Bridge Traffic

BridgeTraffic via Flash PromptIn zero point three kilometers make an upward turn onto Higher Sixth Avenue.

 

“Mommy, is it true that in the olden days, cars could only go left or right and not up or down?”

 

“Yes. I remember when I was your age, taking long drives to the beach, and being stuck in bridge traffic for hours.”

 

“What’s bridge traffic? Does it have to do with that weird card game Gramma and Grampa play?”

 

“Card ga – oh! No! They play Canasta.”

 

“Canasta sounds ca-nasty.”

 

“It’s really not, sweetie. It’s just a card game.”

 

“Oh.” The child took a beat. “You were going to ‘splain me about bridge traffic.”

 

“EXplain,” her mother said. “And yes, I will. When I was a little girl, the only way to cross the river to the road that ran along-side the sea wall was to go over a bridge. That’s a road that’s suspended above water.”

 

“I KNOW what a bridge is. “

 

“Well, this wasn’t just any bridge, it was a draw bridge.”

 

“So, there was traffic because everyone stopped to draw the bridge?”

 

“A draw bridge has a section that gets lifted up when a large boat has to go up or down the river. Some boats had masts that were too tall to go under the bridge when it was down. So they’d crank up the center, and traffic would stop and wait.”

 

“That doesn’t sound ‘ficient.”

 

“Efficient, sweetie, and no, it wasn’t. But we didn’t have cars that could go up, or Aerial Highways that went to the Tiers, so we had to wait.”

 

“I don’t think I’d like that.”

 

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad. We didn’t have guidance systems and TotalGPS like we do now, so sometimes we could turn down – “

 

“But you said you couldn’t GO up or down!”

 

“You’re right. We could turn ONTO a street we weren’t familiar with, and just see where it took us.”

 

“You mean, you could dev’ate from your set Travel Plan?” The little girl’s voice was full of wonder.

 

“Deviate. And we didn’t file travel plans. We just went wherever the road might take us.”

 

“And you weren’t afraid?”

 

“No… it was wonderful. Any trip could become an adventure. Sometimes we’d find parks or playgrounds or just neighborhoods with cute houses we didn’t know existed.”

 

“Do you miss it?”

 

“Very much. I wish you could experience it, sweetie. Life was so much more relaxed.”

 

“Even the bridge traffic?”

 

In one point three kilometers turn Down, then merge into the exit flow for Mid-level Forty-fifth Street.

 

“Yes. Even that.”