"Crowning Around"

By Jerry Zezima

When you break a tooth that you’ve already had a root canal on, you root for your dentist to get to the root of the problem.

That’s what Dr. Anthony Fazio did on one of my molars, which he expertly repaired during a two-part procedure that was, I am happy to report, painless.

As Dr. Fazio said, “I didn’t feel a thing.”

The dental dilemma began while I was eating a bowl of soggy breakfast cereal. It’s a good thing I wasn’t gnawing on a steak bone or a piece of peanut brittle, which might have shattered the tooth and sent shards down my windpipe.

Then the choke would have been on me.

But I noticed that a small piece of my left bottom rear molar — Tooth No. 18, if you are scoring at home — had broken off.

It’s the same tooth I had an emergency root canal on a year and a half ago while visiting my older daughter and her family, who live 300 miles away.

I called Dr. Fazio and made an appointment with office manager Lisa Rugen, who also is a dental assistant.

A week later, Dr. Fazio peered into my mouth and said, “You have some nerve. Fortunately,” he added, “the nerve was removed when you had the root canal, so this won’t hurt a bit.”

Then he went to work, pulling off the broken crown and putting a band on my tooth.

“I’m sorry it’s not a band of gold,” the good doctor said, reminding me of Freda Payne’s 1970 pop hit, which began playing in my head. “It’s more like a ring around the molar.”

Then he stuffed cotton in my cheek, making me feel like Marlon Brando in “The Godfather,” and applied a resin-modified glass ionomer, a substance a lot like spackle, only not as tasty.

“You’re starting to drool,” the dentist pointed out.

“There’s no drool like an old drool,” I said as Lisa suctioned out the streaming saliva.

“You have a choice for your new crown — porcelain or metal,” Dr. Fazio said.

“If I pick metal, could I be hit by lightning?” I asked.

“It would be shocking if that happened,” he replied.

Porcelain, Dr. Fazio said, is sturdy but could break, like my old crown, which was made in a dentist’s office a few days after my root canal.

“Whatever kind you choose will be made in a lab,” he said.

“Which one?” I wondered.

“Dr. Frankenstein’s House of Horrors,” Dr. Fazio deadpanned.

“I’ll take metal so I can show my mettle,” I said.

“It won’t show because it will be in the back of your mouth,” said the doctor, who had applied a temporary crown to hold me over until my next appointment.

Two weeks later, I was ready for round two.

“You know the drill,” Dr. Fazio said.

I nodded and opened wide.

He didn’t need a drill but instead used a diamond bur to smooth out my molar after applying a viscous liquid called polyvinyl siloxane, or PVS, to make what I must say was a very good impression.

“You burned through two burs last time,” he said.

“I guess diamonds aren’t a boy’s best friend,” I noted.

Dr. Fazio described PVS as “very expensive Play-Doh.”

“Plato is my favorite Greek philosopher,” I said.

“He molded me into the man I am today,” said Dr. Fazio, who let me watch the Three Stooges while the PVS dried.

“This isn’t the one where they’re dentists, is it?” I asked nervously.

“No,” he replied. “This time, they’re plumbers.”

At my last appointment, after the new metal crown came back from the lab, Dr. Fazio put it on my molar.

The crown fit perfectly and felt good.

“And it won’t break,” he promised.

“Great job,” I said. “It’s a crowning achievement.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"The Golden Boys"

By Jerry Zezima

Thanks to the wonderful values instilled in me at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, where I graduated magna cum lager, I do not (as yet) have a criminal record.

But I do have a happy marriage because my wife, Sue, also went to St. Mike’s and recently accompanied me to our 50th reunion, where we saw dozens of cheery classmates, reminisced about our crazy antics and met the college’s new president, Dr. Richard Plumb, a gregarious and impressive man who not only listened politely to my stupid jokes and outlandish stories, but kindly refrained from revoking my diploma.

The reunion was a golden opportunity to spend time with our great friends Tim and Jane Lovelette. Tim was the ringleader behind the best pranks pulled by the notorious Class of 1975.

On the advice of my attorney, who is in jail, I can’t go into details, but I can say that the high jinks sometimes involved live snakes.

Tim married Jane, who went to nearby and now closed Trinity College, in 1974, between junior and senior years. They recently celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary.

“Jane says I’m better than nothing,” Tim told me.

“I told Sue that I’m like crabgrass: She can’t get rid of me,” I said.

“Sue hasn’t had to put up with you for as long as Jane has had to put up with me,” Tim said, noting that Sue and I have been married for only 47 years.

But Tim and I are still the picture of immaturity, even though we couldn’t repeat a prank we pulled at a previous reunion by sneaking into the pictures of all the celebrating classes.

This time, we didn’t pull it off because it was raining and photos of classes that graduated in years ending in zero or five were moved to the chapel, where we might have been struck by lightning. Not only that, but we were late for our class photo.

“Maybe they can Photoshop us in,” I suggested.

“They probably Photoshopped us out of the ones at that other reunion,” said Tim.

We also appeared in a photo at a previous reunion holding a Saint Michael’s banner — upside down.

“That’s when you were voted Alumnus of the Year,” I reminded Tim.

“You nominated me,” he recalled.

“If they only knew,” I said.

The highlight of the 50th reunion was the Golden Knights Dinner, where two memorable things happened: I asked the president of the college to dance and our class photo was retaken — with me and Tim in it.

As we were finishing our meal, which was delicious, President Plumb came over to our table and urged us to get up and dance. I got up, went over to him and said, “Would you like to dance?”

“Wouldn’t you rather dance with your wife?” he wondered.

Instead, I danced with Terri Selby, the school’s associate vice president for institutional advancement, who not only could be on “Dancing With the Stars” (I’d be on “Dancing With the Stiffs”), but did a fabulous job in coordinating the reunion, which honored 10 classes.

The next evening we attended the P-Knight Party, where I met Mike the Knight, the school’s costumed mascot, so named because the athletic teams are called the Purple Knights.

“Are you a good Knight?” I asked. “I had a lot of good nights when I went here. I can’t remember most of them.”

I also was happy to see so many nice people, including two fellow journalists: classmate John Kennedy and his wife, Mary Ellen Klas, who didn’t go to St. Mike’s but fit right in.

At the Farewell Breakfast the next morning, I thanked President Plumb for a wonderful weekend and for seeing to it that all the “Wanted” posters of me were taken down.

“The statute of limitations has expired,” he assured me.

As we were leaving, Marybeth Sonski Marquardt, a member of the Class of 1980, took a photo of me, Sue, Tim and Jane. Tim and I were holding a Saint Michael’s banner — upside down.

“A fitting way to end the reunion,” Tim said.

I nodded and stated the obvious: “We’re still crazy after all these years.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"The Hair Apparent"

By Jerry Zezima

If a shampoo were ever named after me, which would work everyone else into a lather, it would be called Empty Head & Shoulders.

That’s because I have more gray matter on the outside of my head than I do on the inside. 

My barber, Maria Santos, knows this and has not only added color to my life but recently answered a question that had me scratching my head:

What comes first, the shampoo or the conditioner?

“Why do you ask?” Maria asked.

“Because,” I answered, “I read somewhere that people should use conditioner before they shampoo their hair instead of the other way around.”

“Are you making this up?” Maria said.

“I would never do such a thing,” I said, adding that I also heard it from a technician who monitored me during a sleep study.

“Which one of you was asleep?” Maria wondered.

“Me,” I said. “The technician used gel to attach electrodes to my scalp. The next morning, she told me that in order to clean off the gel, I should use conditioner on my hair before I shampooed it.”

Maria, who said she shampoos and conditions her hair every day, told me that she never heard of such a thing.

“The shampoo always comes first,” she said. “I have, however, heard conflicting advice about conditioner.”

According to Maria, the instructions on some bottles of conditioner say it should be applied while your hair is wet. Others say you should dry your hair after shampooing it, apply conditioner, wait two to five minutes to let it settle in and then rinse it off.

“Am I supposed to have a stopwatch in the shower so I can calculate the time?” I asked.

“Sure,” Maria said, “but only if it’s waterproof.”

“My hair is so wild,” I said, “I ought to condition it with Woolite.”

Maria knows this, too, because she has been making me look human for the past 25 years.

“Happy anniversary!” I said during my latest haircut.

“Has it been that long?” she said.

“You mean my hair?” I responded.

Whenever my hair gets too long, it doesn’t grow downward. It levitates, sprouting off in all directions, which, with my mustache and furry eyebrows, makes me look like Albert Einstein.

“No one has ever mistaken me for him,” I told Maria.

“That’s good,” Maria said. “He’s dead.”

After my wife, Sue, and I moved to our house 27 years ago, I went to a nearby shop and got a barber named Ilya, a nice and capable guy who, unfortunately, had eye trouble. It wasn’t the kind of thing a customer wants to hear.

When Ilya quit, Maria took charge of trimming my shaggy locks. She eventually got her own shop, then sold it and is now working out of her house.

Maria doesn’t style herself a stylist, but she is stylish. And, the kindest cut of all, a tonsorial artist.

She’s also wise beyond her shears.

“Unless you’re a teenager, no one remembers what their original hair color was,” said Maria, adding that mine is “dirty blond.”

“Do dirty blonds have more fun?” I wondered.

“You tell me,” answered Maria, who said that no one likes the texture of their hair. “People who have curly hair want it to be straight,” she noted, “and people who have straight hair want it to be curly.”

Maria, who has naturally curly hair that she straightens, said that mine, which used to be curly, is now “wiry.”

“Maybe you can collect my clippings and sell them to Brillo,” I suggested.

As for washing my thick thatch, which Maria does after every haircut and color touchup, which makes me look less like the geezer I am, “Shampoo first,” she said, “then use conditioner.”

As a gift to celebrate a quarter of a century of being her client, Maria gave me an item called Not Your Grandma’s Shower Cap. It has pink and white stripes with a little bow in front.

“It works for grandpas, too,” said Maria, who’s a grandma.

“I’ll be stylish in the shower,” I said. “And it will go right to my head.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima