“Every weekend, there’d be a junkyard trip. We’d be looking for a generator¹, a carburetor, all sorts of components².”

“每个周末，我们都会进行一次废品站之旅。我们会寻找发电机，或者化油器，还有各种各样的元件。”

He remembered watching his father negotiate at the counter.

他还记得看着父亲在柜台前谈价格。

“He was a good bargainer, because he knew better than the guys at the counter what the parts should cost.”

“他很揸长讨价还价，因为他比卖家更清楚零件的合理价格。”

This helped fulfill³ the pledge his parents made when he was adopted.

这一点对于实现他父母当初领养他时许下的承诺很有帮助。

“My college fund came from my dad paying $50 for a Ford⁴ Falcon⁵ or some other beat-up car that didn’t run, working on it for a few weeks,

“我上大学的钱是这么来的：我父亲会花50美元买下一辆已经开不动的福特猎鹰（Ford Falcon)或者其他什么破车，花几个星期修好它，

and selling it for $250—and not telling the IRS.”

然后以250美元的价格卖出去——而且他不会去报税。”

The Jobses’ house and the others in their neighborhood were built by the real estate⁶ developer Joseph Eichler, whose company spawned⁷ more than eleven thousand homes in various California subdivisions between 1950 and 1974.

乔布斯家的房子位于迪亚布洛大道286号，和他们周围的房子一样，都是由房地产开发商约瑟夫·埃奇勒（Joseph Eichler)建造的，他的公司于1950-1974年间，在加州的各个地区兴建了超过11000座房屋。

Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision of simple modern homes for the American “everyman,”

受到弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特（Frank Lloyd Wright) “适合美国普通百姓的简单现代之家”这一设想的启发，

Eichler built inexpensive houses that featured floor-to- ceiling glass walls, open floor plans, exposed post-and-beam construction, concrete slab⁸ floors, and lots of sliding glass doors.

埃奇勒建造了廉价房屋，这些房屋的特点是：落地的玻璃墙、开放式的平面设计、无遮蔽的梁柱构造、混凝土地面以及大量的滑动玻璃门。

“Eichler did a great thing,” Jobs said on one of our walks around the neighborhood.

“埃奇勒做得很好，”乔布斯有一次和我在附近散步时说，

“His houses were smart and cheap and good. They brought clean design and simple taste to lower-income people.

“他造的房子整洁漂亮，价格低廉，质量优秀。他们把干净的设计和简洁的品位帯给了低收入人群。

They had awesome⁹ little features, like radiant heating in the floors.

房子本身有很棒的小特色，比如地板下安装了热辐射供暧设施。

You put carpet on them, and we had nice toasty floors when we were kids.”

我们小的时候，铺上地毯，躺在上面，温暧舒适。”

Jobs said that his appreciation¹⁰ for Eichler homes instilled¹¹ in him a passion for making nicely designed products for the mass market.

乔布斯说，他对埃奇勒建造的房屋的欣赏，激发了他为大众制造设计精良的产品的热情。

“I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability¹² to something that doesn’t cost much,” he said as he pointed¹³ out the clean elegance¹⁴ of the houses.

“我喜欢把很棒的设计和简便的功能融入产品中，而且不会太贵，”他一边向我指出这些房屋的干净典雅之处，一边说道，

“It was the original vision for Apple. That’s what we tried to do with the first Mac. That’s what we did with the iPod.”

“这是苹果公司最初的设想，我们在制造第一台Mac电脑时就尝试这么做，并在iPod上实现了这个设想。”

Across the street from the Jobs family lived a man who had become successful as a real estate agent.

乔布斯家的对面曾经住着一个成功的房地产经纪人。

“He wasn’t that bright,” Jobs recalled, “but he seemed to be making a fortune.

“他也不是很聪明，”乔布斯回忆说，“但看起来他好像赚了不少钱。

So my dad thought, ‘I can do that.’ He worked so hard, I remember. He took these night classes, passed the license¹⁵ test, and got into real estate. Then the bottom fell out of the market.”

于是我爸爸就想：‘我也能干这一行啊。’我记得他拼命努力，去上夜校，通过了执照考试，进入了房地产业。紧接着，房地产市场崩溃了。”

As a result, the family found itself financially strapped¹⁶ for a year or so while Steve was in elementary school.

结果，乔布斯一家经济拮据了差不多一年时间，当时史蒂夫还在上小学。

His mother took a job as a bookkeeper for Varian Associates, a company that made scientific instruments, and they took out a second mortgage.

他妈妈在生产科学仪器的瓦里安联合公司（Varian Associates)找到了一份记账员的工作，他们家也给房子办理了第二份抵押贷款。

One day his fourth-grade teacher asked him, “What is it you don’t understand about the universe?”

有一天，他的四年级老师问他：“关于这个世界，你有什么不明白的？ ”

Jobs replied, “I don’t understand why all of a sudden my dad is so broke.”

乔布斯回答说：“我不明白为什么我爸爸一夜之间就破产了。”