完形填空
When I was a kid, Dad and I would go
for long walks together. Sometimes we'd spy 1along
the way-a penny here, a dime there. 2 I picked up a penny, he would ask, “Is it a
wheat?" It always thrilled him when we found one of those 3 coins produced from 1909 to 1958, the year of
my birth. On one of these walks, he told me he often 4 of finding coins. I was amazed. "I always
have that dream too!" I told him. It was our secret connection.
One gray winter day in 2002, not long after
his 5, I was walking down Fifth Avenue,
feeling 6 and lonely, and I suddenly found myself in
front of a church, where Dad had been working there, but I hadn't 7 for a long time. When I walked into it, I
heard the hymn (赞美诗) was A Mighty
Fortress is Our God.
That's Dad's 8,
one we'd sung at his funeral. Hearing this again, I burst into 9.
After the service, I stepped onto the sidewalk--and there was a penny. I 10 to pick it up and turned it over, and 11 enough, it was a wheat!
That started it. Suddenly wheat pennies
began 12 on the sidewalks of New York everywhere. I got
most of the 13 years: his birth year, the year he graduated
from college, the year he 14 my mom, the year they got married…
One Sunday, when I was walking up Fifth
Avenue, I 15 a
penny in the middle of a crossing. It was a 16 street; taxis were speeding by--should I 17 it? I just had to get it. A wheat! But the
penny was 18, and I couldn't read the date. When I
took out my magnifying glass lo see it clearly, there was my birthday. As a
journalist, I'm in a profession where doubting is a necessary 19.
But I found 21 wheat pennies in the year after my father died, and I don't
think that's a(n) 20.
