I WANT TO BE A DENTIST

The secret of joy in work is contained
in one word -- excellence. To know how
to do something well is to enjoy it.

-- Pearl S. Buck


The night I told my dad that I wanted to be a dentist, he shook his head. "Oh shit! You'll grow up to be a Republican."

The smell of the stockyards permeated the close summer night. My father was sitting in his over-stuffed green chair in the TV room, dentures lying bare on the desk, sucking the knuckle of a pickled pig's foot. No person with hearing could stand that sound, but it was time to pound out my career plans.

"You'll be a painter!” Dad barked.

I had not considered for a second that I would take over his paint contracting business. My oldest brother Mike and I had both painted for dad as soon as we became teenagers, but my father was not big on nepotistic privileges.

He gave us the worst jobs. On the roof of a Texas meat-packing plant, we scraped tallow, the caked grease of boiled cows, off the walls in 100-degree heat. We painted flag poles on top of multi-storied buildings, spent a summer puttying the nail holes on the wood trim of 136 condo units, sandblasted the inside metal tanks of air hoods in sauna heat.

I held out my arms representing his whole world. "I don't want to take over your business."

"You little shit, you don’t know what you want!”

“I know I can be better dentist than Doctor P.” He was our family friend. “And you wanted to become a Vet yourself!"

I was playing dirty now because the Great Depression had denied Dad his personal goal of becoming a large-animal veterinarian. At first, I myself wanted to be a vet, but after few months in an animal doctor’s office, I discovered it was not my cup of tea. Being an independent cuss, I decided that dentistry would give me more freedom than medicine.

“I just want the opportunity to do my best."

Dad set the bare knuckle in a bowl next to his useless dentures and began motioning with his hands as if he were washing them clean.

"Go, go and be a goddamn dentist! Become a shit-for-brains Republican! … I will help you any way I can."
Now, after nearly three decades of dentistry, I’ve decided that my father voted for his yesterdays, and whatever the party, I vote for my tomorrows.

-- Patrick J. Foy, DDS