When Adele Trapp first volunteered as a den mother for one of Brooklyn's Cub Scout groups, Dwight Eisenhower was President and a first-class stamp cost three cents.
That was 53 years ago. The mild-mannered great-grandmother has been opening her heart to kids ever since.
Trapp, 96, has attended weekly scout meetings of Bedford-Stuyvesant's Pack 263 for more than half her life and has taught kids arts and crafts while offering pearls of wisdom.
In honor of her decades-long commitment, she has just been honored as the world's longest-serving den mother by Guinness World Records.
She overtook Marion Rohner of the Hudson Valley Council Boy Scouts, who served 43 years.
"It's beautiful; it's very nice," Trapp said as she was presented with a certificate of her achievements at St. Phillips Church on Decatur St. this week.
"I'm not out for an award."
This is not the first time Trapp has been a record breaker.
In 2005, when she was 90, she was celebrated as the oldest employee in New York's public school system for her work as a full-time school aide at Junior High School 258 in Brooklyn. (New York Daily News)
《字詞解析》
volunteer -- (v.) 自願服務；擔任志工。
den mother -- (n.) (美國幼年童子軍小隊之) 女訓導。
cub scout -- (n.) 幼童軍 (8 至 11 歲的童子軍)。
mild-mannered -- (adj.) 溫文爾雅的，溫良恭謹的。
pearls of wisdom -- (n.) 妙語如珠；至理名言。例如：The words from my grandmother's mouth are pearls of wisdom. (從我祖母嘴中說出來的話都是至理名言)。
in honor of -- (phr.) 向…致敬；向…表示敬意。
honor -- (v.) 致敬；給予…的榮耀。
Guinness World Records -- (n.) 金氏世界紀錄大全。
overtake -- (v.) 追上；趕上；超越。
record breaker -- (n.) 破紀錄的人。
public school -- (n.) 公立學校。注意：這是美國的用法 (美國的私立學校叫做 private school)；public school 在英國指的是「私立學校」(英國的公立學校叫做 state school)。
延伸閱讀：新聞英語的語法結構