Here is the next Chapter of my Memoir/Novel, Lost and Found.
Be well — be in peace,
Ron Rink
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The dental exam was the most traumatic for me. In fact, it became the source of my current dental problems. My Navy boot camp dental exam was the first time I had ever sat in a dentist’s chair. Being away from my parents’ home as much as I was made periodic trips to the dentist something which had never occurred. I doubt that my parents could have afforded it anyway.
On the day of the dental exam, a few of us were led into a room where five or six dentists were each standing next to chairs which resembled the sort of chair a barber would use. I sat down in one of the chairs. The dentist reclined the chair and said, “Open wide, sailor!”
I opened my mouth and he began to probe around with a metal pick. He was poking around in one of my back teeth on my lower jaw when he hit something which sent a jolt of pain through my mouth and made me jump and jerk away from his hand. “Well, looks like I’m going to have to do a filling on this guy,” said the dentist. “It’s a small cavity so it shouldn’t take long.”
The next several minutes were spent in pure agony. He didn’t do anything to numb my mouth as he drilled, scraped, pushed and pulled inside my mouth. The pain was immense. Even though my complete memory of this experience is blocked out of my mind, I do recall that I did cry out a couple of times during the procedure.
That experience kept me from seeing another dentist until many years later. It wasn’t until after my teeth were in obvious bad shape that one of my customers in the bank where I worked stepped into my life on a personal level. Since I was processing his banking needs I was aware he was a dentist.
One day while I was waiting on him, he said, “Roland, are you seeing a dentist for your teeth?”
I shook my head and he went on, “You do need to have your teeth looked at, you know. How long has it been?”
“Not since I was seventeen years old,” I answered.
“Where was that done?” he asked.
“In the Navy.”
We talked more about my fear of dentists and he explained that he was a teacher at the dental school connected to the University of Detroit and would be happy to set up a time for him to have a better look at my teeth. He was even willing to do it on a weekend so I wouldn’t have to miss work. His name was Doctor Simmonds and he was one of the nicest people I waited on at the bank. He was always polite, courteous, quiet speaking, and gentle whenever I would see him. I knew from seeing all my initials in his deposit book that I was the only teller in the bank he ever saw. I had also waited on his wife a few times.
Despite the fact Doctor Simmonds evoked no sense of fear in me, it still took him several attempts to convince me to come and see him before I finally gave in and made an appointment. However, even though he performed extraordinary and extensive work on my mouth over a period of several months, and charged me very little for the work, the lack of care over that earlier time period left me with dental problems lasting until the time I am writing this book.
Most of the remaining time in boot camp was devoted to teaching us the chain of command, who to salute – when to salute – and how to salute. We learned more about the necessity of standing watches, how to identify the various types of Navy ships, how to handle different hand-held weapons, and lots of sit-ups and push-ups. As you can probably guess there were hours and hours of marching in formation.
I did enjoy the marching and eventually got on one of the drill teams.
Learning how to roll our uniforms and pack a foot locker was all part of gearing up for “hell week” when we were inspected to death and had more tests than one would ever think necessary. Both the tests and the inspections were brutal.
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