D
“How did you do it, Dad? How have you managed not to take a drink for almost 20 years?” It
took a man almost 20 years to have the courage to ask my father this very personal question. When Dad first quit drinking, the whole family was on pins and needles every time he got into a situation that, in the past, would have started him drinking again. For a few years we were afraid to bring it up for fear the drinking would begin again.
“I had this little poem that I would recite to myself at least four to five times a day,” was Dad’s reply to my 18-year-old unasked question. “The words were an instant relief and constant reminder to me that things were never so tough that I could not handle them,” Dad said. And then he shared the poem with me. The poem’s simple, yet the words are meaningful.
About a month after this talk with my father, I received a gift in the mail from a friend of mine. It was a book of daily words of wisdom listed for each day of the year. It has been my experience that when you get something with days of the year on it, you naturally turn to the page that lists your own birthday.
I hurriedly opened the book to November 10 to see what words of wisdom this book had in store for me. Tears of disbelief and appreciation rolled down my face. There, on my birthday, was the exact same poem that had helped my father for all these years! It went like this: God, give me the Serenity（平静） to accept the things I cannot change; the Courage to change the things I can; and the Wisdom to know the difference.
68．The underlined expression “on pins and needles” in the first paragraph means .
A．upset B．pleased C．nervous D．surprised
69．Dad would review the poem several times a day .
A．to share the poem with the families B．to practice reciting the poem
C．to prevent himself from drinking again D．to remind himself that poems are useful
70．When the author saw the same poem in the book, he felt .
A．regretful B．thankful C．hopeful D．painful
71．The author bust into tears because .
A．his friends gave him a special gift B．the poem was full of wisdom
C．his father had read the same book D．his father quit drinking for his son
