I was only in grade four at a small elementary school in Richmond, BC, Canada. I was infatuated with a young ten year old girl named Pam and, because of that, had made friends with her next door neighbor named Keith. I found that, for Pam's friendship, I would go to the most extreme degree to protect young Keith. What I mean is that a big bully by the name of Jim was often harrassing Keith, and I would fearlessly step in between Jim and Keith, even though Jim was at least six inches taller than I was. Its funny, because by standing up to Jim who happened to be the tallest and most aggressive kid in the school, I got a reputation for being a kid to not mess with.
A teacher would haul Jim and I to the office and, there in the confines of the small room, the principal would ask who started the fight. When she looked down at me, who was much smaller than tall, lanky Jim, she couldn't believe that I had jumped into the fray with Jim in order to protect my friend Keith.
I used to quickly head off home after school to be the first to grab the bicycle that my brother Rick and I had to share. There were five of us in the family, and owning a bike all to oneself wasn't going to happen for years to come. With bike in tow, I would accompany Keith on his two mile walk to his house. There we would catch bull frogs or play on his teeter-totter, and I got to keep my eye out for neighbor Pam who was so gentle-natured. Every so often, she would come out and join us in some kind of outdoor game like tag or hide-and-seek. I was in heaven. lol
I don't recall whether Pam was with us that day or not, but Keith and I were laughing as we rode the teeter-totter up and down. I had the most silly thought while we were going up and down. I thought to jump off the teeter-totter and give Keith a big bump, because there would definitely be an abrupt landing without me on the other end to slow things down.
Well, I pushed myself back off the end of that teeter-totter and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the ground looking at my front tooth lying on the grass before me! While jumping off, the edge of the teeter-totter had smacked my mouth on its way back up and, at that same instant, knocked my front tooth right out. Now that was some 'instant karma' !
I must have been completely shaken up for the first while until I saw the tooth lying in the grass, while the new hole in my mouth bled fiercely. At the moment I realized my front tooth was no longer a part of my head, I started to cry. It was the idea of loosing the tooth that hurt.
My uncle eventually arrived and rushed me off to the dentist in hopes of replanting the entire tooth back into my upper jaw, but that tooth just wouldn't stay in place. As a result, days later I showed up at school with a 'false tooth' that I could remove, or wiggle up and down, whenever I felt the inclination. That false tooth became a great source of intrigue with my grade four classmates. Someone would glance my way, and I would startle the kid by wiggling my false tooth up and down.
And that's the story of how I lost my front tooth.