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Better Late than Never

[1] He was lying there in the grass, hiding and thinking.

[2] He had studied the little girl's habits. He knew she would come outside her grandfather's house mid-afternoon to play.

[3] He hated himself for this.

[4] In his whole miserable life he'd never considered anything so callous as kidnapping.

[5] Yet here he was, lying in the grass, hidden by trees from the house, waiting for an innocent , red-haired, two-year-old girl to come within reach.

[6] It was a long wait; there was time to think.

[7] Maybe all his life Harlan had been in too much of a hurry .

[8] He was five when his Hoosier farmer father had died.

[9] At fourteen he dropped out of Greenwood School and hit the road .

[10] He tried odd jobs as a farmhand, hated it.

[11] Tried being a bus conductor and hated that. 12] At sixteen he lied about his age and joined the

Army—and hated that, too. When his one-year enlistment was up he headed for Alabama [N], tried blacksmithing and failed.

[13] He became a railroad locomotive fireman with

the Southern Railroad. He liked that. Figured maybe he had found himself.

[14] At eighteen he got married, and within months,

wouldn't you know she announced she was pregnant the day he announced he'd been fired again?

[15] Then, one day, while he was out job hunting , his young wife gave away all their possessions and went home to her parents.

[16] Then came the depression .

17] Harlan couldn't win for losing, as they said.

[18] He really tried.

[19] Once, while working at a succession of railroad

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jobs, he tried studying law by correspondence .

[20] But he dropped out of that, too.

[21] He tried selling insurance , selling tires.

[22] He tried running a ferryboat , running a filling station. No use.

[23] Face it—Harlan was a loser.

[24] And now here he was hiding in the weeds outside Roanoke , Virginia , planning a kidnapping .

[25] As I say, he'd watched the little girl's habits, and knew about her afternoon playtime .

[26] But, this one day, she did not come out to play, so his chain of failures remained unbroken .

[27] Late in life he became chief cook and bottle washer at a restaurant in Corbin. And did all right until the new highway bypassed the restaurant.

[28] And then his expected life span ran out .

[29] He was not the first man nor would he be the last to arrive at the twilight of life with nothing to show for it.

[30] The bluebird of happiness, or whatever, had always flown just out of reach.

[31] He'd stayed honest—except for that one time when he had attempted kidnapping. In fairness to his name it must be noted that it was his own daughter he'd meant to kidnap from his runaway wife.

[32] And they both returned to him, the next day, anyway.

[33] But now the years had passed by and a lifetime was gone and he and they had nothing.

[34] He had not really felt old until that day the postman brought his first Social Security check. That day, something within Harlan resented , resisted , and exploded.

[35] The Government was feeling sorry for him.

36] It was time to give up and retire .

[37] His restaurant customers in Corbin said they'd miss him, but his Government said sixty-five candles on the birthday cake is enough. They sent him a pension check

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and told him he was “old”.

[38] He said, “Nuts.”

[39] And he got so angry he took that $105 check and started a new business.

[40] Today that business is still prospering . For over twenty years until his death he carried on with remarkable success.

[41] For the man who failed at everything but one thing... the man who might have been a law-breaking

kidnapper had he not also failed at that ... the man who never got started until it was time to stop... was Harlan Sanders.

[42] The new business he started with his first Social Security check was Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now you know the rest of the story. ( 649 words)

 

第二篇：Do you agree that Better late than never

Do you agree that “Better late than never ” 灵: Have you ever heard about this story?

彤: what story?

灵: Here is the story. A Chinese fable（寓言）says that a person had raised a lot of sheep. One day, a wolf ate a sheep, the master initially thought nothing remarkable, he took it for granted that the wolf would not come back. He did not go patch sheepfold, but later, the wolf came back and ate the sheep, and as a result, the sheep's main talent rushed to repair the sheep pen, and later the sheep have not been eaten by the wolf. This story tells us the truth “better late than never”.

彤: oh！I know this story .when I was in primary school, my teacher metioned it.

熊: yeah I have heard it too, this story conveys a message, something are easy to deal with while others are difficult, as long as you are willing to do, difficult things will become easier. The key to success or failure is your determination and confidence. It doesn’t matter if you are late for something, better late than never.

双:You bet ! For example, there are two men who want to be businessmen. One is just waiting for the opportunity to come without any actions, because he thinks it is too late to apply for a better position. He just dreams of receiving an offer from a top 500 enterprise and becoming successful. The other one doesn't have a brief plan of his future. He was a ordinary office man in a small company. However, he keeps applying for bigger companies. Who do you think might be successful? We can never wait till the end of our life. There's no free meal in the world. No matter how late it is, just do it and you will never regret of doing nothing.

彤:I highly appreciate the second man ,it reveals that if you don’t have strong ability ,you can try it, no matter when and how late it is. 灵:Yeah It's absolutely true that it's better late than never. As is known to all, if you want to achieve your dream, you have to do something. 'Never' means you never take actions. Or even never think of it. Without the thought of putting things into practice , people will definitely not disentomb(发掘) his potential or realize his dream. Better later than never, so you will leave nothing regretful, it’s advisable to remember this sentence forever.