I have been fortunate in my time in Los Banos to have known many excellent dentists. These include Bill and Steve, who are not only superb dentists, but also friendly and congenial individuals.
Today I’m acknowledging a Los Banos dentist I was fortunate to find soon after I arrived in Los Banos in 1971: Dr. Ron Carter, who passed away on March 7. He had been my dentist for 53 years.
It was fate or providence that Ron had an office adjacent to my family physician, Dr. John Mevi, and near my optometrist, Dr. Sidney Emerson, all having suites in the same complex at 400 I Street, or as Dr. Emerson had on his business card, 400 Eye Street.
Little did I know when I walked into Dr. Carter’s office in 1971 and was greeted by Carolyn, his receptionist, that I and my family would continue to come to his office for dental work for the next half-century. It helped that Carolyn was not only Ron’s wife but also a cordial receptionist who also became my friend.
It was always a pleasure to come to Dr. Carter for my dental work.
“But wait,” I’m sure some readers may be saying to themselves. “Most people hate going to dentists. Some put off dental work for years because of their fear of dentistry.”
Ron, however, was one of the kindest, gentlest people I have known, who also had a great smile, and he treated his patients with kindness and gentleness, including my family members. Ron frequently said he did not want his patients to feel any pain or discomfort. As he talked while you were sitting in the dental chair, he enabled you to relax and feel at ease. There were times I fell asleep in that chair.
My first wife Susan, who passed away in 1999, had a phobia about dentists. Ron took the time to talk with her, calm her fears and continually ask her if anything hurt. It never did.
Ginny, Mike and Megan, my three children, all went to Dr. Carter for their dental work. Even as young children they were treated with respect and dignity, and none of them experienced pain.
Later my second wife Sandy went to Dr. Carter. One of her many good experiences came after she had suffered a traumatic fall and broke her two front teeth. Ron not only treated her with compassion, he created two new teeth for her with a state-of-the-art device he has just acquired for his office.
To be a really good dentist, of course, takes more than kindness. It takes expertise and competence, which Ron had in spades. He prided himself on being a craftsman (I would call him an artist). He kept up with the latest dentistry techniques and made sure he had the most current technology.
When I interviewed Ron for a story I wrote for The Westside Express in 2022, celebrating our 50th year of a dentist-patient relationship, he told me that he was especially proud of the work he does on crowns. “I’ve always enjoyed the craftsmanship involved in crowns ever since I was in dental school.”
He had to be good to fix my teeth. For the first 25 years of my life, I had several bad dentists. It also hadn’t helped that I had infrequent and poor dental hygiene.
Ron looked at my mouth, saw a disaster and did not run out of the room. Instead, he took it as a challenge to turn a mess into a crowning achievement, literally. He created crowns for so many of my teeth, work which has lasted for years. And he and his many excellent dental hygienists also educated me over the years in correct dental self-care.
Ron loved being a dentist. That’s why he kept working until a few months before he died, at age 88. In fact, recently when I went for my regular teeth cleaning, I asked the hygienist if Ron was in, that I’d like to talk with him, as I had four months before. When she told me that he had passed away, I was stunned as well as saddened.
In the obituary that his family wrote, which appeared in the April 9 Westside Express, it was clear that he treated his family and friends as kindly as he treated his patients.
As his obituary states, “As a husband, father, and grandfather, he was the epitome of love, support, and guidance. He took great pride in his family and his legacy will live on through the values he instilled in those who knew him. Ron was a person who could always be counted on, whether for a kind word, a welcoming smile, a helping hand or a great story.”
I consider it a blessing that I had Dr. Ron Carter in my life, not only as a superb dentist, but as a great friend. I’m sure his many grateful patients would agree. Ron will be deeply missed.
On another note: Longtime Los Banos resident Gary Caropreso corrected an error I had made in an article I wrote about Los Banos’ Colorado Park:
“John, I liked your information about Colorado Park, but the first game at the park was in June of 1959, not 1969. The first year it opened was my junior year in high school, when I was on a team that played on the park’s north field.”
