The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: drawbridge

  • Bridge Symbolism

    Having worked on drawbridges for over 12 years, I’ve come to know how strongly many people feel about bridges in general. Just publish your plans to demolish or replace one, and brace yourself for the public outcry. People love to walk and jog across bridges, and many’s the time I’ve witnessed marriage proposals. Fishermen often…

  • Dumber than a Box of Rocks

    This happened on the bridge on my day off. Thank God. Two bridgetenders were standing on the catwalk outside our tenderhouse when they looked down to the street level and saw a man vault himself over the railing and plunge 40 feet into the rapidly flowing, extremely deep river below. A woman who witnessed this…

  • Have you ever had one of these?

    I work with this guy who has to be the best. He cannot stand it if someone has done something or been somewhere if he isn’t allowed to tell a story in which he’s done something more exciting or been somewhere more exotic. To hear him tell it, he is superman. If he hears me…

  • Battle of the Birds

    It seems you can’t sling a dead cat without hitting an osprey nest here in Northeast Florida these days, which I happen to think is a wonderful thing. Just a few short years ago, they were a rare occurrence indeed. From where I sit on the drawbridge where I work, I can see 4 nests.…

  • Bearing Witness

    When you are a bridgetender for any length of time, you start to notice certain patterns on the river, both human and animal. For instance, the crab fishermen come to empty their pots every morning at exactly the same time. You can set your watch by them. Certain joggers run by at specific times as…

  • Drawbridge Mentality

    While searching the internet for things to put on my Drawbridge Lovers Facebook page (Join us!) I came across the term drawbridge mentality. Imagine my disgust as a bridgetender when I learned that it was an insult. Basically, someone with a drawbridge mentality moves to a community, and then does his level best to prevent…

  • Ocearch—Great White Shark Research

    The other day I had a front row seat for what felt like a public television nature special. I got to see the research vessel Ocearch dock beside my drawbridge. They have been here in Jacksonville, Florida, tagging great white sharks off our coast. My picture of the vessel as seen from the bridge.  …

  • Mother Nature Trumps the River Goddess Every Time

    It can be a heady experience being a bridgetender. After all, you are operating a piece of equipment that can weigh several million pounds if you work on one of the larger bridges. You also control the flow of marine, vehicular and pedestrian traffic. You can make people very late for work. If a boater…

  • When in Doubt, Blame the Bridgetender

    Recently they did a long overdue rehab of the Ortega River Bridge here in Jacksonville, Florida. It took about 9 months. During much of that time the drawbridge was in the open position. Boats could come and go, but the road was closed to traffic. Not only were there big orange and white reflective barricades…

  • Make up a Holiday Day

    Yesterday was International Women’s Day and I should have written about it. I’m a bad blogger. Bad! I really should stay on top of these things. These types of holidays are prime opportunities to create awareness about various topics. I’m sure I could have spoken in depth about the fact that 90 percent of the…