Teeth

I munched on a granny smith apple this morning as I began walking. It's been a pink lady most mornings lately. Gee, they've been good. Crisp and juicy sweet. On my way home last night, knowing we were low, I looked for apples in Sal's mini mart at Emerald. The pink ladies were old, soft and crinkly, the royal galas the same. The granny smiths were all that looked half fresh, so I bought a couple for a change, although the boys prefer red apples. I wasn't sorry, it was a good apple.

Of course you need teeth to chew into an apple. My father Lyle couldn't, not without peeling it and cutting into small pieces. He lost his teeth when he was quite young and had falsies as long as I recall. When we were kids, he'd peel and cut up an apple with a pocket knife in the car while waiting at a red light, and say how he really missed being able to bite straight into an apple.

Dad's parents had no teeth either. It wasn't uncommon. Mum says there was a real craze on sugar which she thinks started as the sugar cane industry expanded into a major agricultural industry in Australia. Sugar was an affordable luxury. Mum's parents also had false teeth. Her older brother, born in the early 1920's, lost his teeth, but she, born in 1928, managed to keep hers.

But dad had a sweet tooth, no doubt about it. It was almost a craving. He'd eat a whole block of chocolate in 15 minutes when we went to the footy. 'Cherry Ripes', 'Violet Crumbles', boiled lollies, he'd put us kids to shame. Mum says he'd take her to the pictures when they were courting and buy a box of chocolates which he'd eat that quickly she'd be lucky to have two.

Apparently dentists were once quick off the mark to remove your teeth, right up to the 1960's. Dentures were considered more convenient than toothache and rudimentary dental tecniques. As a matter of course many WW2 servicemen on discharge, at their final medical, as a parting gift from the armed services, had their teeth removed to save them paying for it later.

Fortunately in my time the emphasis has been on saving teeth, limiting the intake of sugar, and dental hygeine generally. I thank mum for being such a nag about us cleaning our teeth when we were young. When I was discharged from the army in 1973, the examining dentist asked where I grew up; my teeth were that good he said, I must have lived where the water supply was flouridated, which wasn't the case.

Well before then, dentists had stopped pulling teeth so readily and started drilling and filling. I went to a dentist in Wangaratta in the second half of the seventies for a check up. I hadn't had toothache or any problem, but he booked me in for a few return appointments, and I ended up with my molars full of big silvery grey fillings. A few years later, when I met and married Lib, mother-in-law Molly told me that that dentist had retired, and was known for doing unneccesary work. I must have copped him in his last year. I wish I'd talked to Molly before choosing a dentist.

Twenty five to thirty years later those fillings fell out or loosened and bits of thin drilled away teeth broke off regularly. I'm told dentists drill away less tooth nowadays and the amalgum is better. Sometimes small caries can come to nothing if left. Just the same, me and my bank account dread the trip to the dentist. I learned that the Ferrari parked near the clinic was owned by my dentist, so I tried another. Only once. I'll go gack to the Ferrari man next time I suppose, and I'll keep up the private health insurance, which covers some of the dentist's charges to us. The trouble is the premium keeps going up.

I met a volunteer dentist, a Canadian, walking on an extinct volcano that we'd climbed on Amantani Island in Lake Titicaca in Peru to watch the sunset over the lake. She said sugar, soft drinks and lollies had been introduced to the diet of the Indian population in recent times and many young people were losing all their teeth early. She said many of the old ones had excellent teeth, not having had sugar, but in many cases gum diease caused them to lose teeth anyway. She spent her annual holidays each year in Sth. America, working for no pay to help improve the lot of indigenous people, who without such volunteers had no access to dental service. A wonderful lady!

Teeth, a blessing, or a curse? Keep 'em clean, I suppose, and stay off sugar. I'll enjoy munching on an apple each morning as long as I can.