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.