Doc

By: Howard Eskildsen

The lanky figure with a full head of gray hair, dressed in khaki pants and a tan shirt, walking with a slight limp that little slowed him emerges from the mists of my childhood memories from time to time. Indeed, we had walked together in the mists along the Platte River from time to time. Often, he was carrying a fly rod with various fishing flies hooked to his canvass hat. He was a family friend, a retired dentist, and though his name was Roscoe, mostly we just called him “Doc.”

He had grown up near Lexington, Nebraska, and spent decades along the Platte River hunting quail, pheasants, and ducks. I recall him once saying: “I’ve killed a lot of ducks along that river, too many ducks.” My dad had gladly proved him access to the river along our farm and to the cornfields that game birds liked to gather in the fall. However, when as a kid, I came to know him he seldom hunted anymore but still loved to fish. 

Dad had built a trout pond in the woods along the old riverbed and Doc was a favored customer. He would stop by the house on the way to the pond to visit for a bit and then head to the pond, fly rod in hand, and often I tagged along. He would tell me where to sit or stand to avoid being snagged as he cast with the fly rod, and I learned his technique. He occasionally commented about appreciating the company and particularly enjoyed the time outdoors along the waters that had coursed through much of his life. 

He told stories of old Nebraska as we walked and of his adventures along the river and had been familiar with the prior occupants of the house I lived in. They had worked on the railroad when it first passed through Lexington, then known as Plum Creek, and had later dragged the original section house on skids, pulled by a team of horses to its location at that time. I had found some bottles underneath it and showed them to him. 

Several had glass markings that read: “J. F. Kinney, Lexington Pharmacist.” When he saw them, I noticed a faraway look in his eyes as he remarked: “I remember Kinney pharmacy; that was a long time ago, a very long time ago.” I had told him that I was interested in becoming a doctor and he encouraged my dream and gave sound advice regarding schooling and establishing a practice once completed. 

I saw less of him while in high school since I went to a boarding school in Colorado, but one summer I noticed a change in his energy level and enthusiasm, and his posture seemed a bit more stooped as if carrying a heavy burden. His wife of many years had passed away, and the river for him became a refuge from the loneliness and sadness that was his now-empty home. Though they had no children, they had been very close, and he remarked once that he had never expected to outlive her. He had friends in town that would stop by to “try and cheer up old Doc,” as he put it, but he needed to get away from them from time to time as well. He did enjoy, however, the company of the kid that he was watching grow up, sometimes conversing, but mostly taking in the peace and quiet along the river. 

When he found out that I was headed to college and needed a car, he insisted that I get his late wife’s car, a Rambler, which only had 12,000 miles on it and was mechanically sound. He signed it over on a promise and we paid $100 for the car. He continued to follow my progress as a premed student, and when he learned I had been accepted to med school, he told my dad that he was going to make sure that I had the money to go. He had no children, so he made plans to have me included in his will and was said to have made an appointment with his attorney to amend it. 

He never arrived at that appointment. A few days before he had been found lifeless in his home, presumably from a heart attack, and was laid to rest beside his beloved wife. We mourned the loss of a friend but had to accept that for him it was a life completed, and that again he was at peace. And frankly, I was also grateful for the timing. I had always thought of him as a friend and mentor, but never a benefactor, and I am thankful that it has thus remained. 

My young bride and I drove the Rambler to California where I completed medical school. It also carried us to Illinois where I completed a Family Practice residency. It wasn’t easy and was a financial challenge, but the two of us worked together and found a way by joining the Army under the Uniformed Services Health Professions Scholarship Program. That funded the last three years of my medical education, and in return I served six years reserves while in medical school and residency, and then three years active duty at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I was free of school debt by the time I completed my time in the service. 

Later in my career I went to work for the VA, serving seven years caring for our military vets. I was able to “buy back” the three years in the Army as credit towards my retirement time. With 10 years total service, my wife is eligible for half that retirement money when my time comes. 

Now I am retired, and the time in service not only helped with professional training but is also adds to my retirement income. I still think of Doc from time to time, especially when I spend time with my grandson, and marvel at the similarities of our relationships.