***Bernie always had an eye or two on me, for good reason.***
I grew up in St. Louis, which is on the Mississippi River of course. I live in St. Paul and work in Minneapolis, which are split by the Mississippi River. In fact, the river runs both just west and just east of my house, and I guess south, in an interesting twist, pun intended.
That means there are lots of bridges here, and as we all found out in August 2008, there apparently are too many bridges to keep them all up to snuff.
So yes, living in one city and working in the other, I cross lots of bridges, though oddly, to get to work by car, I don’t cross the river. By bike, I cross the river. By bus/train, I cross the river. Weird, huh? Look at a map, figure it out.
All that hooey aside, I cross lots of bridges over the Ol’ Miss, the Mighty Miss. I cross them by car, while on bike, and occasionally on foot.
Bridges here are tall, some of them very high off the water. The High Bridge in St. Paul is probably the highest, color you surprised. The Ford Bridge, Franklin Bridge, Lake St. Bridge are super high—freakishly high when you’re on bike or foot. The Washington Ave. Bridge, Third Ave. Bridge, Hennepin Ave. Bridge don’t seem as high, in my mind’s eye.
There are a fair amount of jumpers here. I don’t remember there being that many in St. Louis while I lived there, but maybe there were. One big difference between here and there is that come spring in these parts, once the river thaws, up pop dead bodies, seems like you read about at least a half dozen a year that magically appear in April. Sometimes suicides, sometimes not, sometimes no one knows.
I’m not going to jump off a bridge, any bridge. Talk about a regrettable moment, when you are flying through the air there is no turning back, so I guess you just grin and splat. There is something, though, very weird about walking these enormous bridges. All of these bridges I speak of are in the city, so at night when walking across, your head is on a swivel, looking over your shoulders often for the man or woman who is undoubtedly sneaking up on you, surely capable of hoisting you to the rail, and determined to fold you over into the cold, cold river.
It happens, people, it happens.
What's worse is the magnetism. There is a pull from the river when you walk a bridge. Walk a high bridge, do it. Feel it. It pulls you to the rail’s edge, so much so that I find myself moving in the opposite direction, further from the bridge edge and closer to the road, against the pull. A vertigo of the conscience, perhaps.
I always feel victorious when I reach the other side, relieved to escape the mean man or woman behind me, the mean man within, and the mean old man river.
