The Year of the
New Bridge
This story just has to be told! The sea-worthy legs of the Capitol Island Bridge last about 35 years of rough weather, but it was the sea worms that eventually ate through the pilings. Many meetings were held to discuss the new, contemporary bridge that would be weather and worm proof. Diagrams were drawn up, final architectural renderings constructed from styro-foam--and then the money was raised--or rather, the islanders were "assessed" their equal portions. When I left late that summer, I said good-bye to the old bridge. It had crossed us over into our summer time world of fantasies. We took many leaps from that bridge into the frigid cold water. None of us wanted to awake from that world out of the the world. So I said goodbye, and during the fall, I imagined the bridge being dismantled and the new one taking its place. Alas! Life goes on. It could never be the same.
The next spring, I drove to the crest in the road which I would climb and see the new bridge. The car eased up slowly, and I stopped with a gasp. Did they not build the new bridge after all? I thought I heard it had been completed on time? There before me stood an exact replica of the former bridge!
I soon learned that they had found the plans to the old bridge stored away at the island Casino, a recreation center, and found the original builder to replace the bridge with a duplicate.
Something very deep in my heart welcomed this sight. Life goes on. Change happens. But some landmarks remain to remind us of very sacred territory--and this was surely it. It was for us "the bridge of everywhere." That's not sentimental slush. Thornton Wilder said: "There is a bridge between the land of the dead and the living--and the bridge is love." It was on that island that many of us learned about love in all of its forms. That's a never-ending story across a bridge called love.
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