From the Desk of Dr. James Long

Dr. James Long

Leave the Bottle Full for Others

The following appeared in the University of Tennessee Alumni publication a few years ago. It expresses so well what the Foundation of the Pierre Fauchard Academy is all about. I have kept this in my files for years and would like to share it with you at this time.

Bruce Larson, in his book Dare to Live, retells the legend of Desert Pete. Travelers across a seldom-used trail in the Amargosa Desert would pass an old pump that offered the only hope of fresh drinking water along their journey. Wired to the pump was a baking powder can containing a handwritten note:

This pump is all right as of June 1932. I put a new sucker washer into it and it ought to last five years. But the washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed. Under the white rock I buried a bottle of water out of the sun, the cork end up. There's enough water into to prime the pump, but not if you drink some first. Pour about one fourth and let her soak to wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast and pump like crazy. You'll git water. The well has never run dry. Have faith. When you git watered up, fill the bottle and put it back like you found it for the next feller.

Desert Pete

Desert Pete's story provides ample food for thought. If the travelers had faith, they used the bottle water to prime the pump ... and were rewarded with all the water they could drink. They then had to decide whether to honor Desert Pete's instructions to leave the bottle full for others. A mean-spirited man might be tempted not to bother refilling the bottle. Fortunately, most people recognize that they must depend on one another.

The Foundation of the Pierre Fauchard Academy has been the beneficiary of many "Desert Pete"s over the years. I would invite each of you Fellows to join the world of "Desert Pete"s, people who have decided to fill the bottle and put it back for the next fellow by a financial contribution to your Foundation. Any gift, or remembrance of the Foundation in your will, is going to "fill the bottle" and give to those less fortunate a better quality of life through the Foundation Grants Programs.

Unto whom much is given, much is expected!