The Tooth, the Whole Tooth and Nothing But the Tooth

In our family, teeth have a special meaning.

When Holly and Paul were younger, we used to ‘make teeth’ at each other. What that means is we’d smile a huge toothy grin at each other with animated chipmunk-like facial expressions to match.

Our family chuckled when we went to two different MLB games on ‘Tooth Night.’ Naturally, Paul and I ‘made teeth’ for the ladies.

Shifting gears and going back to my high school days, teeth were equally important in the discussion. My best friend Ed, and I, laughed about the odd toothy grin the class ring representative made when he was selling us all our class rings. Maybe he was laughing all the way to the bank?

In any case, Ed and I still joke about ‘toothy grins’ to this day.

It was also during my high school years that my family started going to Dr. Ackerson for our dental care. I miss “Ol’ Doc Ackerson,” who retired a few years back (Dr. Ackerson, If you are reading this…if you ever decide to come out of retirement, I promise I’d be the first patient to welcome you back to active practice!).

I was thinking about Dr. Ackerson today when I went to receive dental care at my current dentist’s office. I have no doubt that the quality of care you receive is professional and appropriate and the staff is nice enough. But, it’s a far cry from the good old days when you received personal attention and you knew the staff by name.

I miss the corny posters that hung on the ceiling above the cleaning stations at Doc Ackerson’s. My favorite featured a guy smoking and he obviously had no teeth (as evidenced by his sunken jaws). The caption on the poster read. “You don’t have to floss all your teeth – just the ones you want to keep.”

It made an impact - staring up at that toothless grin while the hygienist went to work.

You might recall, I mentioned earlier in the summer about receiving a crown. Today was the last step in that process. I’m glad to have that behind me.

I was struck by the futuristic flat screen tvs on the walls that now display digital X-Rays near the hygienist stations. When I go back for my next cleaning and associated fluoroscopy, I’m sure my teeth will be displayed on one of these high def monitors.

And quite honestly, it will look to anyone looking at the films that I’m…making teeth.

JG

Originally posted 8/16/2012