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Many teenagers believe that growing up is a struggle to be independent. They want to be free from their parents’ control and they want to be different. Read the following textand see how a young man struggles to stand on his own two feet.
The Doctor’s Son
Harold Eppley with Rochelle Melander
1 My parents moved to Vermont when I was still an infant. A soft-spoken man, my father settled quietly into his medical practice in a small town called Enosburg. Soon the local people accepted him as one of their own. Word passes quickly in small Vermont towns. They know good people when they meet them. Around town the neighbors greeted my father as “Doc. Eppley.” And I soon learned that as long as I lived in Enosburg I would always be known as “Doctor Eppley’s son.”
2 On the first day of school, my classmates crowded around me because I was the doctor’s son. “If you’re anything like your father, you’ll be a smart boy,” my first-grade teacher said. I couldn’t stop beaming.
3 Somewhere in the midst of myteenage years, however, something changed. I was sixteen years old and the neighbors still called me “Doctor Eppley’s son.” They said that I was growing up to be an honorable and industrious young man, living an honest life just like my father. I groaned whenever I heard their compliments.
4 I wondered how I would ever fit in with my teenage friends. I hated being followed by my father’s good name. And so when strangers asked me if I was Doctor Eppley’s son, I replied emphatically, “My name is Harold. And I can manage quite well on my own.” As an act of rebellion, I began to call my father by his first name, Sam.
5 “Why are you acting so stubborn lately?” my father asked me one day in the midst of an argument.
6 “Well, Sam ,” I replied, “I suppose that bothers you.”
7 “You know it hurts me when youcall me Sam,” my father shouted.
8 “Well, it hurts me when everybody expects me to be just like you. I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be myself.”
9 I survived my last years of high school until finally I turned eighteen. The next fall I enrolled in college. I chose to attend a school far from Enosburg, a place where nobody called me “Doctor Eppley’s son.”
10 One night at college I sat with a group of students in the dormitory as we shared stories about our lives. We began to talk about the things we hated most about our childhoods. “That’s easy,” I said. “I couldn’t stand growing up in a town where everybody always compared me with my father.”
11 The girl sitting next to me frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I’d be proud to have a father who’s so well respected.” Her eyes filled with tears as she continued, “I’d give anything to be called my father’s child. But I don’t know where he is. He left my mother when I was only four.”
12 There was an awkward silence, and then I changed the subject. I wasn’t ready to hear her words.
13 I returned home for winter break that year, feeling proud of myself. In four months at college, I had made a number of new friends. I had become popular in my own right, without my father’s help.
14 For two weeks I enjoyed being back in Enosburg. The main topic of interest at home was my father’s new car.
15 “Let me take it out for a drive,” I said.
16 My father agreed, but not without his usual warning, “Be careful.”
17 I glared at him. “Sam, I’m sick of being treated like a child. I’m in college now. Don’t you think I know how to drive?”
18 I could see the hurt in my father’s face, and I remembered how much he hated it whenever I called him “Sam.”
19 “All right then,” he replied.
20 I hopped into the car and headed down the road, savoring the beauty of the Vermont countryside. My mind was wandering. At a busy intersection, I hit the car right in front of mine beforeI knew it.
21 The woman in the car jumped out screaming: “You idiot! Why didn’t you look where you were going?”
22 I surveyed the damage. Both cars had sustained serious dents.
23 I sat there like a guilty child as the woman continued complaining. “It’s your fault,” she shouted. I couldn’t protest. My knees began to shake. I choked back my tears.
24 “Do you have insurance? Can you pay for this? Who are you?” she kept asking. “Who are you?”
25 I panicked and, without thinking, shouted, “I’m Doctor Eppley’s son.”
26 I sat there stunned. I couldn’t believe what I had just said. Almost immediately, the woman’s frown became a smile of recognition. “I’m sorry,” she replied, “I didn’t realize who you were.”
27 An hour later, I drove my father’s battered new car back home. With my head down and my knees still shaking, I trudged into the house. I explained what had happened.
28 “Are you hurt?” he asked.
29 “No,” I replied.
30 “Good,” he answered. Then he turned and headed toward the door. “Harold,” he said as he was leaving, “Hold your head up.”
31 That night was New Year’s Eve, and my family attended a small party with friends to celebrate the beginning of another year. When midnight arrived, people cheered and greeted each other. Across the room I saw my father. I stepped toward him. My father and I rarely hug. But recalling the day’s events, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. And I spoke his real name for the first time in years. I said, “Thank you, Dad. Happy New Year.”
