I’ve often had difficulty remembering names. Proper nouns seldom found easy purchase in my brain unless I consciously repeat them over and over again. Needless to say, when people leave my life their names are often soon forgotten. This can have some embarrassing consequences.
Five or six years after high school graduation, I was reading carefully the shelves of a local auto supply shop when I noticed someone familiar enter the store. I knew him. He was in my graduation class and although he was not a good friend of mine, we had shared many classes and knew each other well. I began to feel an increasing sense of foreboding（预感）and quickly hid behind the nearest shelving unit. I should have known his name. How many times had I heard it during class role call? How many conversations had we had in the hallways?
I easily remembered his surname, “Ricca”. His was a large, well know family in the town of my childhood. I couldn’t have just acknowledged him using his surname. I might as well have admitted forgetting his name, which was not a choice. One’s name is important to every person’s identity. Not remembering an old acquaintance’s name is similar to forgetting your wife’s favourite flower, an embarrassing mistake of the highest order.
I quickly ran through the alphabet (字母表), a strategy I developed for just such an occasion. Abe? No, Adam, Andy, Bob? No, Bill? Yes! Bill sounded right. Of course, his name is Bill. I confidently made my way around the shelves and spoke to him as he was studying some cans of motor oil.
“Bill, how are you doing?”, I said offering him my hand which he took with a friendly shake. We talked a bit, some amusing remarks about our college experiences and such. I took his hand again, said how good it was to see him and gave him a happy wave, calling him by name again, as I left.
I was so pleased that I avoided yet another awkward encounter(相遇) that I could feel a big smile on my face as I paid the cashier and exited the store. As I marched merrily across the parking lot, an awful thought came into my mind. John, his name is John! Where did Bill come from? Was that one of my brothers? The sudden realization of what I did made me stop in my tracks. My head dropped when I realized my mistake. There was no way Mrs. Ricca would name one of her sons “Bill”. “Billerica” was the name of a town just north of Boston.
小题1:Which one can show the charge of the writer’s feelings?
a. guilty b. anxious c. embarrassed d. happy e sure
A．a-d-b-e-c
B．d-e-b-a-c
C．c-b-e-d-a
D．b-c-d-e-小题2:According to the passage, which statement is NOT sure?
A．Forgetting your wife’s favourite flower is a very serious mistake.
B．It is common to call an old acquaintance his given name.
C．The writer was in his twenties when he met John in the store.
D．John and the writer studied in the same college.小题3:The underlined word “acknowledge” probably means “ ” here.
A．accept
B．greet
C．thank
D．admit小题4:We can infer from the passage that _______.
A．The writer must have experienced such embarrassment many times
B．The writer had difficulty remembering names because he was getting old
C．Running through the alphabet was always an effective way of remembering an acquaintance’s name for the writer
D．Mrs. Ricca would have named one of her sons “Bill” if Billerica was not the name of a town north of Boston
