IX. Les Mémoires (Hey, I was a French teacher).

In 1953. The top Song on the Dutch hit parade: High Noon.
And later, I think in 1957: Johnny Cash. Ring of Fire.
And when I was a young boy in the late 1940s, early 1950s, I watched every movie by Roy Rogers that came to the theater in Hoogezand.
That’s where our nearest movie theater was.

Waterhuizen was nothing and there was virtually nothing going on. It would bore a hibernating bear to death. If you really needed something big, you had to either go
to Groningen, the big city, about 4.5 miles away, or to Hoogzand, which was about 6 miles the other way. Kids that went on after Elementary Education (and that were very few)
could go to Groningen if they wanted to learn a trade, or if they wanted to go to High School, they’d go to Hoogezand. I went to Hoogezand; but that’s not the topic here.
Well, Hoogezand is sort of the topic. After all, it’s there where I used to see all those Roy Rogers movies, went to High School, went to buy my sheet music and went for
dentist and doctor’s appointments.
The dentist lived in a very nice building in which he also had his waiting room, treatment room and his residence. Why I had to go to this dentist and not to one in
Groningen is beyond me. This man was about in his 50s and I went to him twice a year. He had the skills of an inquisitioner. Novocaine or anything to lessen the pain
was not part of his treatment. Serious! I am not kidding. The drill he had was one of the old, slow “dry” ones. No water-cooled drills; and he’d keep drilling, no matter
how painful. Of course, for pulling teeth he would administer the stuff. And pulling teeth is what he was good at. One day my dad went to him and came back without
any teeth at all. He decided that instead of treating the teeth, he’d pull them. In those days one had to wait six weeks for dentures to be ready. Thus, dad went home on
his bicycle without any teeth and mumbled his words for about a month and a half after that. Things like this weren’t abnormal. One day, one of my “baby teeth” had gotten infected.
He decided to pull that without any novocaine. I still remember that great joy. Then at another time, he had to drill a cavity, without an anesthetic and hit the nerve.
Things like that would make anyone avoid the dentist. Most kids in Waterhuizen did avoid this executioner for a very good reason.
This “fine” dentistman was barely a notch above those of his ilk in Elizabethan England, where the barber-surgeon ruled the medical field. Dentistry in those days was
something that was well advertised and, often, done in public. In the 16th Century people held this sort of entertainment in high regards, as long as they, themselves, were
not the patient/victim of course. During Shakespeare’s time sugary cakes and marzipan sweetmeats, meat pies topped with a mass of sugar and rosewater and other
sugar-laden foods sent decay rates skyrocketing, according to James Wybrandt in his book “the Excruciating History of Dentistry.” The Boring Bard (William S.) often
mentioned dental pains and stinking breath; dental organs are mentioned in thirty-five of his thirty-seven plays.
For advertising purposes these fine barber-surgeons would leave buckets of blood around, a practice which was finally outlawed, but they found other ways of advertising
their trade as can be read in a poem of the early 1700s by John Gays:

His pole with pewter basons hung
Black rotten teeth in order strung
Rang’d cups, that in the window stood,
Lin’d with red rags to look like blood,
Did well his threefold trade explain,
Who shav’d, drew teeth, and breath’d a vein.

The fine folks of the English Elizabethan era could not have feared more or liked less their barber-surgeons as we did our dentist Dr. Siebenga.
The treatment was pretty much the same.
Then, a few blocks away from the dentist was our doctor. Doctor de Vries. He was a tall man, about 6’4 and the gentlest person I have ever met.
Since I suffered of severe asthma in my younger years, he had to be called to our house quite often; these doctors made (and they still do) house calls
without ever making any complaints to the patients. House calls were made in the morning; in the afternoon they’d see patients at the office. These doctors
did not perform surgery or visit their patients in the hospital. Patients who required surgery or needed special treatment or hospitalization were referred to a
specialist or a surgeon in the town of Groningen.
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These general practitioners were extremely busy, dedicated and had to be on call day and night. I’m sure that they had their days off and made arrangements
with a colleague if they needed vacation; but I cannot recall a time that I needed help that he was not there. One night I had terrible stomach pains, and he
came in the middle of the night. Why not go to the hospital? Well, that simply was not done unless you had been in an accident and were taken there by ambulance.

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One beautiful Sunday in the mid-thirties, as I was told, uncle Evert Schnuck, one of my grand-uncles was walking on a sun-drenched country road, but
did not look too happy. As it happened his doctor was just driving by and saw the look on uncle’s face.

“Evert what’s wrong with you. It’s such a nice day.”
“I’ve got a terrible tooth ache doctor. Took some booze for it
but it just won’t go away. And the dentist won’t be open till
tomorrow.”
(The doctor lowered the window of his car all the way and):
“Stick your head in here for a moment, Evert, and I’ll have look.”
(Uncle Evert did just that and opened his mouth wide)
“Verrötte koeze, jong. Mot d’r eevm uut”
(Rotten molar, my boy. Let’s get it out.)
(..and the tools came out of the box. The molar was pulled.)
“Here Evert, rinse your mouth with this gin and spit it out.”

Evert took the gin, swirled it in his mouth and……swallowed.
Now the sun was really shining, the road was full of happiness, and all was well with the world.

Was this abnormal practice for a doctor, who was not a dentist?
No, these were the good old days.