Father's Day Composition: Father under the Desk Lamp
Father's Day Composition: Father under the Desk Lamp
The power went out and the rental house was in complete darkness. I lit the candle, and the faint light the size of a soybean swayed and struggled in the dark. In the candlelight, my hometown, which I haven't returned for many years, appeared in front of my eyes. It was a small mountain village in Leiyang, Hunan. In a small room with blue bricks and black tiles, there are endless cold nights and cold winds outside the window, and a burning kerosene lamp gives off a dim light. Under the lamp, I sat around with my parents and my brother, talking and laughing. Father's weather-beaten face sometimes smiles, and happiness is squeezed out from a clearly visible "eight-character" wrinkle between the eyebrows; Sometimes I frown, and the pimples in my heart can't be let go for a long time. The white hair in the hair is looming in the light, trembling and telling. ...
The small mountain village where I was born belongs to a relatively remote rural area. Until the late 1980s, there was no electricity, and every household used kerosene lamps for lighting. There are three kinds of kerosene lamps that villagers usually use to drive away darkness. One is called "lantern": it is made of iron, with a round glass cover in the middle, a base for oil discharge in the lower part and air holes in the upper part. There is a fire core in the round cover, and the size of the fire can be adjusted freely. Villagers can carry it outside without being blown away by the wind. The second type is called "desk lamp", which is simpler than lanterns and less bright than lanterns, except that a thin glass lampshade like a gourd is covered on a high glass base, and a fire core with freely adjustable firepower is installed in the lampshade. This kind of lamp is generally only used by village cadres or intellectuals, such as village party secretaries, village directors and private teachers. The kerosene lamp in my house is the simplest. Not only is it shorter than a desk lamp, but it also has a small flame, an exposed fire core and no glass cover. Father said that such brightness is enough. "Think about it, you can save a lot of kerosene in 365 days a year!"
The winter nights are cold and long. Behind my house is a hill covered with pine trees. From time to time, the sound of "sand, sand" from the whistling north wind came from the pine forest. The stream next to the house, at this time, the water is also big, "wow, wow, wow" rang all night, especially in the silent mountain village. We sat around the table with our father. There is a faint charcoal fire under the table. There is a kerosene lamp covered with oil on the table. The faint light of the beans trembled in the dim light, as if they were afraid of the cold. Life in the country is monotonous, but there is nothing to do on this winter night. We chatted together after dinner to kill the long night.
At this time, my father usually lights a "trumpet" cigarette or a cheap cigarette and smokes it "beep, beep". Smoke and yellow play on his wrinkled face. At this time, my father was only forty years old, but his white hair had already emerged from his hair. But at this time, he will show his usual lightness or smile. But when chatting with us, my father seldom tells unnecessary jokes and gossip. He always leads the topic to the field he wants to talk about intentionally or unintentionally. Now carefully summed up, my father's words and deeds are actually very comprehensive, including almost many disciplines such as literature, history and philosophy.
Being a man is always a new topic for my father. He has experienced many times, has rich experience and likes to associate with villagers. He is very worldly and can say a lot at will. And we are quite interested in these, not only simple and easy to understand, but also the story is true and interesting. At that time, he happened to have a yellow thread-bound book in his hand, entitled "Augmented Sage". This book has been badly worn, the yellow paper has become hairy, and the words are written vertically with a brush, which is not traditional. I wonder if it is a manuscript handed down from that generation. My father only has a fourth-grade education, and most of the words in the augmented Xianwen are traditional Chinese characters, so there will be many misunderstandings when my father interprets them for us. For example, "How many people can you know?" Father's explanation is: "Xiangzi in the sky (called Xiangzi in our dialect) is all over the sky, but how many people are close?" At this time, I am in primary school and my brother is in junior high school. Some common-sense misunderstandings about my father can be put aside, but most of the time, we just laugh without saying a word, because we think my father's misunderstanding is also very interesting and can be combined with reality, which seems to be more interesting than the original intention in the book. My father can always look at the new "connotation" given to augmented literature according to his own ideas and the principle of dealing with people. Really learn and use, keep pace with the times! Therefore, we can memorize my father's misunderstanding of the content of augmented sages and remember them clearly. I have long forgotten many high-sounding truths spoken by teachers at school.
However, if it was the evening when my father had just returned from a small business, there would not be such a relaxed and interesting chat. On such a night, I only saw my father's serious, rigorous and even worried and frowning face under the kerosene lamp. Father is busy all the year round for the livelihood of the whole family and the study expenses of his brothers. This winter has been the "hibernation" season for farmers, but when many villagers are sleeping soundly in the warm bed or chatting and playing poker in front of the warm charcoal fire, my father braves the cold wind, cold rain or heavy snow to rush to the market more than 20 miles away before dawn in the east to buy a bear of duck eggs and come back after dark. At noon, even rice noodles with 20 cents are reluctant to eat, but how much mud he has to walk through and how many slopes he has to climb! In my dream that night, I heard my father's uncontrollable cough many times. The next day, my father rushed to the road before it was white and picked the duck eggs he bought and sold them in the market ten miles away. If you don't take a step on the road and fall to the ground, you will not only waste your labor, but also lose blood. Now think about it, how much psychological pressure did my father have to bear when he walked on the mud road with a weight of 100 kilograms? !
It's usually dark when he comes back from selling duck eggs. At this time, my father didn't care what he ate, and didn't even wipe the muddy water splashed on the homespun clothes. He dived under the kerosene lamp and counted the accounts for the day. At this time, my father's face was yellow, without a trace of blood, which was a masterpiece left on his face by hunger and cold all day; Father frowned, and his deep wrinkles were full of worry and tension. We are all "well informed", knowing that my father can't disturb us at this moment, just watching from a distance. I saw my father take out a handful of money from the third floor of his clothes, in various denominations. With an uncontrollable trembling hand, he first separated the banknotes by denomination: fifty yuan in a stack, then ten yuan in a stack, then five yuan, two yuan … until five cents. After dividing the money, my father will take out the money for this business first, and then count the remaining money. Sometimes there is too little money left, and my father will sigh again and again; Sometimes when I find that I have made a mistake, my father will count it over and over again until I am satisfied. But as long as there is no loss, my father will still show a few smiles after counting, although the smiles are full of helplessness and sighs.
Eating and drinking Lazar at home is enough for my father, but he still avoids the "business" of the public; My father has never been an official in his life, but he has been an official for decades. Although his post has no name, his "power" is greater than that of the group leader and less than that of the village head, which is equivalent to the "battalion chief" in the countryside in the 1960s and 1970s or the "chairman of maintaining stability" in the old society. He is in charge of the public affairs and money of the whole bay (we call the village houses that live together a bay, and there are usually several villagers' groups in a bay). Neighborhood disputes in the Bay, the organization of collective activities, the arrangement of unified affairs in the Bay, and the disposal of public property such as trees on public hills are all within the scope of father's jurisdiction. Sometimes, some village cadres with intractable problems can't do anything about it, but when his father arrives, with his unhurried and reasonable words, the problems are often solved quickly, making the village cadres shout "strange things!" The "trump card" in the father's hand is the power of morality, credit, justice, fairness and personality. Of course, there are ways and skills to speak. In fact, he has only obligations but no rights in this job. If there is any right, it is a hard year, and he has a symbolic salary of several dollars. "These families unanimously elected me to be responsible. Can I avoid it? " In the face of family members' incomprehension, my father said earnestly. Then, under the kerosene lamp, another situation of my father appeared.
Rural people usually have meetings at night, because only in this way can relevant personnel be present. There are often some public affairs in the Bay, and several people with "weight" gather in my house to discuss "the affairs in the Bay". At this time, the father under the kerosene lamp is always cheerful, and all the guests come. If you are unhappy, you are afraid that others will think you are unwilling and misunderstand you! However, my father, the "maintenance president", will never be an unprincipled "Mr. Good Man". He will stubbornly stick to what he thinks is right and principled, and even argue with others. "What will others do if you do this?" There are still many people in trouble at home, dead or alive. "My father opened his tired eyes and shouted at those who agreed with him. The water splashed everywhere, and the rough sound made the weak kerosene lamp fire swing violently.
My father is in charge of public affairs, especially eating and drinking at public funds. Some people who don't know the truth often wonder for no reason, "Who doesn't want money? People who don't want money are afraid! " The third pockmarked girl in the village deliberately said this in front of me. But I know best whether my father really wants public funds. I remember that every time my father came back from official business, if he had any expenses and accounts, he must have settled accounts by himself under the dim kerosene lamp. He not only remembered the public funds clearly, but also wrapped them in newspapers and put them in drawers to avoid mixing them with his own money. It seems that in the money itself, the public and themselves are different. The dazzling electric light pulled me back from the kerosene lamp in the distance, and my father's smiling or frowning face disappeared. Suddenly I felt two hot liquids sliding on my face, and tears filled my eyes when I touched them.