"F" - That's What Friends are "Four"

No, I didn't misspell "for" in the title. I'm talking about the four enormous capsules of antibiotic that I took this morning before going to the dentist. Since having hip surgery, I have to be premedicated before dental procedures. Yes, medication can be your friend. Or Four Friends as this morning.

And the staff at the dental office have been our friends for a long time now. Nancy, the hygienist, started with Dr. Hudson 31 years ago. She was a classmate of Randy's graduating from AHS in '76, then had 3 years at IU dental hygiene school, and has taken care of our teeth ever since. We love Nancy. Dad always has a sore jaw after teeth cleaning. Nancy says he comes in, opens his mouth, goes to sleep, and doesn't close his mouth once during cleaning.
I told him his jaw wouldn't be sore if he would close his mouth a few times and rest his jaw.
I asked him how he talks to Nancy without closing his mouth. He said, "We don't talk. How
can she clean your teeth if you talk?'

Well, Nancy and I always talk. We love our conversations. We talk about her family, Randy's family, schools, the mess our schools are in, American Idol, food, teachers, etc, etc, etc. As a matter of fact I don't know how she gets my teeth cleaned, but she does.

Nancy has four children. They are all in college or beyond. When they were small, Nancy always took the summer months off to be home with the children. Dentist, Greg, would hire a temporary hygienist to fill in for the summer months. One summer I was in Greg's chair and I hear the temporary hygienist say to her patient, "What did you have for lunch? Your breath smells terrible!" Well, I was horrified. Nancy would never treat a patient that way. I couldn't believe that Greg didn't say something. When I was leaving, I hear the hygienist talking to the patient in the outer office. He was her husband!

Dentist, Greg, bought Dr. Hudson's practice when he was right out of dental school. He was a
baby-faced, unmarried, kid. I used to jokingly tell folks that my dentist was so young that he still wore elastic waist corduroy pants. But we love Greg. He is the kind of dentist who, when I called him in pain late one Friday evening asking for a prescription for a pain killer, met me at the office and fixed my tooth late that same evening. Don and Greg listened on the radio to the high school basketball game they were missing while he fixed my tooth.

Greg married that year. He is still a careful dentist who maintains your teeth without doing unnecessary procedures. I noticed today that he still has a baby face, but his kids are all in college. Today, I re-avow to keep these long-time good friends.