标题：Doing his darnedest

Doing one's darnedest: 全力以赴
to put forth the utmost amount of energy or effort toward some task or goal.
Eg: Money is a little tight at the moment, but I'll do my darndest to be there for your wedding.

America’s 41st president, the last of his kind, was 94

The last of his kind 绝无仅有的老布什

Wherever he went, as America’s president or before it, George Herbert Walker Bush usually carried a felt-tipped pen and a supply of notecards.

第一句以意像化的形式向读者展现了一个老布什的形象。无论走到哪里，作为美国总统和作为平民的时候，老布什总是随身带着一支签字笔和一沓记事卡，也引起了读者特别好奇，到底这些记事卡是干嘛的呢？

On these he wrote letters. Some were thank-yous; others a clumsy, but courteous, attempt to get his views across to other people; yet others just a “good to see you” kind of thing.

原来他是用来写信。有一些是感谢卡，有政治观点，也有一些只是简单的问候-"见到你很高兴“
clumsy but courteous 礼貌而不失尴尬

• clumsy这个词在别的场景下通常是指笨手笨脚的或者笨拙的，这里更接近于"得罪人的”
  Definition: a clumsy action or statement is said or done carelessly or badly, and likely to upset someone
  Eg: David made a clumsy attempt to comfort us
• courteous有礼貌的, polite 的高级说法。
  Definition: polite and showing respect for other people
  Eg: The students are well-educated and courteous.
• get his views across 把...讲清楚，在写作或者口语当中非常好用，是communicate的结果。
  Definition :succeed in communicating an idea or piece of information to someone, or to be communicated successfully
  Eg: It took me ages to get my point across.

When the time came to write his presidential memoirs, to salve some of that desperate hurt after Bill Clinton thrashed him in 1992, he published instead 600-plus pages of correspondence.

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• salve 安慰(良心)；减轻(内疚感)
  Definition Heal or remedy (a disease, sin, sorrow, etc.)
  常见的用法是 salve your conscience, you do it in order to feel less guilty.
• thrash轻松击败，以大比分战胜
  Definition If one player or team thrashes another in a game or contest, they defeat them easily or by a large score. (informal)
  Eg: Brazil thrashed Italy 5–0.
• correspondence 往来书信，Letters的高级说法，
  Eg: He always replied to his correspondence

They ranged from doting letters to newborn grandchildren to his worries, as a young seaman in 1943, that his girlfriend Barbara, “so darn attractive”, would drop him while he was away; from his attempt to explain the Watergate scandal to his four young sons, to his mortified account of throwing up in 1992 on the Japanese prime minister, “the damnedest experience”.

这一段具体地写出这些信件的内容，可以看出Bush是非常有性情的人，有充满宠溺的给刚出生的孙子的信，也有当水手时，害怕他女朋友Barbara甩掉他的真实，也有试图向他四个儿子解释水门事件的。

• doting 宠溺的，spoiling
  ** Definition**a doting mother, husband, or friend, you mean that they show a lot of love for someone
  Eg: His doting parents bought him his first racing bike at 13.
• mortified
  Definition: they feel extremely offended, ashamed, or embarrassed.
  Eg: I was mortified to find that everyone else was wearing evening dress.
• his mortified account of throwing up in 1992 on the Japanese prime minister
  这里有个老布什的小囧事。就是在1992年1月8日，老布什在参加日本首相Kiichi Miyazawa的宴会时晕倒了，更囧的是在晕倒之前吐在了Miyazawa的大腿上。他称之为难以置信（darndest) 的经历,现在看来也是非常窘迫的。这件事后来成为了喜剧演员们的素材，当之无愧地当选为2007年USA Today 评选的“二十五个公众糗事"之一。
  
  vomiting.jpg

He admitted that some of the letters were nutty. But they were also of the moment. As he said, “It’s all about heartbeat.”

他承认有一些信看起来非常疯狂，但是他们都是当下的心情。

• nutty 疯狂，是nut的形容词
  Definition: very strange or foolish.