Opie and Mike

Season 8, Episode 28
Original Air Date: March 18, 1968

Sam Jones has a son named Mike, and Mike has attached himself to Opie Taylor with the intensity that younger kids sometimes direct toward older ones they admire. Opie is patient with it to a point. He is a good kid who understands the responsibility that comes with being looked up to. But he is also a teenager with his own life, and Mike's constant presence begins to feel like weight.

The complicating element is a girl. Opie is spending time with someone he likes, and Mike does not understand why Opie would choose a girl's company over his. From Mike's vantage point, this is a betrayal. From Opie's vantage point, it is a normal part of growing up that a younger boy has not arrived at yet. The gap between where they each are in life makes perfect communication nearly impossible.

Opie handles it better than many teenagers would. He does not dismiss Mike or treat him unkindly. He finds a way to show Mike that the friendship is real even when Opie's time and attention have to go somewhere else.

The Lesson
Different stages of life bring different needs, and the friendships that span those stages require more deliberate care. Opie could not make Mike understand from the inside what he had not yet experienced from the outside. What he could do was be honest and kind about it, which is about as much as can be asked.

A Lesson for Today
Being a good mentor, older sibling, or role model means being willing to hold someone gently as they work through something you have already worked through yourself. It requires patience with questions you have already answered and frustration you no longer feel. The most useful thing you can offer is not the shortcut to understanding. It is the company while they find their own way there.

Final Thought from Mayberry
Mike idolized Opie, and Opie, for the most part, deserved it. That is not nothing. In a town where kids grew up watching adults try to do right by each other, the lesson tended to pass forward.