Most of them were heavy coffee drinkers with years of thick, hardened plaque.

One old farmer hadn’t been to a dental clinic since the late nineties.

I spent two full hours just clearing his lower jaw.

My shoulders ached from bending over the dental chair for ten straight hours.

My thin cotton scrubs gave no warmth at all against the drafty clinic windows.

I pulled over onto the gravel shoulder of the highway near the county line.

I put the car in park and left the engine running.