Princeton, NJ -- Dr. Michael Cortese, a longtime Princeton prosthodontist and a very important person in my life, died suddenly at the age of 69 on January 21, 2023. He wasn’t a close social friend of shared dinners, shared cigars, or shared rounds of golf, but simply someone who made me smile.

I like smiling at people and have been told I have a “nice” smile. But, full disclosure, I do not have a natural, God-given, nice smile. From a very young age, I have been cursed with troubled teeth, plus a propensity for falling flat on my face, breaking my nose, and knocking my teeth out on numerous occasions. I gave up caring about my nose decades ago, but my smile, when under assault, makes me very sad.

Dr. Cortese over the course of 35 years as my dentist managed to perform miraculous teeth reconstructions, putting Ms. Humpty Dumpty back together again. His guiding principle when rebuilding my smile was that he never ever accepted “good enough,” even when I, desperate to leap out of the dental chair after a two-hour session, begged for “good enough.” For Michael, it had to be just right – like the Baby Bear’s porridge, nothing else would do.

SIGNUPSCRIPT

His motivation and skill for creating beautiful reconstructions were a natural, God-given talent that apparently ran in his family. Although he had great training (including a certificate in Maxillofacial Prosthetics and Dental Oncology from the University of Texas Health Science Center M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute), the key to his smile-making magic was in his DNA. Michael, born in South Plainfield, New Jersey, often would regale me with stories about his Italian heritage – specifically related to creating and appreciating beautifully prepared meals and, most significantly, beautifully sculpted objects.

His grandfather on his mother’s side of the family was Anthony LoBianco from Palermo, Italy. He sculpted bronze objects for the Tiffany factory and worked on the bronze Prometheus statue that graces Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. Michael worked on his patients’ teeth with the same passion for beauty and excellence that his grandfather lent to the Tiffany bronze creations.

But Michael also made me smile with our conversations – either in the dental chair, where I was at a distinct disadvantage for responding, or at A Little Taste of Cuba, the cigar store on Witherspoon Street, which is a petri dish for expressing a variety of cultural and political opinions without insulting anyone. I never smoked a cigar, but often would hang outside the shop to engage in some smokin’ hot conversations with Michael, a regular customer of the cigar parlor.**BULLSEYE

Michael was a master at diversity-of-thought conversation. This is a concept in these toxic and divisive times that is as rare as communication by writing in script, an artform - totally alien to my grandkids - of making letters with ink, paper, and one’s hands.

He never hid his MAGA tendencies, and, to no one’s surprise, I am a mega anti-MAGA. But Michael sculpted a most commendable niche for himself in the MAGA environment by being a proponent of listening to those who disagreed with him. We often laughed over the fact that he undoubtedly planned his provocative comments during the times when I had to communicate through wads of gauze and Novocain numbness.

And most shocking to both of us was how at times we came to a consensus. Angie, his wife of 47 years, who handled the financial and patient satisfaction aspects of the practice, often urged him to lay off the political conversation that she feared would be so off-putting to some. But for me, the debates were invigorating – and distracting from what was going on in my mouth.**STANDARD

The other factor making his political opinions digestible, even if they gave me indigestion, was the fact that he was such a class act. He approached his job of being a father with the same intense gusto and passion as he exhibited when creating his prosthetic masterpieces. He not only bragged about his son Michael and daughter Lauren continually, but worked 24/7 to help them succeed at their chosen professions and sports activities.

In addition, his classiness was revealed in his progressive attitude toward bias – even though he would have cringed at my using the P word to describe him. Dissing anyone on the basis of religion, race, gender/gender choice, or economic status was alien to his nature. The closest he ever came to sounding slightly biased was when he objected to allowing men, who transitioned to women, to compete in women’s sports. And that opposition had its roots in his loyalty to his daughter Lauren. She was a high school superstar soccer player, whose father and mother never ever missed one of her games. (Click here to read the column I wrote last year about Lauren.)

Charlie Stile, a Bergen Record political columnist, who for several years worked with me at the Princeton Packet, also engaged in MAGA versus non-MAGA bantering with Dr. Cortese that often ended with one of Charlie’s infamous eye rolls.**BULLSEYE

But, Charlie says, “Mike and I shared a common passion for the Yankees, classic Hollywood movies, and family. We’d quiz each other on Yankee trivia, and cobble together first and second team All-Time great players by position. His improvisational whistling and his cackle were infectious. I occasionally stopped by his Witherspoon Street office without an appointment to talk baseball or just to needle him.

“ ‘Is that my left-wing wacko friend, Charlie?’ Mike would bark from the back of his office, while suppressing a laugh.

“Once when I was in the chair during an exam, Mike bantered with his assistant, Melissa. I forgot what the topic was, but I chimed in with a wisecrack. The three of us sat there laughing for almost a whole minute before recomposing ourselves. It was a warm memory. He was the most un-Princetonian Princetonian I met in my years here, but his office was a mainstay on the north end of Witherspoon Street for decades. I miss my dentist and my friend,” says Charlie.

Michael had suggested to me that his “left-wing wacko friends” – Charlie and Pam - team up with the right-wing wacko Dr. Cortese and run as a team for president to “really get things done. We would know how to laugh at and listen to one another. That’s the ticket.”

What a beautifully sculpted, wacko fantasy that makes me – smile.