Painless Extraction

I was back at the dentist with Grandma today. She was nervous but very brave. This is one of the great things about being retired; I am available for all of her appointments, which means that James and Forrest don’t have to take time off work. When I was going to medical appointments with my own Mum it was much more difficult to arrange them because they had to be outside school hours or during the holidays. The dentist and dental nurses were again very kind and gentle with Grandma and she was very relieved when it was over. As we left she said “That was the only completely painless extraction I have ever had.” which reminded me of Bob Hope in the 1948 film “The Paleface” where he played a travelling dentist known as Painless Potter. My two favourite parts of the film were the song Buttons and Bows, and also the bit where Painless Potter is tied to two bent down trees by angry Native Americans in order to rip him apart, but instead he is catapulted through the air to freedom. I haven’t seen it for decades and I bet that I would now be very aware of its political incorrectness, but in the 1970s that didn’t even occur to me and I remember enjoying watching it with my Dad.