Conversation with a King

In the summer of 1948, upon learning that Port St. Joe dentist Bill Lewis was poised to retire, 23-year-old Robert King boarded a Jacksonville bus.

King had just passed the Dental Board Exam and sought a location for his first dental office.

Not knowing where he might land, King also passed the boards in Alabama and Georgia.

A traveling dental supply salesman gave King the heads up on Lewis, who was being forced by illness to retire.

The trip marked King's Horatio Alger moment - his chance to rise above humble beginnings and make it big in a land of opportunity.

But when he awakened in Panama City after a long nap, King found he had missed his Port St. Joe connection.

A $15 taxi ride carried King into the city on a barely paved two-lane road.

Stopping to refresh himself at the White Spot restaurant, King stared down a glass filled with black water.

He had never seen anything like it, not in his hometown of Luverne, Ala., or anywhere he'd been.

It was, King recalled, the "worst water in the world."

Despite the less than stellar water quality, King stuck around, founding a dental practice that still thrives 60 years later.

Drafted

On his way to becoming a dentist, King got an unexpected boost from Uncle Sam.

In 1943, King had completed one year at Auburn University when his oldest sister, Mary Lou, gave him some bad news.

Mary Lou worked as a draft board executive secretary and knew that her brother would soon be drafted.

"She told me there wasn't any need to go back to school because my name was coming up," said King.

King never saw combat in World War II.

After completing Infantry Replacement Training at Camp Fannin in Tyler, Tex., King was among a group of young men selected for the Army Specialized Training Program.

"The Army knew there'd be a gap between dentists and physicians for the next few years," noted King, who enrolled in Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.

The program allowed King to study dentistry for one term. Upon his acceptance at Emory University's dental school, the Army released him after less than a year and a half of service.

 King studied at Emory under the GI Bill, alongside young men who'd returned from the war.

"Practically all the boys were vets - just about everybody," he said.

Lone Dentist

In Port St. Joe, King set up shop in a two-story building on Monument Ave., across from the current CVS Pharmacy.

The building, owned by the late Sally Costin, also housed the Modern Beauty Salon and Wall Electric Company.

In the fashion of the times, King's dental office, with its single examination room, was on the second floor.

As the town's only dentist, King frequently found himself summoned to the office at odd hours to perform emergency procedures.

"If anything happened, I had to do it. Broken jaws, things like that," said King, who did not always oblige small requests.

"I didn't mind getting up for an accident, but I wouldn't get up for a toothache."

With the nearest oral surgeons in Pensacola and Thomasville, Ga., King also performed surgeries such as root canals.

King charged $100 for the procedure, a price he now calls a bargain - "Soon as I quit, they're making $400-$500 a piece."

Dentistry in the late 1940s was not for the faint of heart.

King hired one female helper who quit after only two days on the job.

Her reason for leaving: "I have not been able to eat since I started that."

Settling In

 When King arrived in Port St. Joe in 1948, the paper mill, in its first decade, employed most of the city's residents.

King was no stranger to small town living.

His hometown of Luverne had a population of 2,500 people and not much in the way of industry.

Every family who lived in the agricultural community had a small farm. A backyard cow supplied the Kings with milk and butter.

King's father, Christopher, owned a meat market and butchered cattle raised on his brother's farm.

When the Depression hit, King's father paid off his debts and took a job at the local sawmill, making $5.50 a week.

"All he ended up with was the house, but he didn't owe anybody," said King.

In Port St. Joe, King settled into a home on Palm Blvd, which featured a row of nearly identical houses built on 47 1/2-foot lots.

He married Janet Whitaker, an "old farm girl" from Montrose, Ga., who'd come to Port St. Joe with two friends seeking work as teachers.

The couple had three children: Karen, Chris and Cuyler.

When it came time to build a family home, King scored a priceless gift from his uncle, an Alabama contractor: the bricks from the old Luverne courthouse.

Placed near King's front door, one brick gives the courthouse's construction date: June 9, 1897.

Chef's Hat

Though being the town's only dentist kept King busy, he found time to dabble in other things.

King and his wife founded the Fish House restaurant in Mexico Beach, which had formerly been a dress shop.

Janet King, who retired from teaching to raise her children, worked seven days a week in the restaurant.

King vouched for his wife's culinary expertise - "Mrs. King is a good cook. Man, she can cook."

On Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, when he did not have to rise for work in the mornings, King broiled seafood in the area's first infrared broiler.

According to King, the restaurant also boasted the area's first tap beer.

When he was not serving up seafood, King dedicated his time to Kiwanis Club projects.

He joined the civic club in December 1948, when it was a male-only society, and is now the longest standing member.

Among the Kiwanis Club's many accomplishments, King is most proud of the club's establishment of one part-time and two full-time scholarships at the Gulf Coast Community College Gulf/Franklin Center.

King recalled one scholarship recipient, a Highland View girl, who went on to become a college professor and author of a mathematics book.

Despite his distinguished tenure as a Port St. Joe Kiwanian, King still gets no respect from his peers.

To commemorate his recent 84th birthday, the club presented King with two gifts - a dirt cake and balloon that read "Older Than Dirt."

"Patch it Up"

During his early years in Port St. Joe, King would sometimes work six days a week.

He now works Monday through Wednesday at his Long Avenue office, leaving him plenty of time to work in his garden, planting radishes, carrots and all types of greens.

King is no longer the town's only dentist - Dr. Frank May and the Gulf County Health Department are competitors - but he still has patients who have been loyal to him for decades.

King has also found an assistant with a stronger stomach than the one who fled so many years ago. Mary Carmel Griffin has been at his side for the last 37 years.

In his 60 years in the business, King has witnessed many changes in the dental industry.

He described the high speed drill as the most significant technological advancement, saving dentists time and effort.

Though a media culture that prizes straight, white teeth has made cosmetic dentistry a big business, King prefers to stick with the basics.

King has never added teeth straitening and other cosmetic procedures to his repertoire.

He still favors amalgam fillings, made of liquid mercury and an alloy powder composed of silver, tin and copper, and worries that modern crowns are "too white - they don't match the other teeth."

Today's economic climate has impacted King's business, with customers rejecting costly procedures in favor of quick fixes.

"People don't want a crown anymore. They say, 'Patch it up,' and I understand that, too,'" he said.

A boy when his father lost his meat market, King believes today's economic woes will never rival those of the Great Depression.

"As bad as it can get his time, it cannot be that bad today," said King, who is confident that the economy will rebound.

"We survived that one. We're going to survive this one."