You can't hear it on the tape, but this was a really awkward moment.
Paul Tough 你在录音带上听不到，但这确实是一个尴尬的时刻。
When Harold took off his hat, we could see that he had lined the inside with tinfoil-- a tinfoil hat.
当哈罗德摘下帽子时，我们可以看到他在里面衬了锡纸——一顶锡纸帽子。
It's like a cliche, right?
这就像陈词滥调，对吧？
A shorthand term for crazy people who believe in aliens.
相信外星人的疯狂之人的简称。
I'd seen tinfoil hats in movies, but I didn't know they existed in real life.
我在电影中见过锡纸帽子，但我不知道它们在现实生活中存在。
I use that because sometimes the radio signals really affect me.
我使用它是因为有时无线电信号确实会影响我。
I can imagine.
我可以想象。
Do you have anything with you?
你有什么东西吗？
Any devices, anything made of metal?
有任何设备，任何金属制成的东西吗？
Yes.
是的。
Yeah.
是的。
Is that all right to bring in there?
带进去可以吗？
If that's all it is.
如果仅此而已。
Harold Yeah, that's all it is.
哈罗德：是的，就是这样。
After the tinfoil thing, it wasn't such a big surprise when the lab's equipment failed to detect any radio waves being emitted from the probe in Harold's head.
锡箔事件之后，当实验室的设备未能检测到哈罗德头部探头发出的任何无线电波时，这并不令人感到意外。
Harold was clearly upset that the experiment hadn't worked, and he made excuses and explained how maybe we needed more sensitive equipment.
哈罗德显然对实验失败感到不安，他找了借口并解释说我们可能需要更敏感的设备。
Paul and Richard, the scientists, seemed a bit ticked off by the whole experience.
科学家保罗和理查德似乎对整个经历感到有点恼火。
But my dad wasn't worked up at all.
但我父亲一点也不生气。
He thanked Harold, shook his hand, and gave him some money for his bus trip home.
他向哈罗德表示感谢，与他握手，并给了他一些坐公交车回家的钱。
I wasn't quite sure what to feel.
我不太确定该有什么感觉。
I was a little disappointed, despite myself.
尽管我自己有点失望。
I did feel like I had shared some history with my father, even if it wasn't the Pulitzer Prize-winning kind.
我确实觉得我和父亲分享了一些历史，即使不是普利策奖获奖的那种。
But I still didn't really understand just what it was that had brought us here.
但我仍然不太明白到底是什么把我们带到了这里。
So after Harold left, I sat down with my father on an office couch just off the library.
哈罗德离开后，我和父亲一起坐在图书馆旁边的办公室沙发上。
And I finally got a chance to ask him about some things I had never really understood about his quest, including what seemed like an unavoidable question for anyone in the field of SETI, which is what insiders call the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
我终于有机会向他询问一些我从未真正理解过的关于他的探索的事情，包括对于 SETI 领域的任何人来说似乎都是不可避免的问题，这就是内部人士所说的“寻找外星智慧生命”。
Do you think people think of SETI as a joke sometimes?
你认为人们有时会认为 SETI 是个笑话吗？
Yeah, we called it the "giggle factor" in SETI.
是的，我们在 SETI 中称之为“傻笑因素”。
Sure.
当然。
Haven't figured it out.
还没弄清楚。
I feel it myself, you know?
我自己也感觉到了，你知道吗？
I can't always keep a straight face when I tell people what I do.
当我告诉别人我所做的事情时，我不能总是板着脸。
Well, how come?
嗯，怎么会呢？
Paul's Dad It just is funny to be trying to make contact with another culture, when we don't even know whether it exists or not.
保罗的爸爸 当我们甚至不知道另一种文化是否存在时，尝试与另一种文化进行接触是很有趣的。
Is there any other scientific field that is like that?
还有其他类似的科学领域吗？
I can't think of one where the field hasn't even proved that its central phenomenon exists.
我想不出这个领域还没有证明其核心现象存在的地方。
That's true.
这是真的。
When you look at it that way, it's pretty dramatic.
当你这样看时，你会发现这是非常戏剧性的。
It's the thing I sometimes forget about my dad.
这是我有时会忘记我父亲的事情。
He doesn't have a lot of illusions about how likely it is that aliens will get in touch anytime soon.
他对外星人很快与我们取得联系的可能性不抱太多幻想。
I think it's the reason why he didn't seem all that disappointed when Harold struck out in the lab.
我想这就是为什么当哈罗德在实验室出局时他似乎并没有那么失望的原因。
He's prepared to keep waiting.
他准备继续等待。
But I can't help feeling that there is something a little sad about any search for extraterrestrial intelligence, whether it's Carl Friedrich Gauss' or my father's.
但我不禁感到，无论是卡尔·弗里德里希·高斯的还是我父亲的，任何对外星智慧生命的探索都让人感到有点悲伤。
It seems like a quest born out of a great loneliness, out of the feeling that the life we see around us is not enough.
这似乎是一种源于巨大孤独的追求，源于一种我们周围的生活还不够的感觉。
It is a feeling-- a longing, really-- not that different than the way a frustrated husband and father might feel coming back to the same predictable home night after night.
这是一种感觉——实际上是一种渴望——与一个沮丧的丈夫和父亲夜复一夜回到同一个可预见的家的感觉并没有什么不同。
It is the feeling that there must be more than this.
感觉一定不止这些。
If I thought that this was all-- that what's on Earth is all that there is in the universe, I'd be-- I would feel that the universe was diminished somehow.
如果我认为这就是全部——地球上的东西就是宇宙中的全部，我会——我会觉得宇宙在某种程度上缩小了。
I sometimes get accused of expecting a savior.
有时我会被指责期待救世主。
I don't think I'm doing that.
我不认为我会那样做。
But it certainly comes close to religious belief because you're dealing with something that's just so big, so overarching, so transcendent, that it's pretty close to what a lot of people call God.
但它肯定很接近宗教信仰，因为你面对的东西是如此巨大、如此包罗万象、如此超然，以至于它非常接近很多人所说的上帝。
For me, the difference is that ET could exist.
对我来说，不同之处在于外星人可能存在。
I don't see how God could exist.
我不明白上帝怎么可能存在。
It just sounds too fantastic.
听起来太梦幻了。
Do you think this project is the most meaningful thing you've ever done?
您认为这个项目是您做过的最有意义的事情吗？
Yes, I think it is.
是的，我认为是的。
Yep.
是的。
In fact, my shorthand nickname for it is "The Ultimate Project" because it's probably my ultimate project.
事实上，我对它的昵称是“终极项目”，因为它可能是我的终极项目。
I've called it that from the start.
我从一开始就这么称呼它。
If I'm going to be honest with you, I should probably say that that's not the answer I wanted him to give.
如果我要诚实地告诉你，我可能应该说这不是我希望他给出的答案。
I wanted him to say, sure, maybe it's the most meaningful thing I've done professionally.
我想让他说，当然，也许这是我职业生涯中做过的最有意义的事情。
But it doesn't compare to raising my family, to being a father.
但这无法与抚养我的家庭、成为一名父亲相比。
I think any child of an eccentric father feels two opposing things simultaneously.
我认为任何有一个古怪父亲的孩子都会同时感受到两种相反的东西。
Mostly, you want him to stop embarrassing you.
大多数情况下，你希望他停止让你难堪。
When he sends you an email, you want the subject header to be something normal like, "Thanksgiving plans." You don't want subject headers like the one I received from my father the other day-- "What if our galaxy is populated by super-smart machines?"
当他向您发送电子邮件时，您希望主题标头是正常的内容，例如“感恩节计划”。你不想要像我前几天从父亲那里收到的那样的主题标题——“如果我们的银河系充满了超级智能机器怎么办？”
But at the same time, the thought of my dad dismantling his website and giving up his dream feels like a terrible loss.
但与此同时，一想到我父亲拆除了他的网站并放弃了他的梦想，我就感到一种可怕的损失。
Even if my father's project doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, even if it sometimes feels more like prayer than like science, I want him to keep looking.
即使我父亲的项目对我来说没有多大意义，即使它有时感觉更像是祈祷而不是科学，我希望他继续寻找。
It makes him seem a little less alien, oddly enough, and a little more human.
奇怪的是，这让他看起来不那么陌生，而且更加人性化。
Paul Tough is one of the original contributing editors to This American Life.
保罗·托夫 (Paul Tough) 是《美国生活》的原创特约编辑之一。
Since this story first aired in 2005, his father found out that he suffered from multiple system atrophy, not Parkinson's disease.
自2005年这个故事首次播出以来，他的父亲发现他患有多系统萎缩症，而不是帕金森病。
In 2012, he died from complications related to that disorder.
2012 年，他死于与该疾病相关的并发症。
Before he died, he asked that Paul and Paul's sister keep his website going, and they plan to do that indefinitely, even though neither of them are as hopeful about it as Paul's dad was.
在他去世之前，他要求保罗和保罗的妹妹继续运营他的网站，他们计划无限期地这样做，尽管他们都不像保罗的父亲那样对此充满希望。
As of today, they have yet to receive any messages from extraterrestrials.
截至目前，他们还没有收到任何来自外星人的消息。
But, you know, if you're hearing my voice right now and you come from another planet, or you know somebody who does, you can make contact at www.ieti-- that's invitation to extraterrestrial intelligence-- ieti.org.
但是，你知道，如果你现在听到我的声音，并且你来自另一个星球，或者你认识某个人，你可以通过 www.ieti 进行联系 - 这是外星智慧的邀请 - ieti.org。
Paul's latest book is Helping Children Succeed, What Works and Why.
保罗的最新著作是《帮助孩子成功，什么有效以及为什么》。
He first read a version of today's story at the Little Gray Books lecture series in New York City.
他第一次读到今天故事的一个版本是在纽约市的小灰书系列讲座上。
Well, today's program was originally produced by Diane Cook and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Wendy Dorr, Jane Marie, Sarah Koenig, and Lisa Pollak.
嗯，今天的节目最初是由黛安·库克和我自己制作的，还有亚历克斯·布伦伯格、温迪·多尔、简·玛丽、莎拉·科尼格和丽莎·波拉克。
Our senior producer for this show was Julie Snyder.
我们这个节目的高级制片人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Production help from Todd Bachmann, Laura Bellows, Kevin Clark, Sativa January, Andy Dixon, and Alvin Melathe.
托德·巴赫曼 (Todd Bachmann)、劳拉·贝洛斯 (Laura Bellows)、凯文·克拉克 (Kevin Clark)、萨蒂瓦·詹纽瑞 (Sativa January)、安迪·迪克森 (Andy Dixon) 和阿尔文·梅拉西 (Alvin Melathe) 为制作提供了帮助。
Our technical director is Matt Tierney.
我们的技术总监是马特·蒂尔尼。
Our website, thisamericanlife.org.
我们的网站 thisamericanlife.org。
This American Life is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
《美国生活》由公共广播电台 PRX 发行。
Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia, who explains his theory on how to run a radio station this way.
一如既往，感谢我们项目的联合创始人 Torey Malatia 先生，他解释了如何以这种方式运营广播电台的理论。
But I would just turn everything on and turn knobs and hear all kinds of whoa-oh-whoa-oh sounds, you know?
但我只要打开一切，转动旋钮，就会听到各种哇哦哇哦的声音，你知道吗？
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
下周我们将带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。