One of the best favors parents can do for their children is to take them to the dentist very early in life. This prevents so many problems in the adult years.

We are told that teeth are meant to last for a lifetime. That doesn’t mean that periodic maintenance is not necessary. Just like houses, teeth have to occasionally be cleaned and taken care of to prolong usage.

My father was born in 1914. Like many of the people he was raised with in rural East Tennessee, Dad did not go to the dentist. Dentists were hard to find, and I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of money to spend on them, anyway. All of Dad’s full brothers and sisters lost their teeth before they were sixty years old.

The time came when Dad had to have his teeth pulled. He tried to go the denture route, but Dad wasn’t a patient man, and he never managed to learn to wear them.

When I was eight years old, the Union County Health Department convinced my parents that I needed to start seeing a dentist. The first two times I visited this now late dentist, he filled cavities, and the experience was not bad at all. In fact, he did such a good job that I possibly might have some of those fillings still in my mouth. At least I know I did 26 years later. My third visit was entirely different. At that appointment, the dentist was to pull one of my “baby” jaw teeth on the lower left side. He said it was taking too long to come out on its own, and that it would detrimentally affect the permanent tooth that would come to take its place.

Problem number one, there is a question of the dentist’s sobriety. Secondly, there is a question of proper administration of anesthetic. If any was administered, it definitely was not enough.

The dentist proceeded to pull the tooth, and I know he could never have had a patient who screamed louder. I was eight years old, and I have never to this day suffered any pain from any source that could equal what that dentist caused me to endure. I recently watched an episode of a crime drama on television in which one of the characters was tortured by having his teeth drilled without anesthetic. I could sympathize. I could remember hearing the roots trying to tear from the flesh of my gum as the devious dentist worked his evil upon me, and that tooth did have powerful roots. This devil’s dentist was bound and determined to get that tooth out. He ignored my cries and continued prying that tooth until it broke at the gum line.

Unfortunately, my agony was not over. Now I had no tooth, but the roots were still embedded in my jaw. Next, this Frankenstein of a dentist took a stencil and gouged in my jaw to see if he could retrieve the roots. After what seemed a torturous eternity, the sadist said, “Well, it’ll eventually come out on its own.” On this, the dentist was correct. It was about four years later that the root of that tooth came out of my jaw thanks to a piece of chewing gum.

I was sent home with instructions to not let even water touch the extraction site. No worry, I was bleeding too much to even try to attempt to drink anything. I went home and sat in the chair in front of the television. I watched Mother’s soap operas, getting up during each commercial to go outside and spit out blood. I bled and bled. It seemed there would be no end to the bleeding, and I was convinced that I was going to literally bleed to death.

Finally, in my eight year old wisdom, I determined that if I was going to die anyway I might as well die with a rinse of cold water to get as much as possible of the metallic taste of the blood out of my mouth. Imagine my surprise when the bleeding stopped the moment the cold water hit the afflicted gum!

My dad was so traumatized by the suffering he watched me endure that he said he would never take me to a dentist again. Trust me, I never wanted to ever see another dentist, not even a kid dressed up for Halloween as a dentist. This is unfortunate, though, for many years later I was to have dental problems that might possibly have been avoided by proper long-term care from a competent dentist. I’ll share more about these with you next week.

In a closing reflection, I do not know the eternal condition of my torturer’s soul. Thanks to him, I experienced a bit of hell on earth. I will say this—if he is in hell, his eternal punishment no doubt will be for all eternity that intoxicated devils will pull his teeth without comfort of anesthesia. I’m sure that as each is extracted, another will instantly grow to take its place so that the inhumane treatment can go on and on and on . . .

It was 26 years until my next dental appointment, and I approached it with the terror of a man going to the hangman’s noose. Thankfully, this dentist was a rare exception. I have visited several other dental professionals in the ensuing years, and all of them have done their very best to ensure my comfort and freedom of pain during and after procedures.

I leave you with the following thought from my world of email:

"I have never killed a man,
but I have read many obituaries
with great pleasure."
-Clarence Darrow