(Beautiful Essay)美文+录音20篇
来源：英语周报
发布时间：2009-09-02 18:21:00
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内容提要：Is it worth it?Put first things firstThe power of encouragement
Your valuable friends
（第15期）
When Harry Truman was pushed into the US presidency at the death of Franklin Roosevelt, a colleague and friend — Congressman Sam Rayburn of Bonham, Texas — gave Truman some fatherly advice.
Rayburn said, “Harry, from here on out, you’re going to have lots of people around you. They’ll try to put a wall around you and cut you off from any ideas but theirs. They’ll tell you what a great man you are, Harry. But you and I both know you aren’t.” Friends can say those things to each other.
Later, when Sam Rayburn discovered that he was seriously ill, he told his friends in Congress that he was going home to Bonham for medical tests. “But there are excellent doctors and medical facilities in Washington D.C.,” some of them argued. “Why would you want to go to Bonham?”
“Because,” the congressman replied, “Bonham is a place where people know it when you’re sick, and where they care when you die.”
Rayburn had a need greater than good medical assistance. He needed friends. Someone to ask how his grandchildren were doing. Someone to sit by him and stop by his home. Someone to care. A few close friends meant more than the best medical facilities in the world.
Who is such a friend to you? That person is more valuable than your greatest possession.
Have you said “thanks”?