Chosen Professions . . .

. . . With Names To Match

Many years ago a young Geezerguy went to a dentist and forevermore shunned such a visit after relaxing (?) in the chair proffered by Dr. Yell.

Yarntangler this week related her husband's encounter with a Tucson tooth tender, a visit that tonight still has him a bit sore in the mouth following extraction of a chewer with entangled roots.

Yarnangler didn't mention the dentist's name but I'll wager (shouldn't because I'm not a gambler) that Geezerguy has an under-the-breath name for this latest barbarian.

The name of Geezerguy's early-on dentist brought to mind tonight the topic for the blog - names of professionals matching their fields of work but which for some reason just don't sound SWEET. There - I got the theme word in OK tonight.

Dredging my memory as best I can, I go back to early childhood and recall Mother taking me to a few dentists. One was, before she knew him and switched to Dr. Flynn, a Dr.Pullim. Could it be that this man's name even scared Mother?

I recall one of my boyhood friends, Steve, telling me of laughing a lot about his visits to an eye doctor. I didn't know the doctor and really can't verify that his name actually was Dr. Blinder.

There came a time in 1938 when I suffered a series of pains in my side, treated each time by my friend Dr. Edward J. Galligan, until he got worried enough to send me to Fall River to have my appendix removed by his friend Dr. Blood.

During World War II I had a few problems with teeth and a Pennsylvanian by name of Dr. Mussari filled a several cavities. One day he found a problem he felt needed to be treated by another doctor.

It seems two teeth had in some manner become twins, adhering to each other and needed separating. From another army hospital he imported Dr. Hammer whom I think might have been assisted by a Dr. Chisel the way things felt.

I think this incident could be one reason that I eventually had to go into Davis Park Veterans Hospital in Providence, endure some 16 or so days of swallowing up to a half dozen or more egg custards to build up some kind of strength for extraction of all my remaining teeth in preparation for a new set of choppers.

Upon discharge from the army I was needing to be . . . can I really say . . . should I say . . . cir . . . cum . . since I was about to marry my sweetheart when I got home.

Dr. Galligan read an army doctor's report, agreed and sent me to Fall River again to see a surgeon whose name was just a common name I guess since I don't know it to be strange.

But here the pattern shifts a bit from doctors with odd last names to a much-liked female high school classmate who had become a registered nurse.

This young lady, a good friend of my intended bride, showed up in my hospital room just before I was to go to the operating room.


She said she'd heard I was there and just wanted to say hello and chat for a few minutes. We talked a bit about my upcoming wedding, about the girl I would be marrying and then the orderlies began to wheel me down to the cutting room.

The nurse came along. I assumed she was walking along to keep me calm but she also entered the operating room.

When the orderlies placed me on the operating table . . . I nearly passed out without the anesthesia when my ex-classmate approached, whipped off the skimpy hospital gown exposing me to herself and the world, laughingly saying "by the way, I'm your nurse today."

I have no knowledge of what might later have been secretly discussed between my future wife and my nurse that day, - but every time thereafter when I crossed paths with that nurse, there seemed to be a smile I never got from other friends.

Back now to doctor's names. I think there are others I would have written about but I will have to read some more diary entries to recall them . Such SWEET memories.

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