I wonder what people will call it now. The bridge over the Chunky River on Grifis-Fountain Road will be replaced before long. It will be new, solid, well-made and dependable.
We won’t be able to call it the Old Rattlin’ Bridge. It won’t be old and probably won’t rattle.
People from Chunky giving the “grand tour” to visitors won’t be able to frighten them by clop-clop-clopping slowly over the aged iron frame and wooden planks that served this purpose so well for so long.
I don’t know how many times that bridge was “closed” over the years, with signs that basically meant “don’t sue anybody if you fall through this bridge we told you to stay off.”
A new bridge has been needed for many years, there’s no doubt. But this one will be missed, and I’m sure not just by me.
It’s kind of like replacing an old, comfortable T-shirt that’s threadbare and holier than your Sunday School teacher, with a nice, new shirt. If the shirts were suspended over a river and people depended on them for safety in crossing said river.
OK, it was a bad analogy.
It’s like getting rid of something that can no longer serve its intended purpose in order to replace it with something better. Just like that ... when the old, dangerous and worn-out something is a landmark, a local oddity, a fixture of your town and childhood.
Eyesore or icon? Safe structure or bridge of peril?
I spent many hours on and around that bridge. Hiding underneath, trying to skip rocks on the river; launching bottle rockets or paper boats off the side of the bridge — or bottle rockets at paper boats; even playing touch football or just walking.
It’s time for a new bridge. Commuters need safe passage over the river on that road. Out-of-towners don’t need a reason to wonder if they’re going to fall through the bridge my wife didn’t want to set tires on.
I’m glad the time has arrived.
But the Old Rattlin’ Bridge is a fixture of Chunky for me, and it will be missed.
Send me your Chunky community news and goings-on, and I’ll share them in this column. You can reach me at 601-934-0901 by call or text, or by email at brettcampbell@bellsouth.net.
