One of the qualities that most people admire in others is the willingness to admit one’s mistakes. (79) It is extremely hard sometimes to say a thing like "I was wrong about that," and it is even harder to say, "I was wrong, and you were right about that. "
I had an experience recently with someone admitting to me that he had made a mistake fif years ago. He told me he had been the manager of a grocery store in the neighbor-hood where I grew up, and he asked me if I remembered the egg cartons. Then he related an incident and I began to remember vaguely the incident he was describing.
I was about eight years old at the time, and I had gone into the store with my mother to do the weekly grocery shopping. On that particular clue, I must have found my way to the dairy food department where the incident took place.
(80) There must have been a special sale on eggs that day because there was an im-pressive display of eggs in dozen and half-dozen cartons. The cartons were stacked three or four feet high. I must have stopped in front of a display to admire the stacks. Just then a woman came by pushing her grocery cart and knocked off the stacks of cartons. For some reason, I decided it was up to me to put the display back together; so I went to work.
The manager heard the noise and came rushing over to see what had happened. When he appeared, I was on my knees inspecting some of the cartons to see if any of the eggs were broken, but to him it looked as though I was the culprit (罪犯). He severely scolded me and wanted me to pay for any broken eggs. I protested my innocence and tried to ex-plain, but it did no good. Even though I quickly forgot all about the incident, apparently the manager did not.
How old was the author when he wrote this article