Invasion plans were cancelled

Symptoms of Bridge Phobia – Fear of bridges: a full blown anxiety attack.

Bridge Phobia is an intense fear of something that poses no actual danger.

Wrong. So wrong.

I googled "bridge phobia" expecting a name for it, dagnabit. "Pontophobia"?

Then I visited "The Phobia Page and found these three in a row:

Ponophobia: Fear of overworking. Fear of fatigue, esp. thru overworking.
Oh yeah! Got that too!

Potamophobia: Fear of rivers.
No, I love rivers and would like to live on one. I fear rivers like I fear cement looking down 500 feet.

Potophobia: Fear of alcohol or acoholic (sic) beverages.

Geez. It's like in "Harvey" when Sam looks up the word 'Pooka' and the dictionary talks back to him. (Pooka (n.) hello sam , nice hat.)

It was a humid August afternoon, 1992 and my wife and I were driving our old station wagon with a U-Haul hooked to this little steel ball on the back. Approaching the Ohio River, on our way from Tennessee to Iowa. This was near Cairo, Illinois, where, come to think of it, U.S. Grant had his hangovers and breakdowns too (when he was still U.S. "Gnat").

As always, I marveled at the bridge. I loved the bridge, and could contemplate it for ten minutes as we cruised along, at one with the road, rising and falling, leaning right, leaning left with the curves.

It went in and out of sight, reappearing exponentially larger each time, which made me a little giddy, I think.

No, I think I can go so far as to say it made me giddy. Not a little giddy.

Wait. Again. It made me not a little giddy.

So large. And the river. I thought of the satellite perspective. I thought again of the Civil War. Trade, commerce, flooding, dams, dam disasters. And the river is like the sun, the stars and the moon, because we all share it and can see it together while in different lands.

I just mean, it's something. It would be in the bible if this were the Holy Land.

Driving a little day-dreamy. Oh. The bridge. It's gone. Oh! It's there again. And much larger now. Yay!

When I was a kid my folks used to wake me up in the back seat if we were going to cross a big truss bridge.

If Laura was asleep I'm sure I woke her to see.



So, we began our way across.



And it was 'round about here...


my brain twitched with something like a low grade LSD lightening flash.

Then, much more frightening, a sort of myclonic jerk, which made me think I was going to faint. And in half a second I thought fainting while driving over the Ohio River would not only mean the both of us would die, but jaysus, the obituaries {shudder!}. The poor young newlyweds! What a way to go! Oh my god!!

I slowed down from about 70 mph to 40, fast.

I turned up the radio full blast and yelled to poor Laura , "TALK TO ME".

"Huh?"

I explained and she kept her head, somehow. You know how people do when they suddenly realize they're married to a dangerous lunatic and he's behind the wheel.

"Just go a little faster and it won't take so long to get across."

"But ...no...I think I want to go slower. There's a semi coming up though. Talk to me!"

She shut off the radio. "Hmm. Did you know I was editor of my college year book when I was a freshman? I spent all my spare time trying to take candid pictures of our teachers, like in strange poses."

"To humiliate them?" I yelled, though the radio was off. I was speeding up to about 50 now. Thank god.

"No! Well, ...NO,... no. Just, you know , funny pictures like catching them yawning or rolling their eyes while talking to a student. Or eating spaghetti."

"Good ....girl..."

"John, you just have to relax. And you're tired, that's what this is."

"It's a long way!"


"Keep talking! Tell me your first memory again! Something! Your first day at kindergarten!"

"Oh, I didn't go to kindergarten, remember?"

"Jesus Christ, Laura! All right, the grocery list game. I start. Apples bananas carrots danish eggs furniture polish"

"Wait. G? Groceries. Ha,ha. Sorry. Ok, Green Beans."

She opened and read her magazine aloud:

"Anders Skaar, an executive headhunter with negligible musical talent, set up a bare-bones organization called Anthem! America and put out a call for composers and lyricists to submit new songs that could replace "The Star-Spangled Banner," which he found both hard to sing and hard to swallow..."

We got across. I pulled over and without a word crawled back into the back seat.

Laura was just truly amazing-grace about all this.

I was more than upset though. This was it, neurotic psychological problems were now a mental illness that had a physical symptom. I was 30 years old, and I knew for one thing, I'd never drive across a bridge again (I have though).

In the previous year, I'd been robbed at gun point (and shot at, or anyway the mugger fired the gun, maybe in the air when I didn't run like he told me to, after taking my wallet). In the last year, I'd had a warrant for my arrest for not following through on some DUI punishment (my one and only DUI had to be in Nashville, TN. They were properly stern.)

A little more than a year before, my dad had dad-gone. So, I was a mess.

This is many years ago. I don't want to slip into full-yawlp autobiography.

In 2004, I moved to Our Town with inherited money, to escape the anti-saloon league that was my family. I didn't want anything, since I was a full blown drunk. The menu of life, I'd closed...I'll have a beer instead, thanks.

One of Our Town's adv adva advt attributes is its tolerance of not only gamboling but gambling.

There's a casino nearby, where you can smoke, drink, and-- cleeeavage cleeeavage!-- probably even meet the henry chinanski love of your life, to die with drunk.

But it's across a river! A large river with a truss bridge that is awesomely gigantic and has a view of a rusted out old railroad bridge as well. Awesome, to me, means narcolepsy or something, I swear. I will not cross that bridge. Not for vice, not for agape love, will I cross that bridge.

You tell me, I don't know. But there is the Skinner approach:



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Remember, it snickers!