The Tin Foil
by
Madelyn Anderson Shields


My sister, Karen and I got the bright ideas to play Dentist. We must have been the ripe old age of  9 (Karen) and me 7. We formed us a committee to decide what we must use for teeth tools. After discussing various options, it dawned on us, Mother's nut cracking set! Sure enough, we had the  equipment right at our  fingertips.

 Now, Mother always had nuts, in the shells, in a hand carved, walnut wood, equipped with all the tools standing like soldiers in a circle in the middle, bowl. So we snuck up on the bowl to make sure that Mother wasn't watching, reaching out like we were already caught taking the tools. We quickly gathered up Mother's nut cracker...the old metal one's that you squeezed on the nut to break the shell, and the nut picks that you used to dig the nuts out with. We had one of those small hand mirrors, like they put in purses...they were wraped in a little wax paper like envelope, for our reflective mouth tool. Boy, we were good!

We place the tools on an old metal tray, you know the kind, with a dish towel under them; we wanted to look professional. Next, we ripped a piece of Mother's tin foil off the roll...ziiiipppppp...just like that we had our filling for teeth.

Now for a patient that needed their teeth filled. HUMMMM!!!Who would it be???? Aw! Virginia, our neighbor girl, that lived up the street. She was only 6; we'd fill her teeth. We invited her up to play and when she arrived,we had her to sit down in a chair and open her mouth. Karen, being the oldest, got to be the Dentist and I only got to be the assistent. (You know how it is ...the oldest gets to do everything!!!).

I had Virginia open her mouth wide and held the mirror in it...sure enough, there were CAVITIES!!! We began our serious mouth changing adventure, putting little balls of TIN FOIL in Virginia's teeth. She sat patiently while we fixed her all up.  What successful professionals we were. We were so proud that we had help our friend.

Those memories make me smile when I think back to those innocent, fun filled days when we were just us and didn't worry about who to impress or how to impress. We simply lived life, knowing that there wasn't anything we couldn't fix... even Virginia's teeth.

There was never any of this stuff of "I Can't," "I'm not good enough," or any of the other crutches people limb along life with. Mother always told us "Can't never did anything." She made true believer's out of us at a very early age! Thank God for Mother!

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