At Large in Ballard by Peggy Sturdivant

Dr. Davis called out to me, "I'm graduating today."

"I know," I replied, sharing a smile with Denise, one of his assistants. "My daughter got your last open appointment."

Thirty-one years after opening his pediatric dentist office in Crown Hill, Monday, Dec. 10 was Dr. John M. Davis' last day seeing patients. In honor of the day I sat on a miniature chair in an examining room as though my daughter was still five years old.

There were clues that Dr. Davis was planning to retire - for example his seeing patients just once a week, and then starting last year, only one day per month. But still I held on, even if took months for an appointment it was worth it to try to see my daughter's dental care all the way through childhood with the man who transformed her from dental-phobic to dental-fanatic.

Joined in recent years by Dr. Jeffrey Marks (a former student) and Dr. Kristin Johannsen, Northwest Pediatric Dentistry on NW 85th (and with a Queen Anne location) will continue to treat children, but Dr. Davis will be visiting rather than practicing.

His office manager was stumped when asked how many families they've treated over the last 30-plus years. "Thousands," she said simply, "thousands." For years the practice has been seeing second generation patients; in some cases married couples learn they shared the same childhood dentist.

Dr. Davis has been my daughter's dentist since Thanksgiving Eve 1997, calling personally that first night to check on her. Over the last 10 years from my vantage point I've wondered, could there be another dentist so enthusiastic about dental hygiene? Or a dentist so willing to demonstrate yo-yo tricks and display his own overbite?

According to Denise, who has worked with Dr. Davis 28 years, it was always his goal to retire at age 70. He recently turned 72. The morning after his last day will be no different than any Tuesday - meeting his friend (and semi-retired orthodontist) Ray Decker to "try and keep up with firemen" while climbing stairs on Capitol Hill.

As usual Dr. Davis summoned me from my seat to admire my daughter's dental hygiene; then broached her wisdom teeth. "We'll need to do a panel on her next visit," he said automatically.

After my daughter was done, I didn't move.

"Are you really interested in talking to me about my last day?" he said. "It's lunch hour so we can talk."

So after 10 years of examination discussions, my daughter's dentist sat down next to me in the waiting room. It's always strange how you can interact with someone for decades, and not really know them. Or maybe you did know their essence; it was just the particulars that were lacking.

I learned that Mrs. John Davis is none other than Patricia Davis, the first woman commissioner on the Port of Seattle, an elected official since 1985. Dr. Davis was faculty at the University of Washington School of Dentistry until 2000, achieving tenure and co-authorship of a definitive work on pediatric dentistry within 9 years of his dental school graduation. He may possess the largest pediatric dentistry collection (images and case studies) in the country if not the world. He is co-author with Devereaux Peterson of The Comprehensive Online Textbook of Pediatric Dentistry, a sequel to The Atlas of Pediatric Dentistry, containing 3,500 pages of text and 2,500 color images.

Dr. Davis' first order of business in retirement is "to try to keep up with my wife." John and Pat have three grown children and four grandchildren. Dr. Davis lettered in track at UW and has vowed never to stop exercising "my mind or my body". He makes his life sound one long piece of good fortune, such as, "I was lucky enough to be invited into the Army just after the Berlin wall was erected." He's had good health, good friends, a job that he has always loved, his family and lifelong joy in working with young people, dating back to Boy Scout days in Wenatchee. Seventy-two years old but he's as bouncy as Tigger.

Dr. Davis has not been seeing new patients, just the students edging closer to graduation and adulthood; each of us parents selfishly hoping that we could get our child all the way through. Dr. Davis' retiring is a form of forced graduation, pushing his patients and their parents back out into the world of adult and family dentistry (where some of us were expelled in the first place).

Dr. Davis didn't want anything special for his last day, but admitted the last months have been "hard emotionally" because of the relationships with so many families, "and because a part of my life is coming to an end." When I comment on his seemingly endless enthusiasm, Dr. Davis just responds, "It's been a good fit for me. I meditate every day and thank my lucky stars."

I reminded him about calling us at home the first night that we met him. He looked almost shy for a moment, this ever jovial dentist. "It's because I cared," he said so sincerely that we both started to get emotional. In all my years on the little chair I never saw Dr. Davis less than enthusiastic about a child's mouth, as though each one was an extraordinary gift that he had the honor of opening. I suspect many children loved their dental visits; not for his treasure chest of rewards or his devoted staff who spoke in the vocabulary of "sugar bugs" and "happy air."

"You know," he said. "When I think over the years - there's no place in the State of Washington that I would have picked over Ballard for my practice." With that he asked, "Can we have a hug?"

"This isn't goodbye," I said.

"You got that right," he said.

Like thousands of his former patients it's Dr. Davis' turn to move on. It's the parents who feel left behind; missing a magical man who could even make a parent appreciate their child's bite.

Peggy can be reached through atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard/.