Remember the working man’s anthem by Johnny Paycheck, “Take This Job and Shove it?” There’s a real-life example in Franklin County, a hero to every put-upon, PO-ed worker. His name is Brian Alexander. He’s the Rocky Mount dentist who quit his job and bought a dump truck.
Brian Alexander loads logs onto a trailer hauled by his dump truck in Franklin County on Thursday. Alexander quit his job as a dentist, after being unhappy with a group he sold his practice to, and started a dump truck hauling business. He recently started a new dentist practice and works both endeavors.
Alexander, 52, walked away from general dentistry two years ago, for reasons we’ll get into. He and his wife, Nicki, sold their 6,000-square-foot “dream house” and — with three teenage sons — moved into a 900-square-foot place. “My wife is a saint,” Alexander declared.
“He’s a roller-coaster,” she said. “I just hold on and pray a lot. I often wonder, ‘How is this going to work?’ The Lord’s been very good to us.
” Today, her husband’s still driving a dump truck — on Thursdays, Fridays and maybe some Saturdays. But Alexander also kept his Virginia dental license. Since March, when he opened a new practice in a long-closed bank branch in Union Hall, he’s been filling cavities, extracting wisdom teeth and performing root canals — on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Nicki Alexander, whose career was in physical therapy, now manages Detour Dental — there’s a story.