I was one of the young US soldiers in Saudi Arabia. At one time before the Internet，our only lifeline to friends and family was the mail we sent and received.

One evening the mail soldier called my name and，instead of a letter，handed me a large box from my grandmother in Oklahoma. One of the great hardships of the war for me was the absence of my grandmother's cooking—her fried chicken and onion，corn bread，and，most of all，her desserts. But on that evening I was about to take a gastronomic（美食的） journey home: I opened the box and found two dozen pies made by my grandmother.

A man from New York approached and asked me what I had received. I couldn't answer；my mouth was full of pie. So I just offered him one. “So nice！”he said. “What are they？”He had to wait a few moments for an answer，but eventually I explained. As insurance，I offered him another pie to keep him quiet.

Once a day for the next three weeks，I imagined returning home to my grandmother's kitchen，if only I had had a few sweet bites at a time.

Some of my earliest memories are associated with my grandmother's pies. She had been baking pies since before the Great Depression. She would have astonished the judges on today's TV cooking challenges. I remember coming across a persimmon（柿子）tree once while out hiking. It was autumn，and the fruit was soft and sweet. I picked a few dozen and brought them to Grandma. Guess what！The next day I walked into her kitchen to find a persimmon pie waiting for me.

   When I was 17 , I met a famous doctor named Paul Bragg . He gave me one of the most valuable ______ of my life : a statement that was filled with words of ______ . To this very day , I still ______ it : I am a genius（天才） , and I apply my wisdom .

______ , I was a high school dropout（辍学学生） and was living in a tent in Hawaii . I had a very limited vocabulary and had never ______ reading a single book . When Dr. Bragg taught me this statement , he told me to say it with feelings ______ it were true. To do so seemed so far away from ______ that it was funny . After saying it many times , ______ , I began to feel what those powerful words meant . ______ every day I continued to say it , and it became ______ to believe : I am a genius , and I apply my wisdom .

It was two and a half years later when I really saw the ______ of the statement . I was sitting in a college library ______ by fellow students whom I was helping with higher mathematics . I heard one of the students speak ______ to another . “John is really a ______ !” At the moment , I ______ what Dr. Bragg had taught me , and I ______ to say this statement for the rest of my life .

I can’t quite put into words what a(n) ______ this statement has made in my life . ______  it , I was able to change from a dropout to the top of my college class . I think that the key to ______ is putting your true feelings into a statement you ______ and saying it over and over every day .

   Of course, she wasn’t really my aunt and, out of fear, I never called her that to her face. I only referred to her as “My Aunt Fannie” because the name always made my father laugh quietly and gave my mother cause to look strictly at both of us — at me for being disrespectful to my elder and at my father for encouraging my bad behavior. I enjoyed both reactions so I looked for every opportunity to work the name into as many conversations as possible.

As a young woman, my mother had worked in the kitchen of a large Victorian farmhouse. During those years my mother helped Aunt Fannie make the best blueberry jam ever tasted by anyone in Glenfield. She was well-known for her jam and for never sharing the recipe (食谱) with others. Even though my mother knew the recipe by heart, as long as Aunt Fannie was alive, she never made the jam without Aunt Fannie in our kitchen to direct the process and kept the secret.

Each August, my mother would prepare me for Aunt Fannie’s visit. One year, after I had helped with the jam process Aunt Fannie gave me a coin and then made me promise that I would never spend it. “Hold onto this coin,” she said, “and someday you will be rich. I still have my very first coin, given to me by my grandmother.” So I kept the coin in a small box and waited to become rich.

I now have the blueberry jam recipe and the coin from Aunt Fannie. In people’s eyes Aunt Fannie’s success resulted from that secret recipe. But to me, it was just a common recipe. Neither has made me become a rich person, but 1 keep them as reminders (提醒人的事物) to hold onto the valuable things in life. Money can make you feel rich for a while, but it is the relationships and the memories of time spent with friends and family that truly leave you wealthy. And that is a fortune that anyone can build.

As a popular saying goes, “Time is money.” But does time definitely mean money? In fact this is not the case.