Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

The Bridge

It was three weeks ago, a Sunday morning, when I drove over the lift bridge on Carter Road over the Cuyahoga River. And yes, that is the river in Cleveland that was set ablaze-- one of 13 times in recorded history -- 40 years ago. And none since that time. By the way, the Cuyahoga River was the western boundary of the United States of America for a time, established by the Treaty of Greenville, a treaty with the Native American tribes in the area to end one of the many Indian Wars.

The lift bridge road surface is a steel grate and looks like this from above:

On that Sunday morning three weeks ago, as I started across the bridge, I saw something sticking straight up from the bridge deck, a bird wing. The bird -- a gull -- had gotten its head stuck. I drove around the bird. It was flopping around a little, and its head was definitely stuck in the grate. I'm not that good of a draw-er to draw what it looked like, but you can imagine, if you close your eyes -- the head sticking in the bridge grate and the body laying there with one wing straight in the air, kind of flopping around. There -- you got it.

It was one of those circumstances where a better person -- perhaps, a bird-loving person -- would have stopped and pulled the fucking bird's head out of the grate and like, you know, nudged it a little, encouraging it to take wing and fly away. Because that's what bird-loving people do -- kind of like maybe if the nudge doesn't work, pick up the bird, in the "You're in good hands with Allstate" kind of way, and give it a little toss in the air so that the bird flies away. But then there's the danger that the fucking bird won't take wing and will plunge headfirst into the ground -- well, the bridge -- and maybe the fucking bird will be stuck by the head in that traumatic situation again. See, that's why it would take a better person -- perhaps, a bird-loving person -- to rescue the fucking bird from its uncertain future, given the propensity of some motorists to swerve to hit the fucking bird, in which case -- Did you know that Vince, the guy who sells the Slap Chop! was arrested after he got beat to hell by a prostitute? I digress, but, for some strange reason, I was reminded of that chopper.

If you have read this blog, all of this blog, you know I'm not that kind of person; I'm not one of the minions of evil who would swerve and hit that poor fucking bird with its head sticking in the grate because they got the fucking bird right where they want it. Like I said, I drove around the bird, believing that a better person -- a bird-loving person -- would chance by, stop, and pull the fucking bird's head out of the grate, and help the bird, maybe even save the fucking bird. [This reminds me -- why, I don't know. There's this guy who plays basketball for the Boston Celtics, major sissy, actually, because he bumped his knee, and why play when he, Kevin Garnett, can collect his 22 mill a year salary by sitting on the sideline, saying "Mother fucker!" on national TV every time the camera pans his way. Just wondering, that's all.]

On this bridge, an operator is inside a control room 24 hours a day to antagonize motorists by making the bridge go up and down ... real ... real ... real ... slow, holding up traffic for what-seems-like-hours, allowing boats and ships to pass. The parking area for the operators is on the south side of the river. To reach the control room, the operator must walk north to the ladder that leads to the control room in the middle of the bridge. Between the parking area and the ladder was the bird with its head stuck in the grate.

That was three weeks ago when I first noticed the fresh fucking bird. And I've driven around that bird nearly every day since -- except for yesterday. The whole bird was gone. Part of the bird was still there. I don't know which part, though -- I didn't get out to inspect it. It was laying motionless, except for the feathers, which were moving with the breeze, off to the side of the roadway.

Posted by Bill at May 3, 2009 07:11 PM