One of the reasons I was a loner in High school is that I had extremely bad breath, a nasty odor as a result of rotten teeth. It stemmed back to my childhood in Creston BC and a traumatic experience there with a local dentist. I was very young when they had to pull a tooth that was abscessed, and the freezing didn’t work. This was in the 1960’s so they just went full speed ahead, the tooth broke apart and I was in such pain they could hear my gurgling screams out in the waiting room.
As a result of that experience, I was terrified of dentists and later, in my teen years, when a molar began to rot out and expose the nerves, I didn’t tell anyone. Instead, I used ground cloves from the spice cabinet to pack into the hole in the tooth to dull the ache. To this day I don’t like the taste of cloves. At night I would run hot water over my cheek and slowly increase the temperature until the heat would turn the side of my face beet red but the pain would ease to where I could sleep. This was the same side that would later develop the tumor that plays into the start of the Cor Series of books.
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Needless to say, a rotten tooth makes for rotten breath and there was not enough mints or mouthwash to eradicate that bad odor. When you can smell your own breath without even cupping a hand outside your mouth, you know it’s pretty bad. It inspired the wretched smell that turns Kate’ stomach whenever the old man gets close to her. My solution was to never let people get that close. I avoided people, especially in close quarters, like sitting across from them in the high school cafeteria. In my three years of senior high I never once ate lunch at school. Instead, I would go home even though it was a mile away and 30 below in the winter.
Eventually I would go back to the dentist and get my teeth fixed and finally, at the end of High School I began to socialize a bit and hang out in the hallway outside the cafeteria. I would eventually meet my wife Sherri on graduation night, 1979. After staying up all night we went back to the school for a final graduation breakfast. It was the first and only meal I ever ate the cafeteria and with another person across the table from me. Thankfully my breath issues were fully resolved and a short time later, Sherri became the first and only person I have kissed in my life.
