Several thoughts started racing through my mind when I heard the William T. “Boss” Mull Memorial Bridge in McCaysville is going to be replaced.
The first of those centered around the mess the work is guaranteed to cause. I thought about what construction will do if the truck route around McCaysville and Copperhill isn’t completed first.
And how about moving traffic smoothly through the twin cities? There are many times it doesn’t move smoothly now.
The more I thought, the more the problems piled up like the cars in a train wreck.
But enough of the problems.
There is history around the bridge worth remembering.
It didn’t have a fancy name when I was growing up, or for a long time after that. Many of us still know it as the “new bridge.” The name is a bit of a stretch, since it was built in 1936, but it’s still newer than the old bridge just downstream.
There was the time I drove across it when the river was flowing over the roadway. That would have been sometime in the mid-1970s. There was enough water to cover the sidewalks on both sides, but cars still went back and forth.
I guess we didn’t worry as much back then, or maybe we just didn’t realize the danger. Since then, I’ve seen the bridge closed when the water was well underneath it.
How about those weekend nights? Pick any Friday or Saturday from the time the sun went down until 11 p.m. or so and McCaysville and Copperhill would be packed with cars.
Everyone went to town. The crowds the trains bring today are nothing compared to the number of teenagers back then.Traffic clogged the streets and the bridge alike.
There was the night during a July 4 celebration that Rick Harper and I were crossing the bridge in my Mustang. Traffic going our way was at a dead stop. So I pulled a U-turn. He didn’t believe it, and I don’t think I did either.
Nowadays that would create a heap of trouble. Then, it was just part of another night in the twin cities.
I still miss that Mustang. I miss Rick and his Dad, Mickey, more. They were true friends.
The bridge marked the center of two of the best hangouts for those of us who didn’t want to drive back and forth all night.
On one side was B.A. Collis & Son hardware. Its front porch, which faced Highway 5 – that’s before it was Blue Ridge Drive – was the perfect place to sit, talk and watch.
On the other side, across the river, was the parking lot of what was the First National Bank branch. Here, too, you could peel yourself off your vinyl seats that the summer heat had turned into a stove eye, get out, and visit.
Now sometime in the future – the Georgia Department of Transportation isn’t saying when – the “new bridge” will be replaced by a shiny “newer” structure. It probably won’t look the same, but will likely be built to last for more than the 80-plus years the “new” one has survived.
But I’ll bet it won’t be at the center of some great growing-up memories. Too many things have changed.
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Glenn Harbison is publisher/editor of The News Observer. He can be reached at 706-632-2019 or by email at glenn@thenewsobserver.com.