cavity in the dentist’s office

Today, for the first time in 90 years Union County opens the business week without a Dr. Barrow on the roster of dentists serving the area. Friday, Dr. Don Barrow closed his office, thus ending his 48 years of service to the area – a practice he bought from his father in 1961. I noticed his retirement because for the past 24 years his nimble fingers have kept my family members’ smiles intact and free of cavities.

I will miss Dr. Barrow’s dental work. I’ve grown accustomed to a waiting room with current magazines and polite receptionists and friendly assistants. Current magazines were important during the years I escorted my four children to the dentist, turned them over to the assistant and waited for them to emerge with a grin and a new toothbrush.

In recent years, as an empty nester, I rarely have had time to even pick-out a magazine and peruse the table of contents. I have grown accustomed to not wasting a lot of time in the waiting in the room. And that is important since I began working full time and have squeezed dental check-ups in during a delayed lunch hour.

I’ve grown accustomed to a quiet, soothing voice hovering over me and efficient use of time while I am in the chair.
It pains me to consider the process of choosing a new dentist. We discovered Dr. Barrow rather quickly after we moved here, were satisfied with his work, his personality and his office’s proximity to home, office and shopping. Unfortunately, he will not be selling his practice and the office he built in 1967 to a new dentist. He has other plans for them.

Dr. Don Barrow began his practice in El Dorado 1959, bought his father’s practice in 1961 and built his own office in 1967. His father, Dr. Rex Austin Barrow – began practicing dentistry in 1912 in the prospering lumber town of Huttig – then a thriving community of greater size and importance in southern Arkansas than El Dorado – until the oil boom hit in the 1920s. As the company dentist he was paid in chits – credit for goods at the company store. The oil boom and marriage brought Dr. Barrow Sr. to El Dorado.

I noticed the old Dr. Barrow’s ads for dental work during a search of old newspapers. I thought it must have been my dentist’s grandfather. Surely, even with his white hair, my dentist had not been around that long! With his usual southern gentleman’s smile, Dr. Barrow clarified that I had seen his father’s announcements.

All those years of Union County having a Dr. Barrow standing over folks with a pick in hand and a smile and saying, “Open wide.”

The card he sent announcing the closing of his office pictured the great outdoors – which is where he plans to spend a great deal of time in the coming months: fishing, golfing or vacationing. The only holes he will be filling will be the little ones at the end of the fairway.

May he make a hole-in-one every day.


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