BRIDGE BUILDERS
When you look at magnificent bridge you wonder, I'm sure. You see the overwhelming immensity of the task and of the mighty stress exerted upon the supporting pillars or that massive collection of cables holding it all securely aloft, and you wonder how it ever became the reality you are observing. How did such a fantasy become real? What brings to physical manifestation a man's dreamed-of accomplishments?
I have known men who were bridge builders by occupation, and they have
been an interesting lot to me , indeed, in special ways.
They strike me as being rather independent people. From the very start, they have a feeling, it seems, that they are questing for a distant goal; seeking to hone in on a special gleam they alone can see, which demands that they be attentive to that which will take place in the future rather than the moment. That one thing makes them want to build ways of arriving at special, far-off goals through devising the means of getting there, The bridge they have in mind will enable them, and others, to cross over into a braver, newer and perhaps, better world. With such strong, positive goals always in mind, true bridge builders are not an easily discouraged lot.
The very nature of such men may, at times, seems to set them at odds with members of their own families, but such has not been the cases I have known. It is not the question which come, quite naturally, to the surface of family life, when the father is absent for long periods of time....”Away from home “- apart from them all – and, some say, thinking only of the new bridge itself. He thinks of it as their bridge, not just his. This is the bridge which will, through the money it brings to them and through the new, oft refreshing opportunities received by those to arrive arrival at the other side . Children of bridge building fathers are eager to see a bridge completed,; to see another started... especailly against unusually severe natural conditions. The future is always new. Their bridge-building father is not a routine nine- to-fiver at an office. He works with tomorrow in mind; with his and their futures.
These men have a special type of co-worker relationships, too. They have second-family ties in a sense; often younger hands, newer at the job and in the extra moments of real danger they become aware of working as a team. Very often, I find, it is the very same qualities which make for good work which
engenders deeply held concepts of brotherhood . If one of them should fall– not a totally unanticipated hazard of the trade which does happen when bridges are built. Bereavement among bridge workers is deep seated, long-lasting and very personal.. The recall previous comrades who suffered death or bone-crushing injuries in falls from the advancing span. They remember co-workers up and down the labor listings,.as a special fellowship without grades, classifications and other such artificial designations. All were simply bridge builders.
The very nature of the work undertaken is a stern challenge to a young man. The workers come to share special, complex dangers and they are aware of it every time they step out on a cable, or when the when they are at work underground in the sweltering caverns in which the roots of the bridge are “planted” to support the towering weight above. Both men and women, working under such compelling pressures, feeling all of the harshness of Nature often working against them. Bridges are in constant battle with the elements. They are not just long strands of masonry artfully cast across from one shore to another, but ,once built, a portion of the Earth about them.
Mankind took many years observing Nature before he learned to build a span across a stream so he could walk, run or ride to the other side. He learned, too, that bridge building is not as simple seem to be to many. Bridge builders are dreamers. A bridge across a body of water was, or a deep canyon or chasm is flexible - responsive to Natures worst storms. It is not a static thing at all. In one sense is can be said to “live”.
We have come a long way since primitive man found he could crawl or walk across a tree which the passing storm had left athwart a stream of rushing water.
A.L.M. June 2, 2004 [c752ds]
