GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

My posting of photos of the Golden Gate Bridge prompted a couple of comments. One regarded the 50th anniversary of the opening of that bridge, which prompted me to remember this true story:

I was only seven years old when the Golden Gate Bridge was first opened to traffic. My dad insisted we should go and ride across this magnificent structure. This didn’t seem like a difficult thing to do since we lived in San Francisco, so off we went. My eldest sister’s husband drove, and when we got near the approach to the bridge, we could see that ninety gazillion other people had the same idea. Traffic was at a crawl. When we finally got up on the span itself, cars were nearly completely stopped. My dad, who was in his bedroom slippers, said he wanted to get out and walk. We would pick him up on the way back. So off he went, midst all the other pedestrians.

I certainly don’t recall how long it took us to cross the bridge, turn around and come back, but it was quite some time. And as we crept along, we kept an eye out for Pop. Ha! No luck. And we had to keep going. The off ramp had places to pull off in case of emergency, so my brother-in-law pulled into that space. A short while later a highway patrolman on a motorcycle pulled up and asked if anything was the matter. My sister explained the problem, and gave Pop’s description, right down to the bedroom slippers. And off the highway patrolman went. Some while later he came back with Pop riding on the back of the cycle, bedroom slippers and all. Rescued!

Fun -