Graduation Day

I was 25.

A third of my life had been in college resulting in BA and DDS markers. I was soon underway, in three weeks, to be a federal prison USPHS dentist.

But my signature recall of all my scholastic events was my Dad,withered at 55, bound in a wheel chair, looking deeply into my eyes as if a throw, saying two words. "Congratulations Doctor."

Like a baby turtle in a tar ball gulf, the annual skim of smokers soon took my Dad away, and an uncle and others.