Doc Curtis - Dentist Emeritus Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

He was long retired,
sick of groping and drilling
inside the mouths
of fellow citizens.

But golfing wouldn't do,
his old sciatica
had now revisited.
So he would spend

his mornings sleeping
until past noon,
then dress in Wranglers
and Sears fake Birkenstocks

Hawaiian shirt
each afternoon.
It was a splendid club,
'the usual', he would say

and Cedric poured
as if there were no limit,
then added just a sliver
of iced Kohlrabi.

It helped, he knew,
desensitize the gums
against the sudden cold.
He'd talk with Cedric

about the past,
and implantology,
and Dr. Weston Price
as well as caps

and crowns and splints
til Cedric's ears
would burn and ache.
And, in due time

he'd join Doc Curtis.
It was a medicine
so universally respected.
And no one could deny
its brilliant efficacy.

The day the accident,
way up Alaska way
did make the news
the two were grinning.

Doc Curtis called it crap
and added that,
in all his years
he'd seen the benefits

of sodium fluorosilicate
with his own eyes.
And that the charlatans
and commie bastards

had likely engineered
the deaths through water,
enriched to help
the children of the world.

'No one would ever die
of fluoridation,
properly applied',
he said to Cedric,

who had now reclined
atop the Heineken,
and at that moment,
that afternoon in May

Doc hatched a plan
to give some meaning
to his retirement.
And so he did.

Soon he had allies,
there was the firm INTALCO,
and then the fertiliser crowd,
as well as dentists by the dozen

and their closed society.
And so they formed
in a great hurry
a group called,

not surprisingly:
'The Families For Health
For Our Children'.
Their motto was

Life must have fluoride.
In sixteen weeks
they did amass
a pot of real gold.

Threehundredthousand
to use, and well they did.
Since money talks,
it would, most likely

be a piece of cake.
Election came
for all the people.
There was no money

for defense but
there was something better.
The people called it
common sense.

When all the votes
of all the folks
were counted
it was found

that Curtis had,
to put it mildly,
now lost the plot.
By FOUR percent.
The people had prevailed.

Today, each afternoon,
Doc Curtis, in fake Birkenstocks
and checkered shirt
and well-worn Wranglers

still sits with Cedric
at the Bar and drinks.
No sliver of Kohlrabi, though.
Instead he adds a dash

of fluorosilicate
to please his own.