Wednesday Mornings at the Dentist’s Office
When trying to determine the sights, sounds, and smells of my childhood, the location that stands out the most is the dentist’s office. Growing up, I loved the clean smell of the dentist’s office, choosing the various toothpaste flavors, and picking a toothbrush – that was usually my favorite color – to take home. For some, this may be an odd sentiment, but for me I was always excited to go to the dentist and experience that office like I was going there for the first time. In fact, I enjoyed the dentist’s office so much I wanted to become a dentist, until I learned that I would have to have patients as excited as I was for me to enjoy my job.
This train of thought led me to research “dentistry” in the archive, to have a general sense of what dentistry in the Black community looked like. Although, I must admit that I was hoping to find people just as passionate about going to the dentist as me.
My search brought me to Dr. Ada Cooper (1960-), a dentist and lawyer that is best known for being a national spokesperson for the American Dental Association. When asked about the sights and smells of her childhood, she clearly remembers playing the game Ringolevio.
“I, I--it's so clear. I remember--Ringolevio is a game somewhat like catch or tag, but there were teams and you had--you designated a particular place in your playing area, and our place was a little sort of alley between the apartment building that we lived in and the beginning of a sitting area next to the playground, and that place was designated as the jail. And you had teams, and you would run around, catch somebody on the other team, and bring them to the jail. And if everybody on that team ended up in jail, then your team won, but the catch was that if somebody while your team was out chasing other kids on the other team, if somebody from the other team got into your jail and yelled--and there were lots of--I mean, it took on lots of different sort of articulation, but yelled something like--we used to say, ‘Oko-levio, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three,’ and that let everybody out of the jail and then you'd start all over again.” [1]
Dr. Ada Cooper Photo Credits
Initially, my search took me aback. Ringolevio was a game I played a lot as a kid, and not only was I finding someone with the same family name as me, but Dr. Cooper was one state away and played a childhood game of mine that was a favorite and was a hidden memory. Not to mention, I was also taken aback to find that there were 284 stories for dentistry, the enthusiasm for the dentist’s office is there, and that enthusiasm was available within the archive.
Dr. Carol Morales (1945-) is a well-known dentist from Harlem, New York who also did consulting for small business there in tandem with the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation. While watching through videos in the archive, I found her video that discussed how she creates positive relationships with her clients. This statement went back to my original line of thought. According to research conducted by Hello Products, over 60% of people don’t enjoy the dentist’s office. However, Dr. Morales has found a way to combat this anxiety.
Dr. Carol Morales
“Most of my patients, people who are my patients, they have become our friends. They come, they look forward to coming in here; they look forward to seeing my staff; they look forward to seeing me. We interact with them. They make dentistry so much easier if you have a relationship again, with the patient, also with the doctor. Unlike most doctors, I put that saliva injector in your mouth and ask you to open up, and I'll ask you a thousand questions knowing you can't answer 'cause your mouth is open, you know, open. And [unclear], but we--I have to allow time, at least ten or fifteen minutes, for that interaction with my patients 'cause they look forward to it, okay. I enjoy coming to work.” [2]
In conjunction with the smell of the dentist’s office, I remember a time when I convinced my mom to bake a tray of cookies for the people in the dentist’s office. The cookies were chocolate chip, and I remember them vividly because they permeated the entire car on the drive over to the dentist. However, when I walked in I could smell the clean smell of the dentist’s office that was usually my favorite, but now it made me dislike the dentist because it overpowered the smell of the cookies.
Carol Sutton Lewis (1959-) is the founder of Ground Control Parenting, and has served on the board of Stanford Law School. She spoke extensively about the different passions of her life, including that of passing the legacy of her chocolate chip cookies down to her children.
“But I want there to be a legacy of happiness in my family and just that we did all we could to promote that in the world. And I don't mean, like laughter, happy, yeah, but just happiness in the sense of self-satisfaction. I want everybody--I want to have done all that I can to help the people around me feel good about themselves and feel like they've--helped them accomplish what they want to accomplish. Chocolate chip cookies, I make a mean chocolatechip cookie (laughter). Somebody better learn that recipe (laughter). It's pretty much mean the things that I'm most passionate about, I would love to see replicated in my children and my grandchildren, and henceforth and forever more. And I, I'm a firm believer in the importance of institutions--educational, art, you know. I, I like that and I want, I want everybody to be able to sort of fly as high as they want, where they want, but be drawn to sort of institutionalizing whatever it is they're doing so.” [3]
Legacy. While that wasn't what I initially wanted to discuss in this blog post, I realized that sight, sounds, and smells compromise our legacies and understandings.
When I research legacy, Thelma Daley (1927-) talked about how she wasn't sure of her legacy and what that meant for her life.
“I don't know if I have a legacy. I don't know what my legacy is. My legacy may not be as defined as many people say that's their legacy. My legacy is that I may have touched, I may have touched general people in some positive way. I may have touched. I run across former students. I run across former students who come to me in such a very fond way and say, you know if it hadn't been for you, I would not be here. If it hadn't been for you--so my legacy may not be something that's so crystalized to say, that this monument is my legacy, okay. My legacy might be out there that you would never, never know about and the many, many people who have moved to another level because they feel, not because I did, because they feel, their perceptions were, that in some way, I helped to catalyze them to another level. And I think that's possibly my legacy. And that is not a legacy that people can talk about 'cause it's hard to quantify, hard to qualify, hard to put in your hands and to see one, two, three, four, five, okay. But I do believe that's my legacy. I do believe my legacy is in touching people just general people, people without titles, who have now grown up to have titles. And people who are touching other people. I think in terms of how I'm touching my students now and they can go out there and what they can do in some way, I think, maybe that's my legacy. I don't know what my legacy is. I don't know--” [4]
Legacy is determined by the sights, sounds and smells of our lives. However, most people don’t think about what their legacy is while they’re alive. We make this decisions and changes in our lives, and they impact us in ways we don’t even think about. In terms of sights, the color green has been the most influential of my life. It’s part of the colors of the Jamaican flag, the color notebook I wrote my first play in, and the color of money - and I vividly remember the first $5 bill I ever received.
Lou Stovall (1937-) is a famous printmaker that works mostly with earth tones, which was not as popular as one would assume. He said that the majority of artists would use warmer tones, almost as if they were “scared to be one with the Earth.”
“No, I don't because, as I said before, I think I'm so much of the moment, you know, that I'm working that whatever color seems to appeal to me or inspire me at that particular time. But, but I'm also very much a victim of my own, sort of, sense of order. So if I've laid down a certain color then it's almost, you can almost bet that it's going to be something logical in that sequence, you know. So if I've put down an orange, chances are what's going to follow that orange is going to be a deeper tone of orange, you know, and then, finally, an accent. And so that accent of the orange would probably be a green or a certain kind of blue. So because, you know, there should be an order of things the way that I, that my mind has it when I'm making art.” [5]
Ambassador Update: We have finally concluded our Black History Month Contest. While it was difficult to complete, we were able to amass some submissions and will be meeting with the judges on Monday to discuss who placed. Also, we will be doing a giveaway later this week in celebration of Women’s History Month. Tierney was also able to speak at a presentation for Inspirational Girls and present the digital archive.
Search terms:
· Dentistry (284 stories)
· Fluoride (12 stories)
· Chocolate chip cookies (11 stories)
· Legacy (4,807 stories)
Green (3867 stories)
Color green (953 stories)
References:
1. Dr. Ada Cooper (The HistoryMakers A2016.028), interviewed by Harriette Cole, September 23, 2016, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 7, Dr. Ada Cooper describes the sights, sounds and smells of her childhood
2. Dr. Carol Morales (The HistoryMakers A2003.220), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, September 20, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 3, Dr. Carol Morales talks about the importance of establishing healthy relationships with her patients
3. Carol Sutton Lewis (The HistoryMakers A2013.272), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, October 22, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 7, story 9, Carol Sutton Lewis reflects upon her legacy
4. Thelma Daley (The HistoryMakers A2003.164), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 22, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 3, Thelma Daley reflects upon her legacy
5. Lou Stovall (The HistoryMakers A2003.236), interviewed by Larry Crowe, September 27, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 4, Lou Stovall explains his color schemes