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In the television world, the most-valuable asset to making a good show starts with picking a great cast. There are shows that you can think of, I'm quite sure, that you can't envision without one or two of the main leads. They "make" the show. I don't know how your office has gone about hiring, but you do it the right way. You surround the facility with fabulous hires and I can't imagine your practice without these people. To me, they are that important. Yes, this week Laura Smith was the "star that shone" because all I had to do was have my teeth cleaned. But, Dr. McKay, Glenna, Kathy, Zshaynelle, and others, have been the main cast on other trips and I've NEVER, not once, had a "bad show" at the office. In fact, all of you would win "Emmy's" in the business world, if I had my say. I had a minor stroke about a year ago. I fell into a grave, as a child, and spent a day trying to get out. Do you know how hard it is for a person who has faced those incidents to trust people to work in their mouths? Any blockage of oxygen reminds me of being in a small grave with the dirt falling down on me. This time, I'll brag about Laura Smith. No offense to my own wife or covetous intended, but I've never met a more fascinating person than Laura Smith. She is so knowledgeable, bubbly, full of pep, and filled to the brim--and then some--with interesting thoughts and stories that the only person she couldn't make feel comfortable in a chair would be a corpse. I always look forward to her telling me about her husband and extended family, talking about her health, laughing about her own follies, sharing how schools give kids way too much homework, whatever. When I show up to have a cleaning, I know I'll leave feeling like I just watched a great TV series or read an outstanding book. And, ALL of your staff has that effect. I was too poor, as a child, to afford to see a dentist. My teeth look like old, crooked tombstones with many cracks (but, then again, how many of your clients ate ice cubes for meals because their parents were too poor to afford even a ten-cent bag of hotdogs?). Some actors and actresses want the big stage, to be in the limelight. My teeth will never show up on your television in the waiting room, showing how nice they are. It'd be easy for some actors and actresses to blow off "lesser roles" because they feel it is below their dignity. See, that never happens when my mouth full of shards shows up in the waiting room of sailing iconography. My teeth get the same "star treatment" as the people with the nice, white, straight teeth whose smiles bring you business. No one says to me, "Your teeth look great! Who's your dentist." But, you do get referrals from me, anyway. I feel like Edith Bunker, always silently sitting, waiting for that one moment to speak my mind. When I hear someone ask for a dental referral, I go into "Edith" mode. I share unabashed about Dr. McKay and staff. I don't just give the name and number, I tell stories from Laura and Zshaynelle playing off one another's personality to Kathy tapping my arm and REALLY caring when I had a moment of pain. Your "show" is so good I like the reruns. I will look at my teeth, sometime, and think, "Man, I don't have a cavity at the moment. What a good job they did last time." And I'll not only rerun that last visit, I'll stop to thank God for your business. That's the final thing I need to say...I love the Christian Spirit in your place of business. God bless you all! Pray for me that, somehow, my wife will go back to a dentist (she hasn't been to one since she was a teen and had braces, I believe). Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and I'll remember all of you in my Thanksgiving prayers. We all face plenty of pain on earth. I'm glad, to date, I haven't had to face it at Dr. McKay's very often. J

When I moved from Lubbock to Fort Worth in 1974, to begin a new job at Witherspoon & Associates, an advertising/public relations firm there, among the adjustments and necessary tasks I faced was initiating a relationship with a dentist.

There were doctors to meet and to whom to bare my health history, and the requisite mechanics, plumbers and electricians to get to know. But finding a new dentist was at the top of the list.

Dentists, orthodontists and oral surgeons were health providers familiar to me.

I’ve been a dedicated, albeit reluctant dental health patient all my life, far more dedicated than I’ve wanted to be. But at 25, knowing, by way of the vigilance of good parents, the importance of good hygiene, I was eager to find a young dentist who’d grow old with my teeth and me.

I believe it was Roger Rienstra, my new boss at Witherspoon, who suggested I try his dentist, Dr. James V. McKay. Because his father, Vernon McKay, was a longtime, respected doctor in my hometown, Lamesa, Texas, I immediately recognized the name and knew this young dentist had to be his son.

After only one visit, in his offices on Magnolia and Eighth Avenue, I knew Dr. McKay would be my dentist, from then on — not just because he was from Lamesa, but because of his high standards, diligent care and wise counsel on improving my oral health.

During my time at Witherspoon, I enthusiastically recommended others at our company to become patients, including Jane Schlansker and Bob Howald. And after we began our own company, Stuart Bacon, I brought Randy Bacon into the fold.

Measured in the highest professional standards alone, Dr. McKay has no peer. But his genuine interest and concern, like that of his exceptional staff, go far beyond the incomparable professionalism every patient must feel in his care. He makes time and every effort to know his patients, and he cares about each one’s complete wellbeing, even happiness.

I suppose in time, I’ll have to find another dentist, now that I’ve moved to Albany, Texas, a small town north of Abilene, a town that manages to exist, somehow, without a full-time doctor or a dentist. Still, I won’t be in a hurry to make that search, if I ever do at all.

Dr. McKay is my dentist, and I’ll be grateful always that he is that.

But I’m even more thankful that he’s my friend.