Bridges

Here in Cambridge, they love their bridges. That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with bridges. Since the town is named after a bridge, I guess it is understandable. The other night we had an interesting conversation with Jim’s tutor at St. Edmunds (no Dad, Jim isn’t getting remedial help—here a tutor is an academic advisor—every student has one). He teaches engineering and he had a great deal to say about bridges. He waxed eloquent about the symbolism of bridges bringing people together and told quite an interesting story about the cultural significance of a particular bridge in Bosnia. His emphasis was that bridges connect people, both literally and figuratively.

Much of my goal in writing is to find those figurative bridges, which connect Appalachia with Cambridge. This odd pursuit has ironically led to taking a look at literal bridges. Let’s start with just a few of the many bridges of Cambridge.

Clare Bridge

This bridge belongs to Clare College and has the distinction of being the oldest bridge in Cambridge. Built in 1690, it’s the oldest because all of its contemporaries were destroyed during England’s civil war in order to make the defense of the city easier.

The Bridge of Sighs

Now that is a pretty bridge. You just wouldn’t find a bridge like that anywhere in West Virginia. In fact the thought of a bridge that connected two buildings together over a creek would seem very odd. This bridge belongs to St. John’s College. Rumor has it that it got its name not from a similar bridge in Venice, but from the sound students make while passing over it after taking exams. I read that Queen Victoria loved this spot in Cambridge better than any other. Likely it is Cambridge’s most visited tourist attraction.

The Mathematical Bridge

The Mathematical Bridge in Cambridge was built in 1749 by James Essex from a design by William Etheridge. It has been rebuilt twice, in 1866 and 1905, using the same design. Several myths about this bridge, supposedly propagated by unscrupulous tour guides, are based on the notion that someone built this bridge using a mathematical formula without any bolts or screws and that workmen took it apart for cleaning and repairs, but they could not put it back together without the use of bolts. Myth or not, if this had been in West Virginia we would have used cable ties, bungee cords and duct tape. It wouldn’t have looked so good, but we would have been able to say “No sir, you won’t find a bolt any where on that bridge.”

Give my dad and his buddies a case of beer and an afternoon with nothing better to do and, I know they could have built a bridge without any bolts. Under similar circumstances, I saw them build a cannon out of soup cans and duct tape that could shoot a tennis ball completely out of sight. Original plans called for using lighter fluid, but that only shot from the barn to the house. Once the beer was gone, that just wasn’t fun anymore so they pulled out the acetylene torch. The acetylene-fueled tennis balls were never seen again. Now that was fun!

All in all the bridges of Cambridge are, well, nice enough I suppose. Now let me show you bridge in West Virginia…

New River Gorge Bridge

The bridge was completed in 1977. Until 2003 it was the largest steel arch bridge in the world, but a bridge in Shanghai now has it beat by 105 feet. However, it is still the longest in the western hemisphere. The bridge took three years to construct. The span of the arch is 1700 feet. It stands 876 feet over the river, is over half a mile long, and nearly 70 ft wide. This bridge reduced the forty-five minute travel time from one side of the gorge to the other to less than one minute.

Now that’s a Bridge of Size. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but frankly in West Virginia, as far as bridges are concerned, if you can’t parachute from it, then there’s nothing to brag about!