The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: traffic

  • Darkness Revealed

    When I drive to work at night it’s a completely different experience than when I work a day shift. Even the nuclear power plant, normally a blight upon the landscape, looks beautiful. It is all lit up and floating in a sea of blackness like a nighttime cruise heading for the Bahamas. The traffic flow…

  • 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…

  • Confession: I Can be a Sick Puppy.

    No, I don’t pull the wings off flies or flash people from under a trench coat, but apparently I AM the only human being willing to admit that, yes, I DO slow down to look at traffic accidents. So feel free to blame me for every traffic jam you’ve been in since about 1970. I…

  • Don’t Panic

    Our basic instincts haven’t had a chance to catch up with the modern world. There are many things we are forced to do in our own best interests that go against every fiber of our being, like turning into a skid when driving on a slippery surface. When the flight attendant does the safety speech…