My family and I lived across the street from Southway Park since I was four years old. Then just last year the city put a chain link fence around the park and started bulldozing the trees and grass to make way for a new apartment complex. When I saw the fence and bulldozers, I asked myself, “Why don't they just leave it alone?”
从我四岁起，我和家人就住在Southway公园的街对面。就在去年，该市在公园周围设置了铁丝网围栏，开始用推土机将树木和草推平，为一个新的公寓大楼让路。当我看到围栏和推土机时，我问自己，“他们为什么不能把公园单独留下？”
Looking back, I think what sentenced the park to oblivion was the drought we had about four years ago. Up until then, Southway Park was a nice green park with plenty of trees and a public swimming pool. My friends and I rollerskated on the sidewalks, climbed the trees, and swam in the pool all the years I was growing up. The park was almost like my own yard. Then the summer I was fifteen the drought came and things changed.
回想起来，我认为是大约四年前的干旱让这个公园被遗忘。在那之前，Southway公园是一个很好的绿色公园，有很多树和一个公共游泳池。我和朋友们在人行道上玩旱冰，爬树，在我成长的这些年里，我一直在游泳池里游泳。公园几乎就像我自己的院子。然后在我十五岁的夏天，干旱来临，情况发生了变化。
There had been almost no rain at all that year. The city stopped watering the park grass. Within a few weeks I found myself living across the street from a huge brown desert. Leaves fell off the park trees, and pretty soon the trees started dying, too. Next, the park swimming pool was closed. The city cut down on the work force that kept the park, and pretty soon it just got too ugly and dirty to enjoy anymore.
那一年几乎没有下雨。城市停止给公园的草地浇水。不到几周，我就发现自己住在一个巨大的棕色沙漠的街对面。公园的树上落叶，很快树也开始枯萎。接下来，公园的游泳池被关闭了。城市减少了维持公园的人力，很快，公园变得又丑又脏，无法再享受了。
As the drought lasted into the fall, the park got worse every month. The rubbish piled up or blew across the brown grass. Soon the only people in the park were beggars and other people down on their luck. People said drugs were being sold or traded there now. The park had gotten scary, and my mother told us kids not to go there anymore.
随着干旱持续到秋天，公园越来越糟糕。垃圾堆积，或吹散在棕色的草地上。很快，公园里只有乞丐和其他倒霉的人。人们说现在那里有毒品出售或交易。公园变得很可怕，我妈妈告诉我们这些孩子不要再去那里了。
The drought finally ended and things seemed to get back to normal, that is, everything but the park. It had gotten into such bad shape that the city just let it stay that way. Then about six months ago I heard that the city was going to “redevelop” certain worn-out areas of the city. It turned out that the city had planned to get rid of the park, sell the land and let someone build rows of apartment buildings on it.
干旱终于结束了，一切似乎都恢复了正常，除了公园。它已经变得如此糟糕，以至于这个城市就让它保持这种状态。大约六个月前，我听说这个城市要“重新开发”这个城市的某些破旧地区。事实证明，这个城市已经计划拆除这个公园，把土地卖掉，让人在上面盖一排排公寓楼。
The chain-link fencing and the bulldozers did their work. Now we live across the street from six rows of apartment buildings. Each of them is three units high and stretches a block in each direction. The neighborhood has changed without the park. The streets I used to play in are jammed with cars now. Things will never be the same again. Sometimes I wonder, though, what changes another drought would make in the way things are today.
铁丝网围栏和推土机起到了作用。现在我们住在六排公寓楼的街对面。每栋公寓楼都有三个单元高，每个方向延伸一个街区。没有公园，社区已经改变了。我过去玩的街道现在挤满了车。情况将永远不再一样。不过，有时我想知道，如果再发生一次干旱，今天的情况会发生什么变化。
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