This is a photo of my dentist.   I asked him if it was okay to write a blog post about him, and he said yes.  He has been my dentist for 30 years, we got started going to him because his daughter worked with my husband.  Over the years I have gotten to know him, his pets, the wildlife around his house (he lives over across the valley on the side of the mountain) and his whole family.

He’s a working-class guy from Pueblo, Colorado.  His father was an Italian immigrant who came to Pueblo to work in the steel mill, back when there was a steel mill.   His father was long gone, but his mother lived to be 100.   My dentist is well past the age when most people retire  (his son the dentist just retired), but he likes his work, and he is really, really good.  When he hit retirement age he got interested in forensic dentistry and learning about new things has kept him going.  He often has stories about cases that he is working on for the coroner, he has done dental identification of corpses, and bite mark analysis in criminal cases.

When I saw him last week I thought to ask him why he became a dentist.   He was studying to be a doctor and working nights at a hospital while he went to school.  He found it too difficult to deal with death, so he switched over to dentistry and as I said he is very good.   The entire time he is working on you he is blathering and telling bad jokes, he must know thousands of them.   Before you know it he’s finished and everything in your mouth is working again.

Unfortunately, he was in a very serious auto accident this week.  He broke his hip, and broke the orbit around one eye.  He’s had one surgery and more are to come.  So now everything will change for him.  I am praying that he recovers, but it will no doubt be a long process.  He’s a good man and I like him and his family a lot.