$$$$$ Is Money Everything? $$$$$

I grew up in Farmington, New Mexico. It's up in the NW corner of the state and it's about 50 miles south of Durango, Colorado. Durango is the town where I was born. Mom said she had my dad take her to Durango to deliver me because it was a lot cheaper; that the hospital only charged them $50.00 for her little, "Melvin".

Well, when I was about 14, my mom took me back to Durango to save a little more money. This time it was to get a tooth pulled. For some reason, I had been having a lot of trouble with a molar and somehow mom found a dentist up there she wanted to use to help her baby boy. So off we went. She probably got a referral from an old friend from 14 years back, at Mercy Hospital in Durango.

The dentist's office was right down town Durango and if you don't know anything about Durango, it's an older type of town with mostly wooden buildings and there are a number of tiny mining towns all around with the same general decor. It's pretty much a tourist trap nowadays because of its quaintness and its hippy flair. You know, Peace and Love and all of that kind of stuff, but it is a fun place to visit. Anyway, I remember we parked the car along Main street and walked up a steep flight of creaky old wooden stairs and went into his office. The office door even had obscure glass with his name painted on it, so it was in actuality a pretty cool place if you didn't need to get "fixed".

After I was seated in the dentist's chair I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The chair and all of the dental equipment were "vintage", I mean "old-timey", with the big tall backed leather chair and the white porcelain spit bowl where the water is constantly running under the rim and down a hole in the middle of the bowl. The device holding the doctors drill was held up by the old hinged system with springs and wires running alongside and in between. The doctor had to push some big thing on the floor to operate the drill and he wore a big light cap so he could see better. It was like being back in time in an old Western movie or something. Very strange, but never mind that, cause we were about to save a "bundle".

The doctor came in and he looked to be as old as his equipment. He looked like he was at least in his 80's or older, with his shiny bald head, except for the wild as ever snow white hair wrapped all around the sides. He looked like he could be the father to the professor, Dr. Brown, from the first BACK TO THE FUTURE movies. Now, I won't say I was getting nervous or anything at this point, but come on, wouldn't you be? At least a little?

Well, he examined me and I guess decided the only thing that could be done to help me was to pull the tooth out and be done with it. He and his assistant proceeded to get all of their equipment in order to take care of me properly, then he gave me a shot or two to deaden the pain for the, "experience to come". After 10 or so minutes had passed and I successfully passed the, "Does it still hurt?", or "Can you feel this?" tests, he moved in to get down to business.

He put his teeth pulling pliers in my mouth and grabbing on to the culprit, started working it real slowly back and forth; real easy at first. Apparently, the tooth was in there pretty tight because he couldn't get it to just come right out. The more he worked on it the more frustrated he got, with the tooth and with his assistant and probably with me, because after all, I was the one causing him all of this grief!!

I remember him being a real small man and not very strong looking either. Heck, come to think of it, I was probably stronger than he was and I was only 14. Anyway, he kept tugging and wiggling it every which way he could think of and it still wouldn't come out. I don't think it was even "trying" to come out and I could sense that he was getting extremely frustrated with the situation by this time. He looked in and got another hold on the tooth, this time a REAL GOOD hold on it and yanked really hard. I heard a big "crack and his hand flew out of my mouth and I heard him mutter, under his breath, "son of a bitch, the tooth broke". Then he kind of wiped his sweaty forehead, looked down at me for a second and said, "HOLD ON". After all of this was said and done and thinking back on the situation now, I think that's the reason they used to use leather dental chairs, because my butt was probably trying to eat a big ole hole in that chair, trying to hold on with everything I had. After he gave me my fair warning about holding on, I kid you not, the doctor basically got on top of me in a straddling position and with all of his might, yanked the rest of my tooth out of my mouth.

Well, the doctor climbed down from his completely professional position, and had the assistant clean me up, let me drink some water from the cute little 2 oz. paper cup and let me spit some of the bloody water into the cool porcelain spittoon, then she put a big wad of gauze in the hole and once I was presentable enough for my mom, walked me out to her without saying even one word of the ordeal. Personally, I was glad it was over and I didn't want to listen to anyone tell anyone about how it went or in this case, how it DIDN'T went.

We drove the 50 miles home and I don't remember much else about it. I was probably in too much pain to care and mom was probably getting her story straight to tell my dad how much money she had just saved him.

Years later, when I asked my mom about it, she claimed no memory whatsoever of the visit. In fact, to this day, she still denies everything concerning this incident.

"Gee Mel, tell us again why you don't like going to the dentist"?