Every week I meet up with my friend Bert in the local pub. I have known him for over thirty years. He is eighty five years old but he still keeps going. Usually, he walks to the pub up the long hill that we call Ecclesall Road but sometimes one of his sons brings him along. He lives several hundred yards away.
Bert is famously upbeat and cheerful, often singing snatches of songs from long ago. Everybody likes him but earlier this month he said to me alone, "You know you have been a good friend to me. a true friend and I always look forward to seeing you". I felt chuffed to hear that.
On the face of it we are so different. He left school at the age of thirteen with no qualifications whatsoever. Whereas I spent most of my working life teaching schoolchildren, Bert was a manual worker in a range of jobs including the tanning industry, casting concrete and refurbishing railway carriages.
Bert rarely complains about aches and pains, batting them away like irritating flies in the summertime. However, throughout this year he has been grumbling about his teeth.
Back in February, he had his remaining bottom teeth removed at The Charles Clifford Dental Hospital. Perhaps he misheard but he had assumed that his new set of false teeth would also be made there. A month later the head honcho dentist told Bert he would have to get his teeth made elsewhere.
Charming! For all these past months until now he has been without his bottom set and because eating has become a significant issue for him, Bert has lost a fair bit of weight which has had a negative effect upon his health.
However, the time is getting very close when he will receive his brand new gnashers - not just a new bottom set but a new top set too. One or two small adjustments are being made and he should have the new teeth tomorrow. I expect to see the new set next Tuesday all being well. Hopefully he'll be eating fairly normally again then and smiling like a Hollywood film-star as he sings his songs with that old twinkle in his eye.
Bert sounds like a great friend to have. I admire anyone who keeps so active during their old age and just wish my Dad would have had more motivation for that while he still could.
ReplyDeleteIn 2012, I read a book about George Washington, and funnily enough, I remember a detail about his teeth: He had dentures made of wood at some stage, but they caused him great discomfort. I can't remember how (of if) the problem was solved, but he certainly was wealthy enough to afford the best and latest model available at the time.
He could have got some of his slaves to chew up his food for him.
DeleteThe book didn‘t say, but seriously I wouldn‘t be surprised if that really was the case.
DeleteBert must be a good friend to drink and chat with. We could all do with friends like him,
ReplyDeleteHe brings extra sunshine into my life Dave.
DeleteI really hope Bert's new choppers fit well and allow him to enjoy food again
ReplyDeleteNot having teeth is a very effective way of dieting as Bert has discovered this year.
DeleteGreat Germans think alike.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Washington's wooden teeth came to my mind as well.
True, Meike is more German than me though I have been reading again the first chapter of The Tin Drum (in English) or Die Blechtrommel as we show-offs say.
Gunter Grass would have turned your mate Bert into a character in Danzig
There was a time when people had their perfectly healthy teeth extracted and replaced with dentures. Horrifying but true.
Maurice Gee's novel *Meg* described this.
The novel was published in 1981 but moves from the 1930s to post-war New Zealand.
Gee is one of my favourite living writers.
I can read Gee and Grass aloud with all my teeth in situ.
Both of my parents had all their teeth removed without proper reason.. Did George Washington's teeth enter your mind via your mouth?
DeleteDinah Washington : I was humming September in the Rain.
DeleteHumming to the sound of coffee beans grinding : Dinah had a coffee voice.
If you want to hear another great singer who never took himself seriously:
*Robert Goulet-Playboy After Dark-Here's That Rainy Day & Real Live Girl 1970.*
YouTube. Scott Rogers.
It's touching to see Goulet near the end of his life :
*Robert Goulet & Paige O'Hara You Don't Bring Me Flowers/ I Won't Send Roses.* YouTube.
My Uncle Jack (born 1929) was a handsome self-taught bel canto tenor who could sing Puccini's arias in Italian.
Jack was a snob about the popular singers of his day; he despised Sinatra whom he called a gangster; laughed at my hero Tony Bennett; but thought highly of Mario Lanza, John Raitt, Gordon MacRae and Bob Goulet.
Goulet reprised MacRae's role in a TV version of Carousel:
*Robert Goulet If I Loved You in Carousel.* YouTube.
Goulet sent himself up in a cameo role in Louis Malle's Atlantic City 1980.
Like all movie stars (with the exception of Sam Shepard who refused to see a cosmetic dentist) Goulet had pearly white teeth.
I do hope Bert's teeth are comfortable and he can eat, and sing, with them in.
ReplyDeleteThere was a family tale about my grandmother having a new set of false teeth and the agony she went through trying to "bed" them in. Eventually she ended up wearing one half of the new set and one half of the old ones!
Do you have false teeth yourself Carol?
DeleteGood luck to Bert. I hope they fit well.
ReplyDeleteYes. So do I. They will take a little while to settle in I think.
DeleteWe rarely think about how important dental health is to our overall health. I hope that Bert's new teeth are better than the originals and add years to his life.
ReplyDeleteI hope Bert has an easy transition into his new teeth and he's back to eating hearty meals soon. Please update us.
ReplyDeleteHope Bert has good luck with his new teeth and it helps improve his health.
ReplyDeleteTeeth are such an important part of our health but also so often get overlooked. Dentures are a good substitute but they don't do as good a job as our natural teeth. It takes longer to chew food with dentures.
ReplyDeletePoor man, hopefully his new teeth will allow him to eat again and put the weight back on.
I've got a friend (he's maybe only 50 though) who has no teeth anymore after getting the last ones pulled and can't afford a set of dentures. I feel sorry for him and keep hoping he will get some though charity. But what complicates the matter is that he is Hispanic and here illegally.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in the care home it was common for residents to pick up and put in their own mouths, other people's dentures! There was one sweet old lady who had awful dementia who used to walk round with a handbag over her arm and if anyone said they'd lost their dentures, it was the first place we looked. They were nearly always there!
ReplyDeleteHope Bert gets a good set and that he keeps them safe!
It's a very common myth, but Washington never had wooden dentures. Washington’s many false teeth were made out of combinations of rare hippopotamus ivory, human teeth and metal fasteners. I can't imagine dealing with the lack of bottom teeth--poor Bert. I'm sure he'll be delighted to be able to eat normally!
ReplyDeleteI ve had several drunken walks up and down Ecclesall road in my time
ReplyDeleteImplants are the way to go. I've had two!
ReplyDeletetest
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that things are looking up for Bert. Sad that the elderly don't understand the proceedings sometimes and they suffer from it.
ReplyDeleteTeeth harvested from the dead?? I'm glad that doesn't happen now. I'm in need of a lower denture myself, having only one molar left on each side, with the front teeth still intact. I've been putting it off, but it's got to the point where I don't like to eat (awkwardly) in public, so it will happen soon.
ReplyDeleteThank God for modern dentistry!
ReplyDelete