I recently posted an old piece I had written about crossing the Newport Bridge, which spans the Narragansett Bay between Conanicut and Aquidneck Islands in Rhode Island, but I did not mention, except in passing, another bridge: the old Jamestown Bridge that once connected Conanicut with the mainland.
Perhaps it was fear that held me back.
Crossing the Jamestown Bridge was terrifying for me when I was a kid. I was small so perhaps the bridge really wasn’t as fearsome as I remember, but it was narrow and it was high and it was steep.
Mainly, though, it was loud.
I remember the sound of wheels rumbling over the steel grating while wind tore through the spans and shook the car, rattling teeth and nerves.
The noise resulted from the fact that the main span of the bridge was nothing more than open steel grating which meant that you could look down and see the blue of the bay directly beneath the tires. Add the bumpiness and the terrible noise to that vertiginous view and it felt like you’d be lucky to make it across alive.
This morning, I saw a picture in the Austin American-Statesman of a bridge exploding. At first glance it appeared to be festooned with flowers. I read the caption to see that it was none other than the old Jamestown Bridge, replaced by a more stable bridge in 1992 and since designated a navigational hazard by the Coast Guard, that was sent to the bottom of Narragansett Bay yesterday morning.
So long, old nemesis.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
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