Merry Christmas Sniper!
Posted on 12/24/2007 7:18:58 PM PST by neverdem
BARBOURVILLE, Ky. — In the 18 years he has been visiting nursing homes, seeing patients in his private practice and, more recently, driving his mobile dental clinic through Appalachian hills and hollows, Dr. Edwin E. Smith has seen the extremes of neglect.
He has seen the shame of a 14-year-old girl who would not lift her head because she had lost most of her teeth from malnutrition, and the do-it-yourself pride of an elderly mountain man who, unable to afford a dentist, pulled his own infected teeth with a pair of pliers and a swig of peroxide.
He has seen the brutal result of angry husbands hitting their wives and the end game of pill-poppers who crack healthy teeth, one by one, to get dentists to prescribe pain medications.
But mostly he has seen everyday people who are too busy putting food on the table to worry about oral hygiene. Many of them savor their sweets, drink well water without fluoride and long ago started ruining their teeth by chewing tobacco and smoking.
Dr. Smith has a rare window on a state with the highest proportion of adults under 65 without teeth, where about half the population does not have dental insurance. He struggles to counter the effects of the drastic shortage of dentists in rural areas and oral hygiene habits that have been slow to change.
“The level of need is hard to believe until you see it up close,” said Dr. Smith, who runs a free dental clinic at a high school in one of Kentucky’s poorest counties. He also provides free care to about half of the patients who visit his private practice in Barbourville.
Kentucky is among the worst states nationally in the proportion of low-income residents served by free or subsidized dental clinics, and less...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I wouldn’t live in a big city again if someone paid me to. Heck, I wouldn’t even live in a small city.
But my mama did teach me how to brush my teeth. ;>)
You keep guarding that swamp and I’ll keep guarding my mountain. ;>)
I think I just saw Santa fly by and he’s towing a sign that reads, vote for......... . I can’t quite make it out.
Merry Christmas.....
I don’t remember mustard pickles. I do remember all the jams and jellies, though, from berries I never heard of.
My dad’s family came from Appalachia, and I have a deep appreciation for how they lived, and made do. I remember one of my aunts talking about how she always wished she had 2 bobbie pins, rather than just one, because she wanted to part her hair in the middle, not on the side!
Another one told about going to town and seeing people with their trash set out, and thinking that they must be very rich if they had stuff that they could just throw away.
Different world now, for sure.
LoL! My family was from WV and I even have one of the old MT instruments here. Course Dad said we were to never admit it.
I never had to live with that sort of poverty. My parents did.
They rarely spoke of it.
Mom does now. They sure didnt then.
Northern California has similar problems. The environmentalists created a “New Appalachia” with their destruction of the timber industry. We have kids in our county that are in 6th grade and never have seen a dentist. 85% of our children live in poverty. What’s worse, is that the dentists here won’t accept MediCal dental insurance. We have a van that visits childcare and schools once a year to try and get screening of the worst cases done.
In the part on muzzleloading rifles Gusler mentions the “Honaker School of Design”, re early American rifles.
I’m a Honaker, although my branch spelled it Honiker when they left Virginia and came to Georgia, about 1798. They couldn’t spell, but they sure could work hardwood and steel. I can still make a decent mainspring, myself. Might have to make me some steel teeth, LOL!
I’ve always suspected that folks move to cities because they’re scared to be on their own!
Merry Christmas! On February 1st it will be 5 years since the docs sent me home to die! I sure fooled them!
I’m not sure that they talked about it when it was so fresh for them, but they have told some stories over the years, that’s for sure.
I always asked them to write that stuff down, but they never have that I know of. They got into a big debate at a family gathering one time about whether they would have been considered “poor white trash” back then. The general consensus was that they would not, because they were always clean, and went to church!!
Merry Christmas Sniper!
My family (by marriage) was all from W.Va. They were poor, sure - but didn’t know it. They had a roof over their heads, food in their tummies, and shoes on their feet. They felt rich!
They grew every vegetable imaginable on their little plots of land, and loved to barter for whatever was needed, and there was always a neighbor to trade something with. They preserved and canned everything from ground beef to jams and jellies.
My favorite was (and still is) green tomato relish! There’s nothin’ better on a hot dog, to this day!
The old foot pump sewing machine was continually putting clothes together for the ever growing kids. The crochet hook and knitting needles clicked away all year for those beautiful scarves, sweaters and afghans that everyone got at Christmas.
The cow was milked by hand (for those lucky enough to have one), and the eggs were collected every morning in the hen house.
Rabbit, squirrel, ground hog, deer and elk were sometimes the only protein available, but the ladies knew how to simmer ‘the meat’ all day with those special spices and herbs (and a little tad from Gramps’ “medicinal” bottle of booze.)
Babies were born in the back bedroom, and the old folks were never sent to a nursing home. The whole family would pitch in to help with any dibilitating illness, always with loving, tender kindness and respect.
Their lives were simple, but so incredibly full.
And, they were never, ever ashamed.
L0L!
I hope the lesser folks have a Merry Christmas.
Thanks for the tales.
I recall, cousins of a friend of mines. They all had a similar background, but the Divers never got with the modern world, they were frowned on. Bunch of junk collectors all with dirty bare foot L0L
Well Sir, the Divers are now Millionaire’s from the scrap business.
Merry Christmas!
A beautiful picture Yorkie.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Thank you, my. I’m in Los Angeles with the ‘yours’ part you spoke about. I spent all day ‘helping Santa’ by wrapping gifts for everyone, while some of the ‘big’ folks took all the ‘little’ ones to the beach Malibu. Made a big ham dinner with all the trimmings - even horseradish.
I feel so blessed and full of love this Christmas. This is the first time in four years we have all been together, and those ‘warm fuzzies’ are about to over-take me.
A VERY Merry Christmas to you - and yours!
:0)
More of the rifles at Williamsburg than anywhere else. The old timers weren’t good at keeping records, there were some rifles made up through the depression, nothing fancy like the early guns were. It is something to put food on the table with a rifle you built yourself, but that will likely be illegal any day now. Go looking for stuff to make powder and you’ll get a visit, for sure. Scrooem!
Merry Christmas!
thanks neverdem...
.. it’s from the ‘usual sources’. I lived in Eastern Kentucky and know ‘us’uns’. This just “SO AGREES” with “what we ‘all know’ to be true” of Appalachians that the NYT ‘journalist’ expected to get a ‘bye’ with his ‘reportage’. He found someone who was a little sheppish about accepting a government handout? hmmm, he obviously ‘cherry picked’ and didn’t look very far or he would have discovered a ‘truth’
...usual suspects spining in the wind.
Shoot. I have an AK that I’m building here.
if you buy the receiver the feds register it as a fire arm.
It isnt even assembled, but its registered.
You may build your own legally from scratch but law says you cant sell it. I’m not even sure of the legality of xfering possession within the family.
LOL!
Do yuns know Daniel Boone? ;0)
Merry Christmas Bill
how do you do that when you’re dirt poor and uneducated ?
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