THE EDITOR'S CORNER

The start of the Bicentennial Year offers us the opportunity to indulge in some patriotic sentiment. There has been so much emphasis lately on what is wrong with America, that the youth of our country may well grow up thinking everything is wrong and nothing is right about it. Most orthodontists I know are the personification of the American Dream. Most of us were not born to wealth. Many of us were born to poverty. Yet, all of us were able to achieve a measure of personal, professional, social and economic accomplishment by dint of the inheritance of sound minds and bodies, by sacrifice on the part of our families and ourselves and by plain hard work.

This formula may not be available to everyone, but to everyone to whom it is available, the American Dream still lives and no one knows it better than we. So, what an unparalleled opportunity for orthodontists on the occasion of a year-long celebration of this country's bicentennial, to influence young people about the good things in America. Let us communicate our thoughts to our patients and their families using all of the devices with which we are familiar. Some of these things may become available commercially, but we can also create our own, expressing our own sentiments. These can be in the form of short messages inserted with bills and other communications, posters in the office, periodic letters to patients throughout the year, buttons, tee-shirts, all kinds of ways of expressing the message and stimulating the thought that this is a great and beautiful country whose citizens have a degree of freedom and an opportunity for health and happiness unparalleled anywhere in the world.