.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

In 1953 my parents bought a house in one town’s first neighborhoods of tract housing. Like their peers doing the same thing, discovering the suburbs and escaping big cities, these children of the Great Depression were facing a whole new life, not just for themselves but society in general and many things that the economy barred in their youth were now available to them and things familiar in the city had to be adapted to this new suburban living.

Things were no longer conveniently right down the block but had to be traveled too once found. As Vets of WWII, many post war families had insurance for the first time and were learning how to use it. They were also being inundated with Public Service Announcements on the new fangled TV on the best and healthiest ways to raise children although much of this was to promote products on the new outlet, commercial televisions whose purpose was less to entertain than inducing spending of the good post-war wages.

Tract housing was a new concept and not always welcome by the people living in the town for generations, permitting them on the inconvenient outskirts of the towns who allowed for it in many places. 

Conveniently and wisely a young graduate of dental school opened an office within walking distance of my neighborhood. Proximity to the expatriates from the big city was a gold mine for him as the only other dentists were across town or showed up at school and did basic dentistry there. The problem with this convenience was that there was no comparison with which to judge this dentist’s competency and with parents not well versed in dentistry, just as with the doctor, in this case, deferred to the expert.

Like any kid facing a new experience that no one could tell them anything negative about, I went to my first appointment looking forward to it.  None of us kids, or parents for that matter, had fillings. They, like gold teeth, were seen as necessary only when the tooth had decayed to a point where it still could be saved, and even then a privilege of the moneyed. This dentist, however, treated fillings like necessities.

He had a fetish for this instrument shaped like a fish hook with which he would go at your teeth with a vengeance, scraping away until he could finally declare a filling was needed. In the future after all my teeth had fillings, he would use that hook until he could declare a loose filling required replacing. This was the same experience that my friends had.

I had gotten all my required shots before entering the first grade so I was familiar with being poked with needles which got easier to deal with with each shot. However, when he decided I needed my first  filling, that would require the drill whose sound I was about to be exposed to with the resulting abhorrence of that sound being with me the rest of my life.

The dentist explained what he was about to do in the most soothing of tones asking finally if I had ever been stung by a bee because that is what the needle of novocaine was like. A bee stings once, and a nurse only hit me with one needle at a time over extended visits. The dentist turned from his equipment counter with a huge needle aimed toward me and unlike a bee but kept poking my gums as I heard the needle against bone with the sound passing through my bones magnifying the sound internally. 

That is not how a bee stings.

The drill revealed the need to go deeper but, apparently, a little more novocaine beyond just the feeling of a huge lip was assumed unnecessary when it really was. He just bore down.

Each subsequent visit involved the giant fishhook picking, the huge and insistent bee sting, and a lot of drilling. He might have been more gentle with our parents as they paid the bills and their upbeat experience in the dental chair certainly weakened any complaints about the dentist their children might have as the mild picking they got was nothing more than gently scraping while with us he was a prospector.

Many years later I did find a dentist who was good and gentle and did things differently which may have removed some of my distaste for dentistry, but not enough to have me let my guard down. This new dentist was curious about the space below the filing but above the actual tooth leaving a hollow area. He had to agree with me that perhaps the original dentist not only made sure he could replace a filling at will and had them all lined up for our visits to his office, but he was preparing the back molars for future root canal work.

Sadly, life moved on and I lost him as a dentist when I moved out of state.

The last time I was at a dentist was in Southern California where, after explaining to the dentist and hygienist that I just do not do well with dental visits, when I arrived for my first appointment where forms got filled out and insurance papers were exchanged, the secretary handed me a pill cup in prep for the upcoming work. After the darvon, percocet, and valium kicked in I was escorted to the chair where I was given Novocaine and, for the first time in my life, gas. When all was finished oxygen replaced the gas, and after a waiting period, I was released to walk home.

The next visit went pretty much the same way except, due to some distraction it was assumed the oxygen had replaced the gas and the mask was removed and I was sent home.

It took a while for the gas and all to wear off and I found that the beautiful walk along the beach had taken me 10 miles in the opposite direction from my home.

That was the last time I went to the dentist and to give a time frame, if Jesus had been born on the day of that last appointment, he would have one more good spring in His future, but the one after that would not turn out as well.

I adapted to anything happening with my teeth as needed but when the final important tooth betrayed me, I might prefer to be sheltered from any dental work, but I still need teeth.

I  gagged through the impressions, had the pink fleshy looking parts impressed into wax molds to become the gum line, and chose the color of my teeth, choosing a subdued shade that looked like naturally aged teeth, as opposed the big white ones that has everyone looking while straining to remain polite.

When I ask if someone notices anything about my new look, I would rather have them mention the teeth and not ask me turn down the halogen headlights in my mouth because they can’t see anything. 

It may have taken decades and a bit of pride, but I have finally overcome my dento-phobia. I am getting dentures.

.

.

.

.

.

.

If you introduce a new idea or present something to someone that they admit they know nothing about and, so, ask you to explain, if they truly want the explanation because they want to learn, they will let you give it as, being new to them, they can really have no questions about the whole picture since they do not have it yet and have no reason to interrupt.

There are those on the other hand who have no real intention to learn anything and use any opportunity to interrupt with a question that would be answered by the completed explanation solely to have the explanation abandoned and their topic introduced, have no interest in anything anyone else might have to say, or do not want the others nearby to hear the explanation as it poses some sort of threat to them even if just perceived.

The latter are the people to avoid.

They are the chess playing pigeons.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.