The bridge to nowhere

Ah yes, I  remember it well.

Well, sort of.

I always thought I was in Miss Bradshaw's third grade class at Hogan Spring Glen Elementary, but now I'm thinking I was in Mrs. McIntosh's first grade or maybe Mrs. Kitchen's second grade -- but does that really matter?

What matters is that a bridge had been built. It would carry vehicles across the St. Johns River between Arlington and Jacksonville's Northside.  It was very high and long.  I remember that when we drove across it we  could see the Ford Motor Company plant where my uncle Henry Capp and his father "Granddaddy Capp" worked.  My uncle Leon worked for Ford too but I don't think he worked at the plant.  My daddy loved bridges and although he probably didn't like it that it cost 15 cents to go across, I am sure that he was excited to drive my sister, Cindy and me across that bridge.

We had no doubt been across it many times.

However, when it was time for a field trip to the zoo, I remember that the teacher told us we would be driving across the bridge - something hat some of my classmates had never done.

Today that seems so strange.

That bridge, the John Matthews Bridge, celebrates its 60th anniversary this weekend.  The Florida Times Union recalls that it was the bridge to nowhere.

I can just hear some of my relatives.  It was the bridge to somewhere - the place they called home, the place where my parents and many of our family members had gone to elementary school (Arlington Grammar (now Elementary) and it would offer easy access to the shipyards where other family members went daily to make their living and feed their families.

I will agree that it opened the way to other places - shopping malls, housing developments, professional offices. 

Because in reality the words to nowhere usually mean that eventually nowhere will be somewhere!

I've been reading One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp. These words - "you don't want to change the story because you don't know what a different ending holds". 

As I read the story in the TU this morning and remembered the many times I've been across that bridge, the fact that it was such a huge deal for my classmates to experience and some of the beauty that Arlington offered, I thought what if they hadn't built that bridge to nowhere. 

To Voskamp's point, I know that Arlington didn't remain the totally beautiful, peaceful, void of crime part of our city, but even the bad did not prevent it from being somewhere!  It's good we didn't know the ending!