Having recently turned 79, and as a survivor of 11 surgeries (including two kidney transplants, a brace of knee replacements, a cardiac bypass, and a spinal fusion procedure), this seems a propitious time to reflect on the adventure that has been my life. (It seems unwise to delay much longer!) And in the tranquil and clarifying afterglow of hindsight, I realize that vigorous labor and sustained valor have been the primary driving forces of my existence. Each quality has prodigious value in its own right, but when strategically employed in tandem, they can explode like rocket fuel.
As to work: I was the first of five children born into my industrious, honorable, but blue-collar family. Dad (Milton Garvin Wilde) was employed in a factory, eventually becoming the foreman. He also hunted, fished, and gardened to provide food, and frequently held a second part-time job. A very busy mother and housewife, Mom (Jeanne Elizabeth Kehr Wilde) didn’t reenter the formal labor force until her last child, Jerry, was three, and I was 16.
Although Mom and Dad encouraged my dreams, they were unable to help finance my higher education. But somehow, I’d always known I’d attend college, and realized that paying for it would be entirely my obligation. With that preferred future in mind, when I was ten years old, I became a Des Moines Register newspaper carrier. I delivered for over 1,000 consecutive mornings and saved virtually every penny of my meager earnings.
At 13, I began working at the Lansing, Iowa Municipal Marina, where I toiled 7 days and 70 hours a week. I held that position for five summers, until, at 17, I matriculated at the University of Iowa. I’d already established a robust work ethic, and by rigorously saving, I’d demonstrated my understanding of, and commitment to, achieving my long-term goal. But the significant sacrifices of my youth, including rising early every summer morning for seven years and laboring long hours at the harbor, had demanded a bold choice. (My $3,000 of 1964 savings would be worth $31, 367 in 2025 dollars. Not a bad start for a kid!)
My college employment included three months on a haying crew, a summer in a sawmill (by far the most demanding and dangerous task I ever undertook), being an assistant janitor in a power plant, a gas station attendant, and a correctional officer in two maximum-security prisons. With money I’d accumulated before university and summer jobs while in college, I paid 100% of my expenses during my first five years at Iowa.
The summer before my sixth year began, I married the lovely Joann Mc.; and although we were both full-time students, we managed to remain solvent during our first year together. But an excess of enthusiasm and a shocking lack of judgment on our initial anniversary led to a surprise (!) pregnancy. We had no health insurance, and the blessing of John Junior’s impending birth and concomitant childcare expenses pushed us beyond the edge of fiscal sustainability.
Growing up poor, debt (the mortgaging of one’s future to pay for the present, as I understand it) was, and remains for me, anathema. We couldn’t live more frugally (our Quonset hut rent was $68 a month), so I had to increase our income. From 1970 to 1972, during my final two years as a dental student, except for the summers when I was otherwise occupied, I worked 40 hours per week as a University of Iowa Campus Police Officer. Dental students attended class from 8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday (an additional 40-hour week), so I had to be employed at night and/or on weekends. The police job met this inviolable criterion, but enduring the distress of 80-hour workweeks, studying, and having scant time to sleep proved challenging.
The summers after my junior and senior years, I worked at the outstanding dental office of Dr. David S. Few such opportunities were available, and students had to secure their own positions. But this intrepid choice demanded great sacrifice. My first year as an extern, I lived in Dr. S’s house and was paid $80 per week (the rate set by the university). We had one car, and Joann and baby Johnny kept our vehicle in Iowa City. I learned far more in Dr. S’s office than I had during a school year, but I saw Joann and Johnny only once during those three months.
After graduation, but before reporting for basic training in San Antonio, I was employed a second summer as a fully accredited dentist in Dr. S.’s practice and was paid a percentage of my production. Dr. S’s family went on an extended European tour, so we lived in his house rent-free, and saved enough to pay off my entire accumulated $5,000 in student loan debt. I felt this was a handsome reward for the anguish of my previous lonely summer.
As to courage: Like my work ethic, bravery grew from a tender age. My hometown of Lansing, Iowa, lies directly on the banks of the Mississippi. It is a tough old river town (population 1,000) without any police presence. Self-reliance was essential, as no government agency was coming to save us. However, all the fathers of my time were veterans of WW II, and these world conquerors were willing and able to act independently.
Our parents were busy, so my friends and I grew up with minimal direct supervision. Many of our routine youthful activities would be considered egregiously dangerous today. We climbed tall, riverside trees often, rode bikes without protective equipment, and occasionally, just for fun, swam the half-mile main channel of the Mississippi River to Wisconsin and back without flotation devices or an accompanying boat. Such acts didn’t strike us as brave, merely fun, but daring was required.
While working in the marina, I had my mettle severely tested numerous times. When I was 15, a tornado roared up the river’s main channel. Despite the 50 two-ton anchors holding everything in place, the storm piled our docking system and the vessels within against the Northeast corner of the breakwater.
In the teeth of that tempest, beneath an ominously dark grey-green sky and torrential rains, it was my duty to dock a boat piloted by a very pregnant and terrified young lady. I got her headed to the harbor’s office and secured her bucking craft. But as I fled toward safety, the twister hit and tossed me twenty-five feet over water. I landed amidst three red rubber garbage cans on the stern deck of a moored houseboat. Despite being bumped and bruised, I toiled long into that night, trying to set things aright, as nearly everything in the harbor was destroyed.
My most memorable juvenile dance with death occurred when my father and I saved two elderly fishermen trapped within the ferocious vortex of a barge’s bow. Our home sat directly on the banks of the Mississippi, and I saw the massive ship engulf the small craft through our kitchen window while cleaning up after work. I raced to a sandy beach just below our home and seized a stranger’s boat. Dad reluctantly joined my rescue attempt only after I insisted I would go to their aid alone. He was furious with me afterward, as we could easily have drowned. But I couldn’t stand by and watch those men perish.
However, my most severe tests of fortitude happened during the springs of 1971 and 1972, when the campus erupted in massive Vietnam War protests (which closed the university, thus eliminating my final exams both years). The Kent State Massacre occurred during anti-war demonstrations on May 4, 1970. Four students were killed, and nine were wounded when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on the assembled demonstrators. Iowa’s campus police were very aware of this tragedy; but, armed only with blue uniforms, a pad of paper, and a pencil, we faced a seemingly endless and roiling sea of increasingly more enraged activists.
It was my duty to hold a position literally inches from the faces of screaming demonstrators. We were spat on and called pigs, among less flattering sobriquets, loudly and at close range. We had neither training nor riot gear. (A face shield would have been nice.) Did a police presence help? I don’t see how, and one could argue that we further incited the mob. I was graduating and leaving Iowa City in a few weeks, so I could have resigned, but I fulfilled what I felt was my obligation.
Volunteering to join the army during a time of conflict required fortitude, as dentists were also sent to Vietnam. As a captain, my annual remuneration of $16,000 was about 10% of the profit from my first year of private practice. But I come from a military family, with both Grandfathers and Uncle Bill serving in WW I. Dad was a five-year veteran of WW II, and during that struggle, his brother and my namesake, John, perished. An unabashed American patriot, I’ve always been extremely proud of my service, despite having only fixed soldiers’ teeth for two years in the relative safety of Fort Lewis, WA.
Some benefits of work: during my six months in Dr. S.’s practice, where time is money, I’d become much more efficient. My five peers in our Fort Lewis clinic had only dental school experience, where two fillings a day was the norm. Proceeding at my accustomed pace, I placed 2-3 times the number of their restorations. I believe that, partly because of this elevated level of production, I was offered a year in an advanced training curriculum that was available only to career officers (which I never intended nor pretended to be).
In my first three-month rotation, working closely with a specialist, I performed root canals for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and completed more endodontic procedures than most dentists do over their careers. During my oral surgery cycle, I extracted an average of 40 teeth per day. Similar advanced training in the treatment of gum disease and denture construction followed. I left that program an exceedingly skilled and extremely self-assured 27-year-old professional.
After being discharged, our then family of four moved to Keokuk, Iowa, where I would practice for 40 years. I could have secured a position as another dentist’s employee with a set monthly remuneration, as beginning a solo practice meant going deeply into debt, without any guaranteed income. But work history and daring played a part again.
My experience with Dr. S. and the enhanced military program had developed my abilities and boosted my confidence. But now my risky choice affected my wife and kids, so, as frightened as I was excited, I worked six days a week. By the end of my first year, I’d paid off the entire cost of my office’s construction.
I contend that this brief life history concretizes my theory that courageous daring (at its best and wisest, an offspring of hard-earned confidence), combined with unstilting toil, can create momentous accomplishment. Choosing these paths demanded accepting discomfort and making sacrifices, but my efforts yielded remarkable personal growth and numerous tangible rewards that continue to enrich my existence.
During a 30-year nonfiction writing career, Dr. John A. Wilde published six books and 240 articles, most of the latter appearing in international magazines with an average circulation of approximately 145,000, all related to his professional career. New to fiction, Dr. Wilde has published seven stories in literary magazines since January, 2025.
