Mind that gap

June 30, 2022, 8:08 am , by Richard Lutz

RICHARD LUTZ has teething problems

L et me tell you something important about having no front teeth. It’s a crucial lesson I learned very quickly when my dentist grabbed my upper plate for a tune up:

You forget your teeth are missing almost too quickly. You forget your smile is a sudden horror show. But the world sees a toothless wreck, and maybe a threat, shambling down the street.

So, the pub manager asks you to slide down to the end of the bar so as to not to frighten the customers; kids cower and point, women make cautionary detours as they approach; beggars give a small nod and offer you money.

Luckily, there are the leftover covid masks to hide a toothless face. But I look like someone paranoid about the disease or, worse, carrying the bug. So, in short, there’s an additional cohort of the population giving you the wide berth. Walk toothless and you get the frozen stare. Wear a mask and you’re a mobile hospital ward.

I get my plate back soon(ish), my dentist says. When that happens, I’ll never fail to appreciate a full array of teeth when it’s popped in its place, complete, by the way, with an additional new acrylic incisor to complete an ageing smile. Next stop, I guess, is what Shakespeare gloomily warned of: a life ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’. Gulp…

But, then again, some don’t see the tooth gap. Especially the guy who excitedly asked: ’Have you seen the kingfisher on the far bank?’ We were on a path following the River Kelvin that tumbles 22 miles from the Kilsyth Hills through Glasgow. . Of course I didn’t see the the bird. It’s hard to spot a flighty kingfisher despite its flash of blue as it hunts for insects and fish:

They’re tough to see as they swerve with a flick of colour before they turn and disappear. This time it vanished over The Kelvin where I last saw a marauding fox hunting on the riverside.

The river’s brown waters twist and turn through a city ravine:

It bends thru a graceful park. And under a series of big bridges:

Sometimes, it’s edged by this pretty plant:

Attractive but it wreaks havoc. It’s called Himalayan Balsam and it destroys native plants all around it. Flowers erupt 10 feet off the ground ready to spread fatal seeds everywhere. But no one seems to be cutting back to stop the destructive invasion.

The Kelvin eventually drops into the bigger River Clyde near a city museum that contains a triple decked wall studded with cars:

No man, women, child or dog has ever failed to be amazed, no matter how diffident they are about the motor trade. Even I like it. And I smile. A toothless smile no one blessedly sees because everyone is so entranced, so enraptured by the wall of old cars that sits above the brown river tumbling into its big sister.