The Bridge
March 15/ 2022
The suggestion of drawing a map of the first home you really remember, is a stroke of genius. In matter of less than 10 minutes, I now have the prompts for at least 20 more stories that I had almost forgotten about.
At age 7, my best friend Ron and I were two adventurers, little kids with wild and endless imaginations. One of our favourite destinations was “Gibbons Park” where we took swimming lessons in the huge, it seemed to us, pool. The little snack shops scattered throughout the park made the best French fries that I have ever tasted.
The park ran along a portion of the Thames river, and there were sections with significant rapids. We were aware that kids had drowned in there on several occasions.
At a somewhat tamer section of the river there was a foot bridge to get to the other side. It was basically 2 parallel boards floating on barrels underneath. The hand railings on each side were steel cables- a somewhat rickety contraption. On the other side of the river was “The Leather Mill”. I never really did understand what they did there but there were usually many bits of leather in various colours, sizes and thickness. We could make awesome things- for us….as great fans of Davey Crockett, Indians and pioneers.
I’m not sure whose idea it was, but one afternoon in our bathing suits we entered the river along the side of the bridge and made our way to the middle. We ducked under and came above water between 2 barrels, but hidden under the boards. We both could feel the current pulling us downstream, but just hung on so we wouldn’t get swept away.
When someone crossed the bridge, we, in unison, shouted in our deepest voices “Who is that crossing our bridge!?’ We claimed to be trolls and shocked a lot of people. However, we ourselves were shocked when the next person crossing the bridge answered our question of “Who’s that crossing our bridge?” with “Is that you Ronnie and Dave?” Answering in the affirmative, we received a well-deserved scolding from Ron’s much older brother, and were sent home to face our very angry parents.
But it was definitely worth it.