text/Zhang Lan
My father who lives in the Yimeng Mountains, although he only read Gaojiao, was one of the few "intellectuals" in the 1950s and 1960s. Especially his love for books has affected my life.
As long as I can remember, except for summer, my father's top is always a light blue or dark blue Zhongshan suit . No matter what occasion, my father will always button each piece of button up meticulously, and there are always two pens in the pocket on the left side of the top. This makes my father, who is not tall, always exudes a gentle and elegant scholarly atmosphere, and always shows a uniqueness in the mountains and villages. It seems that my father does not belong to the countryside. Sometimes, I often think that if it weren’t for the ties between us brothers and sisters, my father should have left his hometown long ago and had a bright future, right? But my father never expressed this way, but has always become a scenic spot in the mountains with elegance and elegance until he dies. What makes my father even more unique is his love for books, and this love has also accompanied my father throughout his life.
1
father loves book. When you have a little free time, you will not put down the volume. If you have a good book in your hand, you will often read it with relish and forget to eat and sleep.
In fact, it is rare for a father who lives in the countryside to have a complete leisure time: in the 1960s and 1970s, a team was formed by several natural villages, all the teams belonged to a brigade, and the brigade was then belonged to the commune. At that time, the brigade where I was located was composed of 34 natural villages, 2,391 households and 17 squads. It was the brigade with the largest population and largest regional area at that time. My father has been working in the brigade. He serves as the village clerk and accountant, responsible for drafting all notices, reporting meetings at all levels, and reporting materials, responsible for reviewing accounting accounts of each team, and allocating tasks at the beginning of the year, and responsible for broadcasting and duty in the brigade studio three times a day. What impressed me most was that the village’s “big speakers” played revolutionary songs, news, and weather forecasts every morning, lunch and dinner. When there were any superiors’ requests, meetings, handing over public grain, and playing movies, my father would notify them three times in a row through the big speaker. The loudspeaker is set on an old ginkgo tree with three hundred years of age in the brigade courtyard. When I was a child, I went to the "Team Office" with my father. More than once, I stood under the big ginkgo tree and was curious about how my father's nice voice was transmitted to neighbors in all villages and neighbors through this tree. Moreover, my father's voice in the loudspeaker contained sacredness, and his intelligence was solemn and warm, majestic and friendly. Many years later, when I heard the dubbing of Zhao Zhongxiang "Animal World", I suddenly remembered the sound in my father's "Big Speaker".
The father at that time did not have to participate in rural labor. The number of days my father worked in the brigade was converted into work points . Every year, the team where my family is located distributed the "food rations" for the whole family for one year according to their father's work points. During this period, my father rushed to the brigade to work at sunrise and returned at sunset. He also stayed in the brigade office for a fixed time every week and worked on night shifts. I remember that when the Tangshan earthquake was in 1976, the earthquake situation was very serious. Every household lived in a temporary shockproof shed on the hillside. What impressed me the most was that one night, all the villagers gathered together, and my mother hugged me tightly. The loudspeaker was the hurried notification sound of my father over and over again: "Friends, fellow villagers, superiors notified that there will be a major earthquake tonight, and there will be a major earthquake tonight. Everyone must avoid shocks outdoors. Never go back to the yard, and never go to the house." The loudspeaker reported over and over again, and there was a crying sound in the crowd. At that moment, I broke free from my mother's arms and ran towards the brigade while crying. How worried I was about my father who was still notifying the studio!
It took a few days before my father returned home. When my father returned home, the sound of the earthquake had basically passed. I sat at the entrance of the village - I often sat at the entrance of the village when the sun was about to set, and my father saw me waiting for me from afar and walked over quickly. After giving birth to three sons, my father and mother dreamed of a daughter. Moreover, the Zhang family has always been scarce since their ancestors, so from the day they were born, I became a treasure in the family. Although I am a rural family, I cannot pay attention to food, clothing, food, housing, and I have exhausted my whole family's efforts, which makes me different from the girls around me.As soon as my father saw me, he took out a handful of fried peanuts from his pocket and carried me on his back. I lay on my father's broad back, eating fragrant peanuts while listening to my father's whispers. Looking down from my father's back, there was a thick book in the backpack on my left side. Every time I took a step, my backpack would swing. I knew that after dinner, my father would read to us again.
Every night when my father is in the house, the house is full of vitality. Although it is a simple meal, the dinner will be much more grand. My mother stewed a pot of cabbage or radish , and she would also stir-fry two eggs and fry a few small fish. Cabbage or radish is eaten by the whole family, and eggs and fish are my and my father’s patents. At this time, my father would drink a few dollars of white wine, but my father knew how to control himself. No matter how good the dishes were, he never ate to drink. My father looked good when drinking: he picked up a small white porcelain wine cup, raised his head, and with a "squeak", the white wine fell to his stomach, heroic, neat and heroic, so that his father passed away for ten years, and his appearance was still vivid in his memory when he drank.
After a meal is the happiest time for the whole family. From the 1970s to the early 1980s, the villages in Yimeng Mountain had not yet been powered up, and kerosene lamps were used to read books at night. Kerosene was very precious at that time, and the supply and marketing cooperatives were often out of stock. Many people stick to working from sunrise to sunset, which is largely to save lamp oil. One of the major expenses in our family is for lamp oil, but the whole family seems to have never discussed this expense, and no one has ever complained, because in the barren years, my father opened the door to the spiritual world for us and nourished our hearts. So, at night in the quiet mountain village, the whole village became quiet and quiet, and the happiest time of our family had just begun: under the dim light, my mother was doing needles and threads, my brothers and I either peeled peanuts or took off corn, while my father opened the book to read for the whole family.
When my father was studying, the whole house was quiet. Even if he couldn't help coughing, he would push the door open to the yard, because the sound of my father reading was light and soft, and this light and soft sound was penetrating and reached our hearts. In the countryside, everyone speaks with a loud voice, but the sound of my father reading is low and quiet, so quiet that he can hear the sound of leaves shaking outside the door, the barking of the dog in the distance, and even the sound of our own heartbeat. At that moment, even decades later, today, looking back, the father who was studying under the light was sacred, tall, full of wisdom. At that time, I had more happiness and complacent. When I gave the notice, my father's voice belonged to the mountain village, the earth, and the villagers in the villages of all villages, and the father who was reading at night only belonged to his wife and children, and his relatives. My father was also very involved in studying. Those magnetic sounds took us into mysterious worlds and met strange and interesting characters. People who read were often fascinated and intoxicated. As they read, they passed by the middle of the night, and the whole family fell asleep reluctantly.
2
Everyone’s childhood may not be like a fairy tale, but my childhood is more like the childhood I want because of my father’s enlightenment.
My father was born into a middle-school family. My grandfather is a famous craftsman in all corners of the countryside. With his intelligence and intelligence, he built a lot of family businesses, built the most famous Sihe Courtyard in Village, and raised four sons and three daughters. Because my father was the eldest son and was born smart and handsome, my grandfather asked my father to go to school from childhood to high school. Although the books before the liberation were expensive, it was not uncommon for my father to spend ten or eight yuan to buy a book. When my father and mother got married, unlike other families, there was a bookshelf full of books. A father in life is a rare good man even if he uses his current perspective to measure it: he does not smoke or drink, nor does he have bad habits. In addition to working in the "brigade" during the day, he stays at home with his wife and children at night, and discusses the big and small things at home at the dinner table, which has allowed us to develop the habit of "participating in politics and making decisions" since childhood. If we talk about hobbies, my father does have one, that is, in addition to supporting his family, he will try every means to buy books and go home.From what I can remember, "Shut the Complete Biography of Yue", "Mirror Garden", "Chu Ci", "Song Ci", and even "Zhou Li", " Yi Jing ", and later "Red Flag Canal", " Entrepreneurship History ", etc. The book has different versions, including vertical traditional characters, and simplified characters; some with illustrations, and some with hand-picture books...
In 2000, my father, who was under 62 years old, had a stroke. The father, who returned from the vein of death, had limited movement on the right side of his body and could not speak. For 8 years, my father struggled with illness tenaciously, from helping him go down the ground, to walking hard with crutches, to being able to take care of himself, and then to being able to simply boil water and cook with his left hand, my father made progress every day and worked hard every day. What makes me most incredible is that my father insists on writing and writing with his left hand. An old man who was restricted on the right side of his body and was used to writing with his right hand, how difficult it was to write with his inconvenient left hand, but my father persisted and in the fourth year of his illness, he could write a letter fluently and send it to his brother, sister-in-law and me who were working in another place. Seeing our surprised eyes and listening to our praise, my father always smiles like a child. He is so happy and sincere, and it also makes us feel sore at the moment.
More times, my father would just sit next to my bookshelf and quietly watch the collections. In my later years, my father not only had physical illness, but also suffered from severe cataracts and . His filial brothers and sisters-in-law had surgery on both of his father's eyes, but the effect was still not good. It was really difficult to read and read words. Many times, I walked over and patted my father on the back and asked: Do you want to study? The father nodded like a child and said in a vague voice: "I haven't read it for your mother for a long time." So I followed his wishes, chose a book he liked, greeted my mother, sat down beside him, and read a paragraph carefully. Every time my father listens carefully, sometimes he will express his feelings excitedly - my father must have thought of those familiar chapters, the characters, events when he was young, or the warm scenes of the family sitting together, right? But more often, as I read, my father would fall asleep. My mother stood up gently, put a coat on her father or covered her with a small quilt, put her right hand tightly held with her left hand back on the armrest of the chair, wiped the saliva flowing to the corner of her mouth, and looked at her white hair and slightly hunched mother working for her father, looking at her father who was helpless like a baby under the sun, who was not old but tortured by illness, but would only turn her back for a long time, fearing that her mother would see me crying.
Three
In July this year, my father passed away for a full ten years.
For a full ten years, "Reading is like knowing people, and knowing people is like reading", "Bitting a few useful poems can satisfy your hunger." The ancient sayings and gentle and wordless voices quoted by my father have always been remembered in my heart. For a whole decade, I have been reciting the ancient texts over and over again, with the swaying lights, and I have been practicing the ancient texts over and over again, low or high. Although I don’t understand, my love is true, especially the profound and tactfulness of reciting. For a whole decade, we still retain the habit of loving books, cherishing books, and even reading aloud after dinner: every weekend, after dinner, our family sits together, and we take turns reading a book we like, which has become a tradition in our Zhang family. We miss and thank our deceased father in this way. Although his father has passed away, his spirit of loving and reading is still there, and his strong perseverance in facing illness and hardship is still there. In the blood and cultural heritage, the spirit of father reading at night is always indispensable to us.
published in " Shandong Literature " 2019 supplement issue 2
Yidian No. Linyi Writers Association Zhang Lan
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