bridging_the

”BRIDGING THE FACTS”

Kids now days “hang out” in places like the Mall and other “sophisticated” places. Back in the days when only baseball catchers wore their hats on backwards, and there were no Malls, we kids hung out at such “unsophisticated” places like gas stations, bars, and bridges. One such bridge we “hung out” at was the “Tennent Road Bridge”. I went to take pictures of it a short time ago and found, much to my dismay, that it was GONE! They replaced it with a “clunky” culvert! I knew I should have taken the pictures of the bridge last year when Sylvia, one of the engineers from the Erie County Engineer’s Office, told me it was going to be replaced! I even WORKED THERE until my glorious retirement 2 years ago and could have found out exactly when they were going to install the culvert! Oh well, yet another opportunity in life missed! “Clunky” culverts have no aura or personality like bridges do. And believe me, when I worked at the Engineer’s Office, I saw hundreds of “clunky” culverts over the years! Be that as it may, we have some wonderful memories from there, and since it is gone now, that is ALL we have! Oh well, at least they didn’t replace my brain with a “clunky”culvert. (Hmmm, maybe they should, it could really improve my “flow” of thought)! Tim, Len Hoffmeister, and I spent a lot of time under that bridge. We would ride our bikes to it. It was great going there since we could coast down the hill where it was located, but it was a chore leaving it and having to ride up the hill. Just for old time sake, I rode my bicycle back to it 2 years ago. Unfortunately, when I saw that hill again, I turned back! At my age, even riding a bicycle DOWN a hill is too strenuous! Now I dearly wished I would have and had my camera with me since it was still intact at that point! Oh well, as the Pennsylvania Dutch say, “Too soon old and too late smart”! SAY! It just occurred to me to contact one of the engineers at the County Engineer’s Office! Maybe, just maybe, they have some preconstruction pictures of the old bridge I could scan! If so, I’ll certainly include them with this story!!!! Maybe all is not lost after all!

We sat under the bridge for hours and fished for suckers and painted turtles. We could always tell when we had a turtle because the line would slowly move as opposed to having a fish where it jerked. One time we left a stringer in the water that had a bunch of fish we had caught. The next day when we returned, all that was left were fish heads! The turtles had eaten all the fish! Apparently either they were full or else they don’t like fish heads. I guess it was an easy meal for them not having to chase any fish to eat. We always sat under the bridge on top of the east bridge footer, which was plenty wide and high enough to comfortably sit on. The only problem with it was that it had tar all over the top of it and on hot days, we would stick to it! I don’t imagine our mothers were any too pleased to have us sitting on the living room furniture when we got home after prying ourselves from our bike seats. Since our mother was always yelling at us for something anyway, I can’t recall her yelling about this, but she probably did. What was one more thing! We solved the tar problem by bringing some empty burlap feed bags from our place to sit on. After a while they were permanently embedded in the tar.

When we felt adventurous, we would crawl over the creek to the opposite footer, upside down like a tree sloth, while holding on with our hands and feet to each side of one of the big “I beams” that supported the underside of the bridge. Every time we did this, our money would fall out of our pockets into the creek! This ruined our day since we didn’t have any money to stop off at Hecklemans Sohio Gas Station on the way home and stuff ourselves with pop and candy! I can imagine one of the contractors, while working on the new “clunky” culvert, I’ll bet one of the contractors working on the “clunky” new culvert saying, “Hey! Look at all these old coins from the 1950’s I found!”

The one ultimate time while Tim, Len, and I were under the bridge was when Len told us “The Facts of Life”! (I never could figure out why they were also called “The Birds and the Bees”?) Since he was 2 years older than us, he had knowledge of this “forbidden area” for kids. He didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know anyway, but Tim and I feigned interest so we wouldn’t wound his fragile ego. Good grief! Tim and I were raised on a farm so we figured out what the stud we borrowed for our mare was for! (Oh yeah, of course we watched)! Of course that was only for animals. We both knew that the Stork brought kids. Of course later in life Tim and I found out that the Stork didn’t actually bring us, it was a VULTURE!

Speaking of horses “mating”, The Ohio Revised Code addresses this matter (weird huh). Here’s an actual quote I copied and pasted from Chapter 959:

§ 959.19. Prohibition against servicing mare in public street.

No owner of a stallion or jack or the agent of such owner, shall permit it to serve a mare within thirty feet of a public street or alley in a municipal corporation.

Good Grief! We were breaking State Law during this time! It’s a good thing we didn’t get caught by the “Horse Police” or they would have busted us for having horses “mating” in front of the road! Hmmm, maybe they did see them and got a “kick” out of it and “stalled” around. Since they probably didn’t have horses, they were “unstable” when they saw it. Or they were too busy “horsing” around to get “saddled” with it or do anything about it and didn’t want to “stirrup” a lot of trouble and get “harnessed” with a lot of red tape. Maybe they just reported it to the “Mare” of Berlin Heights. They must have decided to let it “ride” since they didn’t “trot” right over and arrest us, which would have been a “cinch”. But they didn’t want to add to their “Whoas”. It would have been easy to subdue us since they were carrying “Colt” 45’s. Or if they voted on it, the “neighs” had it. They probably checked the latest “Gallop” poll and found out that no one really cared what horses did on a farm. At any rate, they “screwed” up since we were a different “breed” of people and they didn’t think they had time to harass us right then because they had to go to Pennsylvania to watch the world “stud” poker championship games in “Filly”. Then after that they had to take their wives to a “bridle” shower. Besides, they knew that several thunderstorms were brewing and didn’t want to get caught in the “reins” and end up with their voices getting “horse”. After a “bit” they finally left. OK OK, I’ll quit “horsing” around and get back to the “mane” subject of the story… (But first CLICK HERE)

We not only fished for painted turtles, but on occasion we caught them while sunning themselves on an exposed rock. Tim was especially adept at this. We would quietly sneak up to the bridge guardrail along the road and if we saw a turtle on a rock, we would sneak down and sometimes get close enough to it to grab it with our hands before it slid into the water. We had to be very quiet and quick to pull off this caper. To illustrate just how good Tim was at doing this, he had 42 turtles at home from various creeks!

Well, I’m going to give the computer keys a rest, not to mention my fingers. Before they go completely numb, I’m going to send an email to one of the engineers I know at the County Engineer’s Office. I’ll let you know if I had any success finding any preconstruction pictures of the Tennent Road Bridge! I think it probably wouldn’t hurt to call “Dial-A-Prayer” again. This time I won’t mention anything about praying for my mental condition. Hopefully, they won’t hang up on me again! This is all contingent upon whether their phone number is listed again; since they got an unlisted one right after the last time I called. Oh well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it then. Whoops, it’s been another 30 seconds, I have to check my email again!!!…

EUREKA!!! THEY DO HAVE SOME PRECONSTRUCTION PICTURES OF MY BELOVED BRIDGE!!! Check out the swell picture below!!!