But then, that’s the kind of dentist Metzger is. People like going to him.


They have only until the end of January to do that, however. Metzger retired from his Lancaster practice in 1993. Now, after 33 years, the 81-year-old dentist is retiring as well from his weekly stint at Conestoga View.


Nurse’s aide Lori Williams has assisted Metzger with his duties since 1984.


“It was just great working with him all those years,” she said. “He made a lot of people happy.”


Metzger was a perfect fit for the facility at 900 E. King St., Williams added.


“Being local, he went to school with some of the residents here,” she said; that made for interesting conversation. Under contract with the county, he worked regular Wednesday morning hours in a clinic on the ground floor. But Williams said he came in whenever he was needed.


“He was always good about that. ... We had some good times, that’s for sure.”


Metzger said he savors his career and the people he’s met. “I’ll miss Conestoga View,” he said. “You get to like the patients and the employees and so on. It was a great experience. I wouldn’t give that up.”


Early ambition


Jack Broome Metzger was one of those rare kids who knew early on what he was going to do with his life. “I was kind of impressed with Dr. Rudy Nissley when I went to him as a boy,” Metzger recalled.


Interest became conviction.


Before graduating from McCaskey High School in 1943, Metzger acknowledged in the yearbook his professional ambition: to become a dentist.


He began studies at Franklin & Marshall College, but war interrupted and the Navy sent him to Pearl Harbor for a year.


Discharged in 1946, he completed his F&M studies and then earned his doctor of dental surgery degree at Temple University School of Dentistry in 1951.


He immediately launched a practice at 450 W. Chestnut St., working in the same building with his psychiatrist brother, the late Tom B. Metzger.


“We didn’t mesh at all” as boys, recalled Metzger, who was 15 years younger. But they got along famously as adults. “We had lunch together almost every day,” he said. Metzger and his wife, the former Virginia L. Eckenrode, had three children, Virginia, John and Ronald. They now have eight grandchildren.


The family lived for years in the Franklin & Marshall College neighborhood where Metzger grew up. Metzger, who said his father, Thomas Warren Metzger, was elected Lancaster mayor in 1930, also seemed destined for politics.


He was a reluctant candidate. When Nancy Rutter asked him to serve on city council in 1965, Metzger recalled, “I said, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, I don’t know anything about it.’ ”


After winning a seat in 1967, though, he learned. Metzger presided over council from 1970 through 1975. Urban renewal was transforming the city in those days, recalled Metzger, who said Lancaster’s biggest hurdle now is completing the convention center project.


Metzger, who also served on the city parking and sewer authorities, reasoned, “You’ve got to give something back.” The parking authority was “terribly criticized” by people who considered the new downtown garages unnecessary, he added, but today the facilities are packed.


Metzger, a Republican, said that he particularly enjoyed working with the late Lancaster Mayor Thomas Monaghan, a Democrat.


“He had the city’s interest at heart,” Metzger said. So did Metzger, according to former Lancaster Mayor Charlie Smithgall.


“I’ve known the family forever,” Smithgall said. “He was a good council person.” Metzger impressed Arthur Morris as a “very serious, business-like person” deeply committed to improving Lancaster.


“He was always a very focused person,” said Morris, a former mayor who began his civic career in the 1970s as the city’s engineer.


“It was kind of a different breed then ... I was in a little bit of awe of people in office in those days and he was one of them.”


Still, Metzger had little interest in trying out for the city’s top job.


His name surfaced when Richard M. Scott vacated the post in 1979 to become state adjutant general. “I was asked but I didn’t want to give up my dental practice,” explained Metzger, a solo practitioner who had long since built up a loyal clientele.


“I saw at least three generations of the same families.” Meanwhile, dental technology had been improving by leaps and bounds.


Bonding was one of the greatest advances, Metzger related, and, of course, “The speed drill came in shortly after I started.”


While many modern dentists specialize, Metzger cleaned teeth, performed extractions and installed dentures and crowns. “We did it all in those days.”


He was president when city council adapted a resolution to put fluoride in the water. The compound, coupled with better overall care, has worked miracles, Metzger said. Kids have fewer cavities today, he said, and fewer adults need dentures.


The Conestoga View tradition began in 1973.


According to Williams, the nurse’s aide, Metzger’s duties at one time included attending to Lancaster County Prison inmates, who were escorted in shackles to see the dentist. “I was the only [dentist] out there for the last 33 years,” Metzger said.


He’s guardedly optimistic about the future of Conestoga View, which was purchased last year by a private operator, Complete HealthCare Resources.


“I was kind of upset when it got sold by the county. ... I’m hoping they maintain the same procedure they have now.” Metzger said he’s keeping up his dental license so he can occasionally fill in for colleagues.


The sports man


Arthritis and two heart operations, in 1984 and 2001, have slowed him down. But while Metzger no longer angles for Susquehanna River stripers and shad, he’s still an avid sports fan.


The kick began when he was a kid playing sandlot baseball at Buchanan Park.


It continued through the late 1970s when he officiated football and basketball games for local schools and colleges.


In 1974, he won the Ken McMillen award for outstanding football official.


Dr. Jack Hanley, also a retired dentist and dedicated sports enthusiast, recalled watching Metzger referee basketball games.


“Sometimes I helped from the audience,” Hanley said. “For some reason, we think we can see it better from the stands than they can from the floor.” Metzger always made good calls, Hanley added. On the court or off, “He calls them like he sees them.” Metzger especially fancies golf.


Over the years, he said, he’s hit three holes-in-one. He still plays nine holes when he can.


And he follows baseball and football on TV.


“Of course, I like the Phillies,” he remarked. “And I like the Eagles. I don’t like them all the time.”


Mary Beth Ryan, the Metzgers’ next-door neighbor in West Hempfield Township, said in an e-mail that she loves seeing Mrs. Metzger “suit up” in team colors for Penn State and Notre Dame games.


She also enjoys it when Dr. Metzger strings Christmas lights on the tree in his yard “and then gives me the first preview.”


The couple is caring and “young at heart,” she wrote. Living beside them is “a throwback to the way I grew up, where you knew your neighbors and could borrow an egg or a cup of sugar.”


On the social side, Metzger revels in outings to the Tucquan Club, where he was president from 1984 to 1991. This past winter, he logged 54 years of perfect attendance at the Lancaster Kiwanis Club.


“That’s just one of those things,” he shrugged. The fifth-generation Lancastrian said he never seriously considered living anywhere else.


“I’ve had an interesting life.”




E-mail Jon Rutter at jrutter@lnpnews.com.