Back to the Grind

www.anglophonie.fr
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Back To The Daily Grind
(CBS News, 2009)
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4814494n
“You can’t lose!”
At the supermarket in Ben Lomond, California, the newest employee is also the oldest - though you might not
believe just how old!
"I'm 90, and I'll be 91 in May and, uh, so what!" “(Good) morning!”
At 90, after 30 years of retirement, Ian Thiermann is back at work for $10 an hour, handing out the weekly
specials.
“And now, much to my surprise, they’ve even got them on the back side! So you can’t lose!
But Thiermann is here because he did lose, big time, when Bernie Madoff was arrested for running his Ponzi
scheme and Thiermann's investment manager called to say: "I have lost everything! You have lost everything.
And he just almost fainted on the phone."
Thiermann and his wife Terry live in a modest home. Their $700,000 in retirement money seemed like enough to
keep them going
-- with some left over for charity.
"So you go from being a donor to the food bank to being…"
"A recipient!"
“A recipient!”
Their long-term investments turned out to be a long-term fraud.
"Every piece of paperwork we received was a lie."
A court document listing Madoff's victims in tiny print runs to an astounding 162 pages. Many lost millions.
The Thiermanns, though, are not focusing on what they have lost, but on what they still have.
“Would you like to buy some more produce – it’s very good for you, you know!
So Thiermann, who once owned a large and successful tree-care business in Los Angeles, is now selling
groceries.
“By the way, the soups are fantastic!” “Good morning!”
But he never complains, says store manager Ron Clements.
"Ian is that right person. He's that, that special person."
“Hello!”
Thiermann's secret may be that he he’s seen this before - old enough to remember the 1930's, when his family
lost everything.
"You gotta be positive, otherwise life is too short."
Ian Thiermann seems to prove that old saying: tough times don't last, tough people do.
“Oh boy!”
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Vocabulary
0. back to the grind
de retour au boulot quotidien
1. to hand out
distribuer
2. to lose big time
perdre gros
3. to run a Ponzi scheme
une combine malhonnête pour arnaquer les gens
4. to faint
s’évanouïr
5. to keep going
continuer à vivre
6. to turn out to be
s’avérer être
7. in tiny print
en petits caractères
8. to run to an astounding 162 pages
s’élève ……. étonnant
9. left over
qui restaient
10. a recipient
un bénéficiaire
11. produce
des légumes
12. to sell groceries
être (vendeur) dans une épicerie
13. by the way
en passant
14. You gotta be positive
You have to be positive = Il faut voir le bon côté des choses
15. that old saying
le vieux dicton
16. tough times don’t last, tough people do
les temps difficiles ne durent pas, les gens durent, perdurent
(survivent)