Rita Byrne Tull continues her series of Dispatches from the Former New World…
The white, gleaming monuments to America’s greatness are falling into disrepair and ruin. Rotting from within, structures once even as piano keys fall gapped and tumbled as Stonehenge. The once lavishly sculpted, shining surfaces now blackened and scarred. I speak, of course, of American teeth, once a Wonder of the World. So white! So sparkling! So straight! So… big, the better to charm you with.
It wasn’t always so. America has a dark, shameful history when it comes to teeth. George Washington, the revered Father of our Country, was made to suffer the pain and indignity of wooden false teeth, the explanation for that stiff, dyspeptic grimace in his famous portrait [by Gilbert Stuart, above].
But by the mid twentieth century the miracle of orthodontics rinsed away those memories. Every child’s mouthful was trussed into a system of wires and pulleys, bridges and braces, until, like the foot bindings of Ancient China, the scaffolding was removed to reveal aesthetic perfection. No other nation could compete. Despite the dutiful attentions of a National Health dentist throughout my childhood, the first American dentist I saw declared my mouth a disaster area. I consulted him about a persistent pain in the jaw. The problem, the dentist declared with authority, was an uneven bite. Where I came from a sandwich was a paper-thin sliver of ham or cheese between two slices of bread. My teeth were unprepared for the stress of chomping down on the multistoried constructions that are American sandwiches and burgers. Hence the pain. It would require multiple sessions of grinding and polishing and hundreds of dollars to bring my mouth up to American dental standards and equip me for the rigors of American-style eating.
Fortunately I had dental insurance. But today over a hundred million Americans and counting have no dental insurance and no means to pay for dental treatment. The results are beginning to show in the deteriorating condition of the National Smile. A whole generation is growing up with crooked, jumbled teeth, once the sure sign of an immigrant from the Third World, or England. And there are horror stories. Here, In the Shadow of the Nation’s Capital, a six-year-old boy died when infection from a neglected abscessed tooth spread to his bones. The phrase “In the Shadow of the Nation’s Capital” is always used when something really bad happens here, as though it is much worse by virtue of happening under the noses of Congress and the White House. The implication is that they could be excused from noticing if it happened in some far-flung corner of the land. In truth they have far less chance of noticing what happens right here, for Congress and the White House are surrounded by the Great Wall of Lobbyists, an impenetrable edifice that has yet to fall to the siege of We The People.
The Lobbyists, of course, have perfect teeth, as do the rest of the Haves, while more and more middle-class Americans are falling into the Have-Nots. But the monumental disaster of American teeth is not just a domestic crisis. Great empires only fall to their rivals when they have decayed from within. So if you start seeing Chinese people with perfect, sparkling teeth you will know that the 21st century race for Top Nation is over.
Anthem for American Teeth
by Brit
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we brushed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose premolars and canines, so brilliant and white,
At the dentist we flashed, oh so happily beaming?
And the gums’ bright red glare, and the orthodontist’s chair,
Gave proof through the night that all our teeth were still there;
O say, does that star-spangled dental floss still glide
O’er the chops of the free and the home of fluoride?
No doubt some nutter will argue that the decline of American teeth is a deliberately engineered conspiracy. The resulting scandal will become known as Colgate.
Americans have been riding the Crest of the wave for far too long.
Rumours abound over the coming amalgamation of Colgate and Crest.
Mein Gott Rita, if you think Americans have dodgy Hampsteads you should see us lot, even the Kulaks have gnarled gnashers, mouldy molars, insipid incisors. a north and south full. That’s why we, we who are suppressed, repressed and generally pressed by Rupe’s press, the poverty stricken people, are about to be saved, or at least have our teeth saved by the Camelot mob, you know, the wise ones, those who have our best interests at heart or at least the enamel on our four remaining stumps.
We Brits make excellent gurners and it’s not hard to see why.
Were George Washington’s wooden dentures made from silver birch, with the bark left intact to give the impression of a natural smile? Well, mahogany would have looked ridiculous – how could you retain credibility as President with your smile looking like a knob off a Chippendale sideboard?
If I won the lottery i’d have all my shameful british teeth removed and a set of gnashers made out of bright white royal doulton-type porcelain bolted in. Actually, come to think of it, delftware teeth would look pretty natty too
Worm, try Pliers, Black and Decker dentists, based in Newcastle’s leafy Gosforth suburb. They specialise in Sunderland Lustreware, must be hand washed though.
Isn’t that what Martin Amis did?