{i miss paper letters}

Over the ridge of volcanic rock just shy of the border, beyond the paper mill that straddles the river, there’s a bridge.  The bridge was constructed around the end of the last century.  It is solid, a combination of native stone, steel and iron, thousands of rivets.  It took hundreds of men close to a decade to complete; some of those men are still around, and would love to share with you stories of walking along the cables without safety measures of any kind, eating their lunches seated upon pylons hundreds of feet in the air above the water, one even claims to have lost a loosely-tied boot from that height!  They will gladly inform you that design of this particular type of bridge has its roots in Venetian plans that date back to the year 1595; that it may look similar to a suspension bridge, but that the method of construction involves cantilevering.  What they won’t speak of is how their wives resent sitting second to their love of this “marvel”, or how many friends were lost during the massive project.

The bridge provides passage for hundreds of cars, bicycles and pedestrians each day, many of which share the workmen’s adoration and sense of propriety.  Stand on the footpath at the center of the bridge and watch them pass; you will see it, especially in the eyes of the first-timers: awe, wonder, infatuation.  Much like the great pyramids at Giza, it seems impossible that this bridge was constructed before the advent of cranes or other large, heavy equipment generally painted yellow.  Yet here it stands, and the plaques mounted on either end say it’s so.

The bridge connects, creates one where there was two.