Donating My Teeth to the Lord

From one I can tell, blog etiquette dictates that the blogger ought to provide regular, near-daily new content. Minus that, followers of the blog will stop visiting the blog altogether, and the blogger will be typing to nobody but him or herself.

That being the case, and noticing that about six weeks have lapsed since my last foray into blogginess, perhaps I'll just be typing this one for my own enjoyment.

From time to time, I thought I might scan pix from the past and share brief anecdotes about some of the karma -- good and bad -- that has landed on me over the years.

Today, a Tokyo tale from the mission I served for the LDS church in Japan (Tokyo South Mission).

On November 7, 1990, only one month after arriving in Japan, I was riding my new mountain bike through the streets of Shizuoka (a city about three hours south of Tokyo). It was around 9:30. My missionary trainer, Elder Travis Hoopes, and I had spent another full day without any appointments, filling our time by roaming the streets and talking about the gospel with anyone who would stop to listen.

We were tired and excited to go home and enjoy what little personal time we had each day. We pedaled fast and zoomed from sidewalk to street, following the path of least resistance, pedestrian or vehicular.

My mountain bike had a quick-release mechanism on the front wheel. By accident or design, this had been loosened. At one intersection, I jumped from a sidewalk curb, lifting my handlebars for a smooth landing. And that was the last thing I remembered.

Next, I was groggy and returning to consciousness in the middle of the road, staring up at the stars.

Reconstructing events based on the evidence, it seems that when I lifted the handlebars, the unlocked front wheel detached from the fork, and kept on rolling. When the front fork of the bike hit the pavement, the bike flipped me face-first into the street.

Both my front, top teeth came through my upper lip, leaving jagged holes. The left tooth broke, exposing nerve, and the right tooth was pushed back at an angle into my mouth, the roots of it mortally wounded.

Above are some photos: the first the morning after the accident just before going to the hospital. The second photo is taken the night of the accident. I'm glad the concussion-groggy look in my eyes remains consistent. The bandages cover most of the gore, but you can see some of the Mick Jagger-esque swelling.

Thanks to those lips, I had to eat through a straw for the better part of a week, and I lost the 20-30 pounds I packed onto my frame at the MTC (missionary training center).

Alrighty then. Nice trip down memory lane, Yates. Hope to see you again in another six weeks...

NEXT STOP: Lora and Isabel Host a Cooking Show