Big Dogs and Dental Work

by Ben Robicheau ~ brobicheau@cogeco.ca

Over the past couple of months I have been recounting my memories of some of the doctors that have served the Islands. So many doctors have come and gone over the years that I can’t remember them all; for instance, I have absolutely no recollection at all of Dr. Thomas; it was only while talking with my friend Jim Prime that his name came up. Jim remembers Dr. Thomas very well: when he was a boy, Jim had the unfortunate and painful experience of driving a large splinter under the nail of his big toe. Jim says he can clearly recall Dr. Thomas’s young son sitting with his nose only inches away from his toe and watching in fascination while his father removed the offending sliver.

One doctor I do recall very well is Dr. Mink. I remember him mainly for two reasons; the first is for his love of dogs; big dogs. He had two slobbering black Newfoundlanders that accompanied him everywhere he went, even on house calls; they would sit behind him in the back seat of his car with their head over his shoulder while he drove. This usually resulted in Dr. Mink arriving on his patient’s doorstep with the lapel of his jacket dripping with dog drool. These dogs weighed in the vicinity of a hundred and fifty pounds each and were generally friendly, but their large size did make them kind of intimidating and any close encounter usually left you covered with flecks of flying slobber. Because of this, my sister Judy was a bit uncomfortable around these animals.

One summer’s day, my mother took all of us kids over to the doctor’s office in Freeport for our annual checkup. After sitting in the waiting room for a while, Judy; who was about six years old at the time, got bored and asked if she could go outside. After a few minutes it occurred to me that the dogs might be out there too, so I looked out the window to see if she was O.K. To my surprise, Judy was standing in the yard right beside one of the dogs, calmly patting its head and talking to it, I was so amazed by this sight that I called my mother over to have a look. The patting went on for several minutes until finally the dog walked away and Judy came back inside. My mother mentioned to her that she was surprised to see her out there standing so close to the dog since we all were under the impression that she was afraid of them. Judy replied that she WAS afraid of them, the reason she had stood there for so long was because the dog was standing on her foot and she didn’t dare to move it.

The second thing that I remember Dr. Mink for was his part in starting up the Freeport Sea Scouts troop; apparently he had been involved in Scouting back in England and thought it was an organization that the kids of the Islands could benefit from. Sea Scouts is a marine version of Boy Scouts and is supposed to provide ocean-oriented experiences for those who live near the water; although the only real sea-going experience I ever got in the year-and-a-half that I belonged to the group was on the ferry ride going to the meetings. I believe I was the only Westporter to join the troop, not surprising when you consider that the group met once a week through the winter months in Freeport on a school night. In order to attend, I had to eat supper early, rush down the road to catch the ferry across the passage, and then walk from Fish Point to the church hall on Crocker’s Hill carrying my school books and a change of clothes for the next day. Since it would be dark by the time the meeting was over and the ferry stopped running at dark, my father had arranged for me to stay overnight at the home of Curtis and Elsie Prime, whose son Jim was also in Sea Scouts. The next morning I got up before daylight, had breakfast, walked back to the point, and caught the ferry home in time for school in Westport.

This might sound like quite a bit of inconvenience and effort, but the fun we had at Sea Scouts made it worth the trouble. We earned badges for things like learning how to find our way through unfamiliar terrain using only a compass, how to build a shelter from tree branches, how to make a fire in the winter snow using a single match, and how to administer emergency first-aid. On cold or wet days, we continued to work on our badges back at the hall by mastering useful skills like how to tie a wide variety of knots and how to send semaphore messages with flags. Dr. Mink usually brought his beloved dogs to these meetings and each week a different person would be assigned to clean up after them. Since both dogs were massive droolers and didn’t seem to be all that well housebroken, this was not a chore that anyone looked forward to. You didn’t even get credit towards a badge for this job, which was a real shame because the poor sap who was on clean-up duty the night the dogs ate something out of the garbage and then threw up all over the floor really did deserve some kind of award.

After Dr. Mink and his giant dogs left, Dr. Meehan was the next to arrive. Before coming to Canada, he had worked for a big oil company in the Middle East where he and Mrs. Meehan had been living while the kids were back in England at boarding school. When they arrived in Freeport it was the first time in quite a while that they had all spent any time together as a family. I think coming to the Islands in the middle of the turbulent sixties with a family that included three teen-agers presented quite a challenge for them all.

Dr. Stokes was the last doctor that I remember; he seemed to really enjoy the lifestyle here and appeared to have every intention of making it a permanent situation. Sadly, that was not to be. A few years after his arrival, Dr.Stokes’ son was involved in a horrific highway accident that took the life of a young island woman. Possibly due to the stress that this incident caused him, a couple of years later, while responding to a medical emergency, Dr. Stokes suffered a fatal stroke behind the wheel of his Mini. This sad event marked what was to be the final few years of doctor service on the Islands. Apparently there were at least two more doctors, Dr. Westlake and then Dr. Boucher practiced on the Islands for a couple of years each, but when the last of these left, an end was brought to over a century of Islands-based medical service.

In addition to enjoying the services of an Island doctor, we also used to have access to a dentist, at least occasionally. For a few days every year, Dr. Julius Comeau would leave his office in Meteghan and set up shop in one of the front rooms at Lloyd’s Hall in Freeport, bringing with him a portable dentist’s chair and an antique drill rig that looked like it was barely one step above being powered by steam. This Rube Goldberg contraption was a complicated combination of pulleys and belts and it ran at such a low speed that you could almost count the revolutions of the drill bit as it slowly ground its way through your tooth enamel.

Because my father owned a store and I had easy access to a wide variety of sugary drinks and snacks, I was probably more in need of Dr. Comeau’s services than most kids. By the time I reached the age of sixteen, I had already lost a couple of teeth due to cavities. When I went back to him once again with a tooth-ache, Dr. Comeau confirmed that I had yet another cavity and commented that he could probably fix the tooth with a filling, but he might as well pull this one out too. When I protested that I would rather keep the tooth if at all possible, he looked surprised. It was the practise at the time among many of the boys and even a few of the girls on the Islands to scrupulously avoid visiting the dentist until they reached their mid-to-late teens, then they would pay the dentist a visit, and in one fell swoop have what was left of their teeth removed and get themselves fitted with a set of shiny new dentures. Dr. Comeau was amazed to learn that I was interested in keeping as many of my own teeth as possible; and I was both astounded and appalled to realize that for the past few years he had been working on my teeth under the assumption that my ultimate goal was to make room for a set of store-bought choppers!