My Dentistry Career
CRUSHED by the late MARSHALL PATTON
Growing up in a small town, and working every type of job imaginable, makes a guy think there is nothing he cannot do. During high school, I rode horses, worked in service stations, drove trucks, worked in lumber yards, and pipe yards; just about anything that paid a little money, I could and would do it. My confidence in being up to any task finally hit a snag. I took up the roll of the resident dentist while contesting in rodeos. I do not remember how it started, but my fame spread rapidly. My entire scope of dental care consisted of pulling teeth. Cowboys were far too busy they thought to give much attention to their teeth. When someone had a toothache or broke a tooth while competing the quick answer was to find Marsh and get him to pull the tooth. These emergencies usually happened on weekends when no dental office was open. The routine was about the same all the time. A guy would have an infected tooth, or a tooth got broken off by an animal or some other cowboy who had a different opinion from the victim. Of course, pain killers were not available except maybe one hundred proof whiskey. Someone came to get me and told me that I had a patient waiting for me. So, without ceremony, I took a pair of short-handled pliers and persuaded the sufferer to sit down at about the right height. With someone holding his head, I determined where the bad tooth was, and just clamped down and started pulling and jerking. This is much more of a testimony to the cowboy’s high threshold of pain than it is to my ability as a dentist. Nowadays, doctors are so concerned about bacteria getting to your system that you must take a round of potent pills to ward off such dangers before your heart, brain, or something else gets poisoned. The last time I needed a tooth pulled, my doctor sent me to a specialist. The charge was $800.00. It is a miracle that I did not kill a dozen cowboys. During the mid-1950s I was working the Phoenix rodeo and in addition to the Bulldogging, I was entered
32 THE CORRIDOR MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2022
in the Wild Horse Race with Billy Weeks and Bob Ferguson. Bob served in the Marines during WWII. His exploits were legendary, and during his service in the Pacific he saved the life of his platoon leader. The young lieutenant was wounded and captured by the Japanese. Bob pulled off a miracle by dragging his lieutenant through mud, sludge, and Japanese soldiers until they reached relative safety. Bob did not know it at the time, but his Lieutenant came from a very wealthy family. The Lieutenant and his family were eternally grateful to Bob and stood by him later in life even when he was mixed up in more than a few clashes with trouble. Bob was top hand riding bareback horses and bulls. He had wonderful and beautiful blonde wife. She was a racer and a good one. The thing Bob could not do was play poker. Once he had lost all his money and gambled away his wife’s horse. He finally bought the horse back at a premium. However, a little incident left his wife with a bad case of the jitters and she developed a habit of stall walking when Bob became tardy showing up in places he should be. Well, it was well past mid-morning on Sunday and the Phoenix rodeo began at one o’clock sharp. Bob had not shown up all night and his wife and I were getting pretty antsy about Bob’s whereabouts, albeit for different reasons. Every few minutes Billy Weeks and I held a conference and weighed the chances of Bob showing up on time, and should we try to recruit someone else to take his place on our wild horse team. We soon nixed the idea of a recruit . The wild horse race was profitable money-making event but only with a good three-man team. It was not worth getting killed over. We sent out couriers and scouts to try to locate the biggest stakes poker game going at the time. All inquires came up empty. I did not know what to say to Bob’s wife. The several things I thought of all seemed hollow when I ran them through my mind. At 12:30, thirty minutes before the rodeo was to start, Billy Weeks and I decided to wait five more minutes
