When I see famous bridges in photographs, they seem small somehow, fitting nicely into a frame of water and sky, fitting onto a postcard or into a magazine ad. In real life, I was overwhelmed by the size of Famous Bridge That Leads to the Borough Where Francie Nolan Lived. When I got close, I could barely fit any of it into my viewfinder. I'm not even sure if the arches in this photo count since they were more like an overpass leading to the bridge.
Famous Bridge Leading to Borough Where a Tree Lived always makes me think about the story North Country Girl told me about her parents getting engaged. They've been married about fifty years now, and their kids and grandchildren all know the story. In those days, the social expectation was that the man "propose" to the woman, and her father felt all this pressure to do the right thing. He had planned to be all romantic and make some speech about love while standing in just the right spot on the Famous Bridge, but he was so nervous that what he really said when they got to the spot was, "Oh, here. Just take this ring before I throw it off the bridge."
6 comments:
That story made me chuckle out loud.
Love the proposal. What a fun family legacy.
What a wonderful story.
My grandfather proposed to my grandmother on a bridge, too, although it wasn't a famous one. But my grandmother used to have an old black-and-white photo of the bridge, and she'd refer to it as "Where it all began."
That's the best engagement story I've ever heard!
Hmm- I don't know if this is exactly an engagement story, as they were never officially engaged, but my grandparents had talked (somewhat) about getting married sometime. (Grandfather was a hired hand on grandmother's dad's farm.) So one day my grandfather said, "Well, it's raining too much to work on the farm, let's go to town and get married." And so they did- and stayed married another 68 years.
chris in NY
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