Dental Tech School Oddities(Radrook) Fascinating how varied human personalities can be-isn't it? I began to realize this when attending Dental Tech at the age of 17. It was a small school located on the high, second floor of a small building on Plane Street in the downtown area of Newark New Jersey. We had to ascend this long, narrow stairway to get to it.

It consisted of a large, rectangular, main room, where all the learning took place. An ante-room, where coats were left during winter. And an office. Unexpectedly, I met many interesting people from all over the world there.

Below I describe some of these characters.

Two were this short Nordic-looking German fellow, and a short dark Italian fellow who were the best of friends, and would throw things at one another in a playful way when the teachers were absent. Never spoke much with the German dude, but had plenty of conversations with the Italian guy. What surprised me most, was his perfect ability to read Spanish easily and fluently, something I was unable to do at that time, and would only begin to learn six years later.

Well, despite their initial friendliness, he and the German finally wound up almost throwing hands for some reason. Maybe an object was thrown and injured one of them? All I remember is the Italian fellow warning the German in his usual monotone deep voice, pointing his index finger at him and repeatedly saying:

"Don't touch my face!"

Then there was this short fellow from Barbados who couldn't seem able to pronounce the letter L in the word flux, a chemical we would add to the molten metal in order to remove impurities created by the torch flame as we were melting it, and just pronounced the letter U. The sound, would of course, come out as "fux", and no matter how many times we told him that he was cursing, he always blinked in confusion and persisted.

There was also this cadaverous, high-strung, and very garrulous American war-veteran, who had suffered severe damage to his digestive system from an exploding grenade, and who was always telling us that he was forced to eat many tiny meals a day because he only had a small part of his stomach left.

He was also a pianist who was always trying the lure us into taking private lessons for a fee. Unfortunately, he never succeeded in convincing me. A great opportunity that I missed to learn to play a wonderful instrument.

Another was this American fellow who was in the Military reserves and who was always talking about the times that he spent in Mexico at a bordello called Papagayos, which in Spanish means Father Rooster, and was always waxing melodic about a certain unusually long-legged woman there. Eventually, to me it seemed as if he was spending more time at Papagayos' than in military training.

Then we had this chubby, elderly, Anglo-American senior-citizen with an unusually rotund, large head and bulging cheeks, who had a morbid fear of dentists and who very nervously kept referring to them as butchers.

"They are all sadistic butchers!" he would repeatedly and nervously say while blinking rapidly and looking as if about to be attacked by one.

We kidded around about his unusually large rotund-shaped head. But one day, to our astonishment, he arrived at the school with his head even larger. He started moving it from side to side and groaning in pain due to an infected tooth, and refusing to go to the dentist.

The only thing he said when told to go to have it fixed was:

"They are all butchers!"

Then there was Mr. Engles, the short, skinny, eighty-seven year old Jewish assistant-teacher, who was always vehemently shouting at the short, blonde, Nordic-looking German student, and angrily telling us afterwards, that Germans couldn't be trusted. But that was between him and that student. This was close to the end of WWII, and who knew what emotional scars he was dealing with due to Hitlers NAZI policies.

So what really rankled us about him was that he would wait for us to be eating lunch in order to casually stroll over and remove his nasty-looking full-denture, lower it close to our faces, and begin pointing out how it demonstrated the supposedly correct way to set up prosthetic teeth in wax. Apparently, he either didn't notice our disgusted expressions, or else was getting some kind of a kick from ruining our lunch.

Then there was this young, short, black Jamaican guy who was always softly crooning Johnny Mathis songs, such as "You'll Never Know" "It's not for me to Say," Misty" and so on, in an almost inaudible voice, and with a broad smile of self-satisfaction on his face. I must admit, that I learned some things from him about singing. We also did some boxing during which he claimed he had no room to maneuver as an excuse for not being able to land a single blow.

Then we had Mr. Kenter, the senior-citizen Anglo American owner of the school and teacher, who would blush cherry-red whenever he mentioned that that he had been on his way to work. This unexpected blushing would happen only at the utterance of the word "work". It was as if he didn't feel quite comfortable using the word "work" in reference to what he was doing all day long at the school.

Actually, he would spend most of the time in his office, and would only emerge now and then to give a lecture about the history of Dental Technology in the USA or about some other related issue, and would then promptly disappear into his small office again for the remainder. What he was doing in there during the remaining long hours, is anybody's guess.

But among all these people, the one I remember most is this young, black Jamaican lady who slightly resembled Whoopee Goldberg. First, because she had a peculiarly high-pitched voice which made understanding what she was saying very difficult. Since she was very talkative, of course, understanding her was necessary.

But this was secondary. What I mostly remember her for are her almost deadly antics whoever she attempted to use lab's oven that was used to melt away wax and leave a red-glowing matrix ready to be infused with molten metal that would assume the shape of a hollow tooth draped around model of the patient's tooth-stump, after the centrifugal-force machine would shoot the molten metal into it.

Now, the problem wasn't the procedure itself which was fairly simple. The problem was the potentially deadly way in which she handled it. You see, she would casually stroll over to this oven and turn on the gas. Then she would calmly stroll around with this sleepy look on her face, while softly mumbling something to herself that to us sounded like: "Weee Weee Weeee!" and searching for a match.

Unfortunately, finding that essential match would usually take her approx. a minute or more, during which time the oven, as well as the rest of the school, were becoming filled with gas. Then, as if there had been absolutely no urgency at all, she'd very casually saunter over to the oven with the match, light it, and Balaaam! The explosion would send the heavy, metal, oven-door swiveling upwards on its hinges, crashing into its upper part and then slam shut as if a shot-gun blast had gone off. The entire school-building would shudder. Simultaneously she would make a high pitched sound of:

"Whoooooo!" and begin uttering something in her customary high-pitched voice with a Jamaican accent.

Well, out from his tiny office would shoot the school-owner, Mr. Kenter, looking as pale as a ghost, and struggling to stay calm while asking what the hell was going on. She, in response, would appear completely surprised that this had happened, as he began slowly lecturing her about the dangers of turning on the gas and then go casually searching for a match.

"You can blow the school up!" he finally attempted to say calmly while blinking nervously.

But no matter how many times she was reminded, it was always the same terrifying thing. Whenever she approached that oven, I actually feared for my life. Yet she seemed to take the entire matter in stride as if nothing unusual had happened at all while mumbling something unintelligible in her high-pitched voice after her customary "Whooooo!" after all of us were almost blown to pieces.

A very interesting character indeed!

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