Bridge Jumping
October 10, 2005 From the book A
Life In Progress--Part One
There was a bridge I used to jump off. A lot of the older kids did
it. I wanted to do it but was pretty scared. I basically sat for three
days trying to make up my mind. A bigger kid said he would throw me off
if I didn't jump, so I finally jumped. The first time was the hardest
and I did it many times after that. I also used to swim across the
river under water, just under the bridge.
Probably a few years later I jumped off the top of the bridge for the
first time. Not many of the kids did that, just a few of the more
skilled ones. I don't know if they still jump off those bridges. I have
not been back there for a while. The trains no longer use those
bridges, but I think the bridges still exist. When the trains would
come across it was always a bit of a scramble to get out of the way. If
you were in the middle of the bridge you probably couldn't make it to
either end in time, so you would have to clamber off the railroad ties
and onto the bridge framework. We had no name for the framework, but
those various bridge parts are still firmly etched in my mind.
When you got out of the way of the train, often seemingly just in time,
the train would come roaring by. The whole bridge would seem to shake
and it would be a great noise and when you were new to the experience
it was really rather frightening.. Then when it passed you could hear
yourself think again. You would climb back up onto the ties and
continue your walk across.
It was fun to watch people crossing the bridge for the first time,
especially little kids. Many of them were afraid to cross. You see the
ties had spaces between them. The ties were six to ten inches wide and
the gaps were three to five inches wide, just wide enough for your leg
to fit between. Sometimes we would pretend we took a misstep and would
let a leg slip through up to the thigh. I recall that the gaps were
almost big enough that a child's whole body could fit through. For a
child anyway, it was psychologically challenging to walk over those
spaces. Typically beginners would take baby steps, pausing on each tie,
and sometimes a kid would stop and look down at the water below, and
sometimes they would chicken out and go back, or sometimes they would
have to be carried across, sometimes screaming all the way.
But people who had to cross would get used to it fairly soon. There
were some who crossed regularly who still took baby steps, and it took
them a long time to get across. I don't remember my first times
crossing, but I know that pretty much from the beginning I was taking
two ties at a time Then I saw that a bigger kid was just walking
randomly, letting his feet land wherever they would, because always at
least your toe or your heal would be solidly planted on a tie. If your
step was right between two ties, your foot might slip between a little,
but that seldom happened.
That bridge, which was less than a block from the house where I lived
from ages 9 to 12, was just called the steel bridge, or the railway
bridge, or the train bridge.. Later I started swimming at another
railway bridge called the Nursery bridge. It was a higher one to jump
off, both the bottom and the top. But I became a master at jumping off
bridges. I would go off the top of the Nursery bridge regularly,
probably at least once each time I was swimming there. Once Tom and I
jumped off the lower part of the Nursery bridge continuously for 50
times. I think we both did it anyway, or did he stop after a while?
Well I know that I did it. It was a matter of jumping, swimming to
shore, climbing up the bank, then immediately back onto the bridge
again, and off into the water -- all without a pause. The only times to
catch our breath were as we were walking along the bridge and as we
were jumping.
Cliff Jumping
I also jumped off the cliff at Texas Point at Christina Lake. I used to
think it was maybe a hundred feet high, but now I am thinking it was
less than that. Somebody probably knows its height. It seems that it
was the height of the Nursery bridge or maybe a little higher. I jumped
off other bridges and cliffs too whenever I had the chance.
People who have not done much bridge or cliff jumping might think it's
dangerous. It's true it can be. Once in a while someone would get hurt,
but it was pretty rare. I was always very careful to gauge the depth of
the water. You definitely wouldn't want to jump from such a height, and
then hit bottom. It might be okay to hit bottom a little bit, but it's
really better to make sure the water is plenty deep.
I would ensure that there was enough depth. If the bottom was sandy,
one felt a little safer, because if you did hit you had the impression
you would hit something soft. The other thing I did was to sit for
quite a while and judge the height I would be traversing through the
air. I wanted to really know how long I would be in flight. I would
always try to drop a pebble to see how long it took to get down. I
would study the current of a river, because I could gauge the height
from the size of the ripples, or so I tried to do.
The Big Jump
I always tell the story of my trip through Sacramento. I have likely
written this in The Nano Philosopher too, but since I don't remember it
clearly I will tell it again.
I was traveling from Encinitas to Grand Forks, BC with Barbara and her
young daughter Christa, both of whom have since passed away. We stopped
to cool off in the river near Sacramento. There was a little beach next
to a nice bridge. We swam around for a while then I decided to jump off
the bridge. I climbed onto the framework and began to gauge the depth
of the water and the height of the jump. It looked to me to be very
similar to the top of the Nursery Bridge that I was used to jumping
from, even though I was on the bottom part of this bridge. The water
depth seemed to be sufficient. Sunlight reflected from a nice sandy
bottom. And the ripples, well they looked a lot like the size of the
ripples I was used to in my river in Canada. I may have been a little
overconfident because everything seemed so familiar. I might have
thought it was a bit unusual that a small crowd began to gather on the
main part of the bridge. Had they never seen anyone jump off a bridge
before? My showman's instincts started to come into play. Feeling
confident that I had gauged everything correctly, I sprang out into the
air.
Everything went very well until about halfway down or so. And the only
problem at that point was that I thought I should already have reached
the water, but had not. It was kind of a sinking feeling, or some kind
of a feeling -- definitely a falling sort of a feeling. It felt as
though the rug had been pulled out from under me. For I had expected to
be down but was still traveling. What happened was that I had misjudged
the distance, due to the ripples perhaps? I later thought that the
ripples were maybe twice as large as the ripples that I was used to, so
the bridge was maybe twice as high. I think that was likely an
exaggeration. I doubt that it was twice as high. But I do know that thr
last part of the journey through the air seemed, because so unexpected,
to be a long one. The reason for the crowd of people on the bridge now
became clear.
The remainder of my downward journey, though seemingly long, was
uneventful, until I arrived at last at my destination. When jumping I
would always be careful to straighten my body for a smooth entry into
the water. This I would do just before entering. Well, in this case I
had already assumed my entry position, some time before I actually
arrived, and I am not so sure that I maintained it for the remainder of
the trip.
All things considered my entry into the water was pretty good.
Primarily I experienced some face-slap, which though it stung for a
while, did not have any long-term effects. Also I was under the water
for a longer period than I had planned on. The higher the jump the
deeper you go and the longer you are underwater. That is the formula. I
may or may not have hit the sandy bottom, I don't remember now. I swam
to shore and Barbara and Christa were mildly incredulous that they were
traveling with a crazy person but other than that our trip continued
onward.