One of the disadvantages of bring a baby boomer and having had an unusual life, is that bits and pieces start wearing out. Tuesday saw me in the dentist’s chair for the second session of tooth extractions, the cumulative effect of two consecutive weeks of complicated and lengthy extractions has somewhat reduced my concentration and time spent on writing.
The reason for the extractions is the result of tooth decay being accelerated by the side effects of the medication I have been taking since my heart attack and my unwillingness to spend the equivalent of a new small car on getting my teeth fixed. Especially as with the state of my teeth, any repairs are unlikely to be permanent. Being a new Canadian and self-employed, I do not have the umbrella of dental insurance coverage. I wrote more about the relationship between medication and tooth decay on my other blog.
I decided to take the far cheaper route and do what millions of Europeans do, have most of my teeth removed and get dentures. I still have another 8 to be removed, probably in the next week or so. Fortunately I can keep 10 bottom teeth. My late father lived 25 years with full dentures and did not complain.
Be warned, if you take prescription medicines to prevent a heart attack, ask your doctor if there are known side effects which aggravate tooth decay. There are often alternatives that are kinder to teeth.
Instead of writing, I have been doing more reading and have found some fascinating new blogs to follow. One of the wonders of the Internet and the blogosphere is the ease with which we can find interesting articles to read that we would never have stumbled across even after weeks of research in a physical reference library.
Other baby boomers will probably recall hours spent at brick and mortar libraries wading through huge reference books trying to find material for school projects. In British influenced societies like Rhodesia where I grew up, parents of school age children were easy targets for Encyclopaedia Britannica sales people. You would remember the publishers of the equivalents in your own countries.
Easy to play on the emotions by warning parents that their children would fail exams without a set of those 12 maroon coloured volumes prominently displayed in the house. There was if I remember correctly, a custom wooden bookcase that was available at only a little extra if purchased at the same time, and a huge Atlas. The art of the up sell was around long before the internet.
That was before the days of credit cards, but there was an easy payment method. My parents said no every time, as I did years later when a new generation of encyclopaedia sales people came around. When I was the parent, it seemed that the sales people had got younger, were predominantly attractive young women and were even more aggressive. Probably because TV documentaries and a wider range of scientific magazines were signalling the end of the encyclopaedia-as-the-sole-reference era.
At the end of the school year, there did not seem to be any direct correlation between exam results and encyclopaedia ownership, which is more evidence that we buy on emotion and then justify our actions with logic.
One of the most interesting blogs I have found this week is Blognostra by Dr. Joseph Riggio. His post “How modern business methods developed” is a must read, at first it seemed far too radical for a conservative boomer like me. It is radical but in a very thought-provoking and fascinating way, I have to agree with most of what he reports. There is even more value in his replies to the many comments his writing generates. Go ahead and visit his blog, it is one of the most interesting I have found in a long time.
I have no commercial relationship with Dr. Riggio, I just find his incisive writing refreshing.
Wishing you success in all your endeavours.
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