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[Dear Abby, 1990]

A young man from a famous family was about to graduate from high school. In that affluent neighborhood, it was customary for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. “Bill” and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation, they found the perfect vehicle.

On the eve of his graduation, his father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible. Bill was so angry that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house.

He and his father never saw each other again.
It was the news of his father’s death that brought Bill home again.
As he sat one night going through his father’s possessions that he was to inherit, he came across the Bible his father had given him.
He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier’s cheque dated his graduation day — in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.

Abby liked that story so much that she has included it in numerous columns since.

The impulse of youth and the wrong decision made him lose the most precious affection between father and son. In the last thirty years, the strangest thing is that he never thought his thoughts might be wrong. Disappointed anger caused him to believe in a fatal conclusion that his father, who had loved him for eighteen years, would become a terrible stranger overnight!

Many people experience disappointment and tend to lose their cool and control. Suppose Bill had had the peace and calm to open the Bible. It may not have caused him so much regret.

Bill wasn’t the only one caught in the trap of impulse. How often have we all made mistakes we can’t make up for, driven by the heat of the moment, without considering the long-term consequences?

Note:
Dear Abby is an American advice column founded in 1956 by Pauline Phillips, who wrote under the pen name Abigail Van Buren. The column is published in several newspapers. Pauline Phillips became a sharp-tongued adviser trusted by tens of millions through writing columns.

失誤的行程
[亲爱的艾比，1990]

一个来自名门望族的年轻人即将高中毕业。在那个富裕的社区，父母给毕业生一辆汽车是惯例。“比尔”和他的父亲花了几个月的时间看汽車，畢業前的一周，他們找到了理想的汽車。

毕业前夕，父亲递给他一本用礼物包装的《圣经》。比尔非常生气，他把圣经扔在地上，冲出了房子。

他和父亲再也没有见过面。

是他父亲的死讯把比尔带回了家。

有一天晚上，比尔坐在那里，察看将要繼承他父亲留下給他的产业，偶然看见他父亲给他的畢業礼物《圣经》。

他拂去灰尘，打开信封，发现是一张银行支票，上面的日期是他毕业的日子——那是他们一起选的那辆车的确切金额。

艾比非常喜欢这个故事，她把它写进了许多专栏。

青春的冲动和错误的决定使他失去了一生中最珍贵的父子感情。在漫长的三十年里，最奇怪的事情是他从来没有想到他的想法可能是错的。失望的愤怒衝擊下，使他相信一个致命的结论:他爱了他18年的父亲将在一夜之间变成一个可怕的陌生人!

许多人面临着失望的时刻，他们往往会失去冷静和控制。 假设比尔在和平和平静的情况下可以打开圣经。 也许不会造成他的遗憾。

比尔不是唯一陷在這種陷阱中的人，我們每一個人的一生，有多少次，為了衝動，而鑄成了一生無法彌補的大錯？

註:
葆琳·菲利普斯(Pauline Phillips)是一位加利福尼亚的家庭主妇，當她三十多歲時，她开始尝试一种比打麻将更有意义的生活，于是变身成为在多家报纸拥有专栏的作家“亲爱的艾比”。通过写专栏，她成为数千万人信任的、言辞犀利的顾问。

文章來自網路