There are bridges, and then there are bridges

While a huge population of the mystery community is gathered in San Francisco right now, we're seeing lots of pictures of the famous, beautiful, Golden Gate Bridge.

(taken by Tasha Alexander)

And rightly so.  It's gorgeous.  And brings with it a lot of history and romance.

But there's another little bridge that has a very special place in my heart.  

It's not well known and even to the people who know it well, it probably rarely sparks the emotion it does for me.

It's this wonderful bridge that takes you into Cambridge, Maryland across the Choptank River.  

The second our car wheels hit that bridge heading toward Cambridge I start crying.  It's just so beautiful, and my heart knows it's home.

We won't even talk about how hard I cry when the car wheels hit that bridge when we leave. 

Although I've always heard it referred to as "The Bridge," the real name of the original bridge is The Emerson C. Harrington Bridge.  

The Emerson C. Harrington Bridge began construction in 1933 and was dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935.  Prior to that, ferries were used to cross the river. Presiden Roosevelt was on board his presidential yacht Sequoia, when it became the first vessel to pass through the draw.

The President delivered a congratulatory speech at Long Wharf in Cambridge, which is now the site of the Harbor.

A memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the faux smoke stack (it was actually an elevator shaft) from his later Presidential yacht, U.S.S. Potomac, is located there.

The Emerson C. Harrington bridge that was there all my life while I was growing up was this reallllly really narrow, scary narrow, 2 lane bridge.  Plus there was a sidewalk that ran the entire length of it that people used to stand on to fish.  I swear to God - you never knew when someone might reel in a fish with too much enthusiasm and it end up slap on your windshield.  (well, okay, I made that part up.  I never ever heard that this happened, but it could have, right?!)

When they built the new bridge in 1987,  they used remains of the old bridge to build a fishing pier adjacent to the new bridge.  Which I thought was very cool.  That old bridge has a lot of memories attached to it.  Memories I'll never accumulate with the new one, since my only forays across it are the visits we now make home every few years.

I remember sitting in the car waiting while the bridge gate keeper would open the swing span long enough for boats with tall masts came through.  Traffic would back up pretty often for this.  And that was all that man did all day long.  Sit in that little room on that bridge and wait for big boats to come by so he could open and close the swing span.

Give me a stack of books, sit me in that room on that wonderful bridge with a view across my beloved Choptank and I'd be one very happy camper, I do believe.  

for real.

So long as this cute guy wasn't too far away . . . 

oh yeah - or this little guy - - -