The Bridge

 
 
5/22/98 
I built a bridge today. A simple bridge really, it consists of a 
matched pair of arched locust beams with  
pressure-treated boards nailed on top. It spans twelve feet 
and is four feet wide, sturdy enough to drive Alice,  
the garden tractor over. I dug trenches for the ends of the 
locust poles until they laid flush with the ground,  
something I should have done with the first one, the one we 
just tossed aside with the backhoe last week. That  
old bridge was built fifteen years ago, using the same 
method but with pallet boards for decking, I'm amazed it  
lasted as long as it did. 
 
This bridge crosses the drainage ditch for the foundation 
excavation of the (soon, I hope) log cabin. Without  
this ditch the thirty by forty foot excavation would become a 
pool of stagnant water, a breeding ground for  
more than the spring peepers. It drains the runoff down the 
hill to a tiny, seasonal creek. The ditch is now about  
two feet deep and three feet wide, a channel cut to the hard 
shale ledge that is also the floor of the excavation. It  
leads to another hole in the ground, this smaller excavation 
was done many years ago, before we acquired the  
property. This hole is deeper than the other at the closest 
end, almost to grade at the downhill end. I originally  
wanted to build a root cellar there but it may have to house 
the septic tank in order to get the building permit  
renewed. I can always dig another hole. 
 
I hope this bridge doesn't have to last as long as the last one, 
once the cabin is built there won't be any need for  
it. I hope the logs will be planed and grooved and stacked 
next to the big hole by summertime, fall will be too  
late, again. Gin and I cut down over a hundred and fifty Red 
Pines during the summer of '96, then pealed them  
throughout the fall. They were cut that winter into rough six 
by sixes with the outside edged left rounded, then  
stacked to dry a bit before being run through a large 
planer/shaper to chamfer the inside corners and mill a  
spline-groove, along with making them smooth. We thought 
they would be finished last year in time to build  
with before winter. The owner of the one man sawmill is in 
his sixties and contracts stone pallets among other  
part-time jobs. I can understand him not wanting to hurry at 
his age, but I don't want to be building this cabin  
when I'm sixty. 
 
I'm getting off the subject. The subject is the bridge. When 
that backhoe moved the old one, it destroyed it  
completely. I needed a new bridge because I cross that ditch 
every day, sometimes twenty times a day, heading  
for the barn at the end of my path and property, or to the 
garden just across the ditch, behind the future log  
cabin. I laid out my extension ladder to cross the ditch until 
I could afford the material for the new one, adding  
a couple rough planks over the rungs to walk on. It had 
been there for a week and I still didn't know how I was  
going to earn the money for a new bridge, it just wasn't in 
the budget. 
 
I walked across that ladder this morning to help my 
neighbor install siding on his house, a trade for his  
building me a web page. When I mentioned that I had to 
build a bridge and had no money, he said I could have  
all the extra boards he had laying around after building a 
deck, eleven of them, each eight feet long. He also  
told me to go ahead and cut two locust poles for the beams 
from his firewood pile if I wanted. We put in a good  
day's work on the vinyl siding then I thanked him for the 
bonus and went for my chain saw. In less than an  
hour, I had a new bridge, just in time to cross it on my way 
to do evening chores, and to carry a dozen eggs  
down to the neighbor. 
 
   I'd gladly walk across the desert with no shoes upon my feet 
   To share with you the last bite of bread I had to eat. 
   I would swim out to save you in your sea of broken dreams 
   When all your hopes are sinking, let me show you what love means 
   Love can build a bridge 
   Between your heart and mine 
   Love can build a bridge 
   Don't you think it's time? 
   Don't you think it's time? 
                                The Judds