Bridges are an inevitable part of life for boaters and coastal dwellers. Whether walking, biking or driving over one – or paddling, sailing or motoring under one – bridges provide a passageway to what had heretofore been impassible. My Merriam Webster dictionary has 17 definitions for the word Bridge, the first and foremost being, “Raised to afford convenient passage.” To what’s on the other side.
Bridges also provide a cultural touchstone for us. We talk about “bridging the gap,” “burning bridges,” or playing bridge. Countless movies have used a bridge as a central theme, like Saving Private Ryan, Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Bridges of Madison County, A Bridge Too Far, blowing up the bridge in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, or even Sex and The City when they meet on the bridge. And let’s not forget Monty Python’s Holy Grail, to name a few. And the same goes for music: Bridge Over Troubles Waters. Bridge Of Sighs, 59th Street Bridge Song, Burning Bridges and London Bridges for a start.
I grew up in a late-60’s rural-suburban area in north-central NJ. In other words, the woods. There was a stream that ran through the neighbor’s front yard that continued its moist meanderings into the thicket of trees where we’d managed to, by virtue of riding the same paths over and over on our mini-bikes, tamp down a considerable web of trails, but were impeded by the way the brook bisected the whole affair. So, we built a bridge. As I recall it was with the help of one of the neighborhood dads and his chainsaw, that two stout trees were felled and dragged to a part of the brook that had carved about a five feet deep gorge and that’s where the two logs were placed about three feet apart. We dug out a notch in the dirt right at the edges of the banks so the logs dropped in a recessed hole making their tops just level with the ground. The next step was to hammer a ladder-like series of 3-foot long 2×4’s to the logs and then sheath over them with a few sections of old plywood. When completed, we felt it rivaled the grand Brooklyn Bridge. I remember crawling down under it, standing in the middle of the brook with water up to my waist and looking up at the underside, marveling in its simplicity of design and construction, but moreover at it’s functionality as it opened an entirely new portion of our trail system.
Above, I mentioned mini-bikes. Not ATV’s or motorcycles back then, but simple mini-bikes with no gears, no front brakes, no suspension and running on 12-inch diameter wheels, powered by simple single-cylinder air-cooled two-stroke 4-6 horsepower lawnmower engines. Some of us favored and swore by a Techumsa, others were in the Briggs & Stratton camp. It was sort of a pre-pubescent version of the Rednecks never ending, “Ford versus Chevy” debate, but without the throwing of empty beer cans. Regardless, that simple wooden span was the first of many bridges I would have a relationship with throughout my lifetime.
My family had a summer home on the Jersey Shore, Long Beach Island specifically, and that meant driving the Garden State Parkway and passing over the Raritan River by way of the Don Driscoll Bridge, a huge span of concrete and rebar that has been doubled in size over the years. Then it was Parkway exit 63A eastbound and like most people headed for one part or another of the Jersey Shore, there was a Causeway over the Intracoastal Waterway when we’d roll the windows down and breath in the salt air as we gazed eastward and could spy the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah, you know of such a bridge if you ever visit any part of the Jersey Shore. But any resident of the greater New York area has ample opportunities to cross bridges, from the George Washington to the Verrazano, however, the toll for doing so nowadays sure takes some of the fun out of it
And who amongst us can help but just stomp down on that accelerator pedal as we roar up over a span until we get to the summit, then just let up and cruise down to the bottom, feeling quite… satisfied. It’s always worth the risk of a spending ticket. Only a bridge gives you that feeling when driving.
Of course, nature sometimes objects to our “convenient passages” and I don’t think there’s any more explanatory photo than that of the Ben Sawyer Swing Bridge (named after former S.C. Chief Highway Commissioner) that leads from the mainland of Mount Pleasant out to Sullivan’s Island, S.C., just outside of Charleston. When living in that area, I had a particular fondness for this bridge. It could take over 20 minutes from the time the bridge swung open until the boat that required the opening passed through, and it was the habit of we motorists there not to sit in our cars and bitch about the delay but rather to get out and watch the waterway, the swinging of the bridge, the boat passing by and chatting with one another. And as a practical matter, it was widely understood and accepted that if you explained to someone you were late “because of the Ben Sawyer”, all was forgiven. But on September 21, 1989, Hurricane Hugo slammed its hellishness into the low country and to this day, the vision of the Ben Sawyer – pushed half open and upended – exemplifies “Hurricane Damage” like no other.
But the one bridge I want nothing to do with is just being completed: The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, in Guizhou, China. It spans a total of 9,481 ft. with the center span stretching 4,658-feet. And it’s suspended 2,051- feet above the river below. (Just FYI, a mile is 5,280-feet, do the math.) It takes 20 seconds for a stone dropped from the bridge deck to hit the canyon floor. Like I said, no thanks on crossing THAT one. I’ll take the river under it.