Mount Frissell
Connecticut
May 2014
Isn’t this the way it always happens! Well, no. But it did this time.
This Highpointing trip includes the summits of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Most of the time we are hiking on rock. Rock and rocks. Not just picking our way through a rocky footpath, but climbing, hand over hand up steep rock faces, depending on hand holds and balance to get from down there to up here. Dangerous stuff. A fall would probably not kill us, but damage would inevitably occur. Careful, careful, making sure at least two points, a hand and a foot, are secure before taking the next step. Slow, sometimes painstaking climbing, but what’s the rush? We couldn’t be having a better time.
We chose three separate Connecticut destinations for hikes, including the high point. All are semi-treacherous pathways to our goal. One of our hikes involves getting up a steep slope through overgrown woods. The footpath itself is narrow but it is well blazed. No one has been through here in quite a while to clear the trail. Thick eight foot high mountain laurel branches as well as prominent roots intrude on our progress. We have to push through much of the brush occasionally having branches snap back at whichever one of us is behind. We get through with only minor abrasions and lacerations, hardly worth mentioning.
The damage comes later, as we sit comfortably in our hotel room after completion of all our expeditions, enjoying our Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. To wit: a crown pops off my tooth, prompting me to utter, “What the…!”
On the telephone, the folks in the dentist office ask, “It just popped off?”
I think of saying, don’t ask me why, “Well, not exactly. I was attacked by a flamboyance of tooth-seeking flamingoes.” What I do say is, “Well, it didn’t exactly pop off. It’s not like it went shooting across the room, skittering across the floor. It just kind of crunched and manifested itself on my tongue.”
If you have never had a crown installed on a tooth, here’s the way it works. Your dentist, hopefully a trained professional, drills your tooth down to a nub and then fits a metal and porcelain piece, shaped and dyed to look like your former tooth, over your nub and cements it in place. If I’m not mistaken, cement is the substance they use for roads and basements. Tough stuff. But every once in a while, as happens with roads and basements, the cement dries or loosens, and disarray ensues. There’s your crown, lying on the back of your tongue. For the rest of the day, you are physically and philosophically unable to stop yourself from probing with your tongue the immense gaping space where your crown once was.
Lucky me, we’re flying home today. My dentist’s office says, “Come right over as soon as you land.”
This afternoon I’m sitting comfortably in my dentist’s office in one of my favorite chairs. This is a lie. This is not one of my favorite chairs. After saying hello, Doctor Steve goes to work. He re-cements the crown to my tooth nub, Tammy the dental assistant gives me a hug, all is well. I’m ready for my next high point challenge.
Doctor Steve is the son of Doctor Ted. Doctor Ted was my dentist for years before he died. That was a sad day as we all loved Doctor Ted, the sarcastic old SOB. Here’s a little bit of why we loved him.
I have had several drillings and fillings in my teeth, dating back to when I was not much bigger than my own teeth. One visit, Doctor Ted needed to drill. He stood there poised with the thirty-four-inch hypodermic needle ready to poke me in the gums. I said, “No novocaine.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe it.
“No novocaine,” I said again.
“You know this hurts, right?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. No novocaine.”
He rolled his eyes and began to drill. He stopped for a moment, put his hand on my shoulder and said. “Are you okay?”
“Mmphhs,” I said, indicating that I was fine.
He added, “Like I care,” and kept on drilling.
Another time he convinced me that what he had to do was way too much for me to tough it out. “Don’t be an idiot,” were his exact words. I said okay. He injected me — OUCH! DAMMIT! — and while we waited for the numbing to take effect, he entertained me with stories of his dental school tenure. The best escapade had to do with the head.
Part of the dental school curriculum involves dissecting a human head and neck. Trust me, it’s better for you in the dentist chair if your practitioner knows the workings, inside and out, of your mouth and all parts connected. Not-Quite-Yet-Doctor Ted wanted to do some moonlight practice so he secretly snuck a cadaver head home with him. Unfortunately, he forgot to tell his new young wife that he stored it overnight in the kitchen freezer.
