I just got my first adult tooth pulled. It’s way over at the top right so I don’t miss it, but it is the first time I have been missing a tooth for fifty-five years. It is amazing how painless dentistry is these days.

When it comes to real pain, women are far braver than men. A man would pass out at the pain of childbirth, but women want to SEE that human being they have been living with for nine months.

Also it is a part of a man’s function NOT to put up with pain. Men are supposed to fight back. If the man doesn’t fight back, who is going to, the women and children? Women learn patience for their role in life, but they are in bad trouble if the men who are supposed to fight back learn to accept whatever comes.

Right now I wish I were a member of the group that calls itself “The Greatest Generation.”

I have been in pain for a week but didn’t think much of it. Friday I went to the dentist for my regular tooth cleaning and discovered that I have an cracked tooth under a crown. My gum is about to rupture from it.

I will see my regular dentist today for a root canal. In the meantime the dentist on duty gave me heavy antibiotics and the pain pill you put in the peanut to stun an elephant.

I was in serious pain, but I marched on.

If I were one of those who call themselves The Greatest Generation, I could announce that this was just one more proof of how no man has ever been as brave as I am.

Unfortunately, I was raised around the “Greatest Generation” and I am sick to death of their macho crap.

I like to make fun of myself largely because I got tired of that crowd taking themselves so seriously.

I have met many people in the burn ward who would give anything if they were able to take a little while off from their agony and invade Normandy. History is full of people who suffered a lot more than “The Greatest Generation” did.

My mountain ancestors faced conditions all their lives that made World War II and the Great Depression look like a picnic. They took on the Indians face to facce and it takes unlimited gall for someone to claim that they are the Greatest Generation because they fought a war abroad.

What other people call Macho is what I call trashy.

White trash is always getting drunk and moaning about how hard they have it and how easy everybody else has it.

If people of a certain age do the same thing they are called “The Greatest Generation.”