My feet climb the stairs to my Dentist office. Cement stairs with a railing takes me through the door of a corner house to an office where I wait. I don’t remember my mother being there with me. My only memory is of chairs while I wait. I may have years of such memories. The work done now is long forgotten and my teeth are a catalogue of crowns, fillings, root canals, and extractions. encrusted with sweets, my favorite food to eat, supported by my mother and a generational worship of sugar! A German bakery was across the street from my home. I would get a nickel for my friend and me to get doughnuts. I had sugar water carried in my bottle. Well into becoming 5 years old. My mother was grieving and longing to quiet a needy child when she was 43.
The pain of rotten and decayed teeth was a remnant of gifts I’d rather not have had. I was pushed out the door to walk on my own to Dr. Ashton’s office. The frequent journey was five
blocks from home. I walked alone at the age of 6 until I left home at 19. I still see myself waiting
and it has gone on and on into my adult life.Waiting for the Dentist. Archaic dentistry has left my mouth in a crooked form with one front tooth placed in the center. Oral hygiene was only executed in some random fashion among the neighborhood families. When I reached
my senior year in high school, I was given braces based on a modest grant from a government program, because of my mothers income.
The braces were only moderately successful. Later, I worked in a dental office as a receptionist and learned about flossing and was given a crown for cosmetic beauty as the Dentist I worked for found I had an abscess tooth that died a long time before. Asking me did I have pain, no I didn’t feel any. I think it happened as I was taking a ship across the Atlantic. I know this because I kept a travel journal. I never paid for the crown when it turned gray. It was not my intention to bail out on payment but I was on to other adventures. My moral standards did not get in the way.
As I think of my mother hustling me out the door to the dentist office, her Southern farm girl gave up not paying. If I was ever taught morals, I don’t know. How did I survive. Yet I have. This facing pain at such an early age gave me a warped sense of courage with fearless training and may have ignited the passion I now have.
