george washington – The View from a Drawbridge

George Washington vs. Donald Trump

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be the first president? I mean, the first, ever. In the history of the world. No pressure, right?

George Washington was quite a character. First of all, he was hellbent on making sure that no one mistook the presidency for a kingdom. He absolutely refused to wear outlandish, royal clothes. No thrones. None of this fancy stuff for him. He was not a vain man. He didn’t want to be perceived as superior to the people. He wanted to be considered a unifier.

He spent a lot of time traveling, talking to the people. That’s why so many places can claim, “Washington slept here.” I guess you could say he slept around. In that way, the presidency hasn’t changed much. But it definitely has in other ways.

For example, Washington had a staff of two, as opposed to the thousands that are on staff today. Granted, he didn’t have the population, or nearly as much need to be an international player, that the position has now. Back then, you could walk right up to the White House door and knock without being tackled. People picnicked on the White House lawn. Those days are gone.

According to Wikipedia, Washington was also the first (and last) president to ride at the head of an army to suppress an insurgency. He did so during the Whiskey Rebellion.

I can sort of understand why people were so upset. Here’s this federally imposed tax on a commodity that was often used as a trade good in lieu of currency, when they had just fought the Revolutionary War because of taxation. But governments can’t operate for free, so Washington had to nip that in the bud.

Speaking of nipping things in the bud, I’d like to put to rest two rumors about Washington that seem to persist. First of all, he never had wooden teeth. I mean, hello. Wood expands when exposed to moisture, and who wants to risk splinters in their mouth? No, his extremely uncomfortable dentures were a combination of ivory and human teeth. While they often looked brown, that doesn’t mean they were wooden.

The other myth is that Washington was foul-mouthed. Not only was he not prone to cursing, even though he often had good reason to, but he prohibited cursing amongst his troops. All his writings indicate that he was a dignified man, not inclined to outbursts. He would have sooner died than utter the words “pussy” or “shithole”. In fact, according to NPR, he swore by a set of precepts called the Rules of Civility, as taught to him by Jesuit instructors, which included the following: “Use no reproachful language against any one; neither curse nor revile.”

George Washington was an honorable man. He’d have been horrified by Trump’s language and behavior. He would be sickened by Trump’s mocking attitude. It would have never occurred to him to ask for a military parade in his honor, and he certainly wouldn’t be upset that people did not applaud him when he thought they should. Washington was not about being worshipped or adored. And Washington would never, not in a million years, have dodged the draft.

George Washington was far from perfect, but in terms of ethics, morality, dignity and class, you might say that these two presidents are, indeed, centuries apart.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

11_07-2014_washington_teeth.jpg__800x600_q85_crop — Yep. These are George’s choppers. Ouch.

Read any good books lately? Try mine! http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5

Cool Stuff You Never Knew about your Teeth

My latest degree is an AAS in Dental Laboratory Technology and Management, so I’ve spent a great deal of time learning about teeth and their anatomy and function. Teeth are a lot more complex than people realize. To quote Hermey the elf in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, “It’s fascinating! You’ve no idea! Molars and bicuspids and incisors…”

Anyway, I could go on for hours, but without using too many technical terms, here are a few cool things about teeth that you may not know:

Every ridge and crevice in your teeth serves a purpose. When aligned correctly, the ridges help you grind your food so that you can digest it properly, and the crevices help you sluice away debris so that you don’t leave a lot of food behind to create cavities.
When your teeth grow in your jaw, each tooth starts off as several individual parts, called “lobes” that eventually fuse together. Your molars, toward the back, are made up of 4 or 5 distinct lobes.
This blows my mind. The shape of your teeth is closely related to the shape of your face. If you have a round face, your teeth tend to be more rounded. If you have a square or rectangular or triangular countenance, your teeth will likely follow suit.
Women’s gum lines tend to be more curved than men’s.
The reason whitening toothpaste works is that it contains material that grinds away your tooth’s enamel to expose the dentin underneath, which is whiter. The problem with that is that you can’t get that enamel back, and it’s there for a reason. It’s harder, protects the tooth, and helps prevent cavities. Also, once the pretty white dentin is exposed, it starts becoming less white. It’s a vicious cycle. Personally I will never use toothpaste that has that whitening factor.
Teeth are subject to something called “mesial drift”, which means they have a tendency to move forward in your mouth if nothing gets in their way. That’s why it’s never good to just pull a tooth and leave nothing in that space, because all the teeth behind it will start marching forward like little soldiers, but unfortunately they won’t always be disciplined enough to stay in a straight line.
If you have an infection in your tooth, it’s a really bad idea to ignore it, because that infection can travel to your sinuses, your brain, even your heart, via the lymphatic system. It’s really dangerous.
The minute you remove teeth and don’t replace the gap with something, the bone that supported those teeth begins to resorb, which is basically a fancy word for slowly dissolving. Not a good situation if you want to have tooth implants later. The less bone the dentist has to work with, the less options you will have.
When your jaw is relaxed, your upper teeth are usually not touching your lower teeth. This is called “freeway space”. I bet you never noticed that. I know I didn’t.
This isn’t exactly tooth trivia, but I find it interesting. You know the ridges on the roof of your mouth? They’re called rugae, and they’re there to give your tongue traction so you can speak properly. That’s why people with nice slippery retainers talk funny. No traction.
There are an amazing amount of tooth anomalies out there. Some people’s teeth will come in in the wrong order. Some will develop multiple copies of the same tooth. Some people’s teeth will come out of the roof of their mouth, or erupt sideways. Some people’s tooth roots will twist around each other, or they’ll form additional roots.
The more mixed your heritage, the more likely you are to have problems with the development of your teeth. For example, if you inherit the large teeth from your mother’s side of the family combined with the small jaw from your father’s side, your teeth are going to be crowded and come in every which way.
That whole thing about George Washington having wooden teeth? Total myth. Wood swells when it gets wet. He did have several sets of dentures, but they were made of ivory, gold and (gulp) lead. It has also been said that some of his teeth originally belonged to his slaves.
I can’t stress this enough. If your dentist gives you a retainer, WEAR IT. If your teeth have been moved, it takes a long time for the underlying bone to fill in where your teeth are no longer located. That means if you don’t have a retainer to RETAIN your teeth in their current position, they’ll slide right back to their old location, and all that hard work, discomfort and expense will have been a huge waste of time. One of my biggest regrets is that I stopped wearing my retainer. Also, don’t go bending the wires of your retainer. They’re positioned for very specific reasons.

I’ll leave you with this: Anthropologists have discovered that even the Neanderthals brushed their teeth. They used sticks, which have left behind grooves in the fossil teeth, which is why we know of their habits. So, even cavemen knew the importance of brushing their teeth. I bet they’d have used floss if it were available, too. So you have no excuse.

This actual tooth image is by Joshua Polansky, of Niche Dental Studio. He’s my Dental Lab hero because he stresses the artistry of his work above all else, and I hope to do this, too. He has many other gorgeous images that are available in poster form, and I hope that some day they will adorn the walls of my own dental lab. You can see his art work here.

“He’s Not MY President!”

It’s Inauguration Day here in the United States, and even though I worked graveyard shift last night, which means the ceremonies felt like they were being held at the equivalent of my three o’clock in the morning, I watched them. And I got an amazing thrill from the event. Not just because my guy won. (Yay!)

I can say with all sincerity that I’ve gotten goose bumps from every single inauguration I’ve witnessed, regardless of whether the man who was being sworn in as president was the person I voted for. As I looked out at the hundreds of thousands of people who were willing to attend this event (despite the fact that it’s always held in an often brutally cold Washington DC January), I realized that they are bearing witness to history, and one in which we can all, on this day if not on any other, take pride.

During every inauguration, I’m reminded of the words of George Washington during the First Inaugural Address in 1789: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

And it’s true. This nation, this political process of ours, is an experiment. My saying that once got me blasted by one of my relatives. He thought what I was saying was unpatriotic. How dare I say this is an experiment? Well, I say it easily and with pride, thank you very much, because anyone with even the slightest knowledge of world history knows that governments rise and fall and political philosophies come and go. Just ask the people of ancient Rome. The fact that we are lucky enough to be at a point in time when our particular experiment seems to be working quite well is a reason for celebration. And saying it’s an experiment is the most patriotic thing in the world because it reminds us that this stability is fragile, and it needs to be monitored and cared for and debated about with the free speech afforded us by our constitution. What could possibly be more patriotic than that?

Indeed, my love of free speech was sorely tested a few days ago. A very heated political debate broke out on a friend’s Facebook page. I sat back and watched it with interest and enjoyment, at first. Then, as often happens when people don’t have a strong dog in a fight, it deteriorated into name calling and personal attacks. That made me sad, because rather than strengthening their views in my eyes, it simply made me think much less of both parties. So I was thrilled today when President Obama said, “We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.” You tell ‘em, Barack. We don’t have to agree. But if you let it deteriorate into insults, you’re only revealing your ignorance, because, you see, this is not about him. It’s about us.

That Facebook brawl ended abruptly when one person said, “He’s not my president!” Poor deluded woman. If you’re an American, yes he is. Even if you didn’t vote for him, even if you didn’t bother to vote at all, yes he is. And you should thank your lucky stars that he is. We have held a stable government without a violent overthrow since George Washington made that first inaugural address in 1789. Yes, we’ve had a civil war. Yes, there have been assassinations and assassination attempts and threats from other nations, but through it all, we have remained solid. Millions of people on this planet have not experienced that stability, and can’t even imagine what it must be like. So, yes, he’s your president, love him or hate him, and that fact was celebrated today on a cold, windy patch of ground in our nation’s capital. How cool is that?