07 March 2008

Open, please

The dentist's office
always had one magazine:
Highlights For Children

The email the other day from the Parent Blogger's Network was titled Blast From the Past. And indeed, that's what it felt like. Because Highlights For Children was very much a part of my past: there was always a stack of them at the dentist's office. I don't remember seeing it anywhere else, and we never had a subscription, but it was a reliable treat when waiting to see the dentist - that and the cartoons in the New Yorker.

We had a great dentist, Dr. Eisenberg, a kind man who worked out of a suite of offices attached to his split-level suburban house. His wife, who dyed her hair black, was the office manager, and doled out little plastic toys when you were done getting your teeth examined. My mouth is full of fillings, all still intact lo these many years later. I think it's a testament to his skill that my original fillings are still solid - my husband is the same age as me and has had to have nearly all of his childhood fillings replaced; they just crumbled away in his mouth.

I hope that Miss M. is spared the drilling and filling - she brushes with fluoride toothpaste, drinks fluoridated water and has had one dentist office fluoride treatment. And I hope she grows up knowing that the dentist is nothing to be scared of. But most of all, I hope she never has to go to the orthodontist because those people are costly sadists who never have the good magazines!

15 comments:

  1. I remember reading Highlights magazines in the doctor's office too. But most of them already had the puzzles and mazes done by other kids!

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  2. I adored Highlights. We got it at home because my mother was a doctor. I especially liked Goofus and Gallant (mostly because I like to see all the evil things Goofus did), though I never cared for the Timbertoes.

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  3. Anonymous11:34 AM

    i loved highlights magazine! and about the only place i saw it was the dr or dentist.

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  4. Anonymous1:08 PM

    I have vivid memories of my first dentist's office. He kept it totally dark, except for his overhead lamp. Weird, considering how all the other offices I've been to since are very brightly lit.

    And of course, the Highlights magazine.

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  5. I just know a lot of orthodontia is in our future. I will have to pack my own magazines.

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  6. i liked highlights, but saw it at the doctor's office.

    never saw a dentist until i was 12. in graduate school, i used the clinic at the dental school to repair the damage, where professors came by with hoardes of students to point out my "bombed-out mouth." so, i'm all in favor of pediatric dentists. :)

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  7. Anonymous2:55 PM

    Nice job beginning with a haiku!

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  8. highlights magazine?? oh the memories!

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  9. Anonymous3:28 PM

    I think we probably read the same Highlight magazines at Dr. Eisenberg's office!

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  10. I'm thinking of switching dentists because mine is down to Golf and Prevention magazine. Zzzzz...

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  11. Ohh Highlights, my favorite!

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  12. What I remember so vividly about Highlights, and what I couldn't understand, is why in every search-and-find drawing there was a hidden hatchet.

    So violent in the context of an ostensibly kid-friendly magazine, LOL!

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  13. All I remember from my childhood dentist was the horrendous Musak and his putrid breath. I'm thankful that, today, they wear those masks.

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  14. Anonymous9:36 PM

    I loved Highlights too! My stinky dentist never had it, though. I can remember having to thumb through questionable fashion magazines even then.

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  15. Yes, to me Highlights meant the dentist's office and as a result, I HATED it--I was terrified of dental work. But we occasionally get a copy at the library, and they have pretty good crafts!

    Sadly my older one has already had one root canal and I suspect that orthodontia is in her sister's future. But fortunately we have excellent and gentle, though EXPENSIVE dentists!

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