A Bridge to Midnight and Beyond

You may call me many things, but gephyrophobic is not one of them.

Standing on the pipeline today, I saw a red kayak twisted in half on a rock and commented to the guy taking a photo of it, "That didn't end well," to which he responded. "Oh, but it did. We're both still here." Whoa.

Back in J-Ward, I passed a house where a man was leaning on his front porch rail. Waving hello, he called out, "You walk far! I saw you all the way on the other side of the Lee Bridge a couple days ago. Keep it up. You look good!"

I love a good walk across a bridge.

Before crossing another bridge tonight, I went to 821 Cafe for dinner. Sliding on to a stool at the counter, I spotted a sign saying, "Beer to go. Be a good friend. Save a party" (dramatic, but sound advice) and heard a server tell the bartender, "I need three shots of bourbon and a PBR." The table he was waiting on was a two-top. Happy Monday, kids.

The more things change at 821 (all new plastic chairs in orange, green, back and yellow), the more they stay the same vis a vis my beloved black bean nachos, eaten to a raucous soundtrack by the Replacements.

Properly fueled, I drove across the Manchester bridge to get to the Shop at Plant Zero for a community conversation about the proposed BridgePark, a plan to bring people to the river and the river to the city. Obviously, this is not a problem for me since I'm down there walking practically every day, but we know not everyone makes that effort.

After going around the room to introduce ourselves (we were mostly male) and share our favorite part of the James River Park System (the pipeline, duh), the presentation began, one filled with maps and drawings, projections of plans and schemes to create a series of clear, green connections to the riverfront.

This was the first I'd heard about the T Pot project -also known less charmingly as the Brown's Island dam walk - after city planner Tyler Potterfield, a narrow (8-10') walkway over the James to connect to Manchester. While it'll be great to have, it'll be too narrow for anything more than just people walking across it.

Enter Bridge Park, a plan that has yet to be finalized but whose instigators are floating all sorts of ideas for an elevated space that gives people fabulous river views and connects up to the city. They've got all sorts of auxiliary ideas: a green line biking trail to Petersburg, a reflecting pool in Kanawha Plaza that can be drained for concert audiences to sit on, a hanging plaza over Brown's Island. Rain gardens and storm water management. Routes that flow naturally as extensions through the city.

The latest plan involves taking two lanes of the under-utilized Manchester Bridge and converting them to green spaces for bikes and pedestrians, a place that can be used for events, food carts, benches and anything else the populace wants. Maybe an elevator down to the river or a crow's net for bird-watching.

Turns out hundreds of people jammed the center of the bridge on July Fourth to watch fireworks this year. I had no idea. Next year, I'll be one of them, assuming I'm in town.

Clearly, this is a project that will have to be tackled in smaller pieces.

The goal is to create natural pathways (no grade more than 5% for walkability) that encourage people to move through green space rather than roadways. There was even talk of making the current center walkway an express cycling lane once BridgePark provides alternate walking space.

During the discussion afterwards, people wondered about the cost, how long it might take and, of course, whether the populace will stand for losing two lanes of the Manchester Bridge. Here's the cold, hard numbers, though: the Huguenot bridge has two lanes and carries 25,000 cars a day. The Manchester bridge has 11 lanes for only 17,000 cars.

Them's the facts, folks.

After the discussion ended, I chatted with a musician friend, only to learn that he's a civil engineer by day. Outside, I found a group of people continuing the discussion and stopped to join them. Our quintet debated some of the points we'd just heard, citing other cities doing related and successful things.

All of us want to see it happen, yet we all know it'll be a long process and no doubt go through many iterations before a final plan is developed. As we were breaking up, one of the guys asked me about my bridge walking and more tangents followed as we discussed Earth Day festivals, granola types and commitment to a cause.

"Can I buy you a beer at Legend so we can keep this conversation going?" he asked. Much as I was enjoying it, too - he was a kindred soul on a lot of issues - I couldn't because I had plans. It's Harper Lee night.

Chop Suey Bookswas hosting a midnight book release party for Lee's new old book, "Go Set a Watchman," at Lemaire with fun, frivolity and cocktails.

Chop Suey's owner Ward had suggested two brilliant drink names, Tequila Mockingbird and Booze Radley, but Lemaire had ideas of their own with New York to Maycomb, Tired Old Town and, inexplicably, Argyle Vintage Brut.

It's crazy, I was drinking Argyle regularly in Portland, brought some to a party last week and now here it was again. Argyle, you are my destiny.

I found a decent-sized literary crowd mingling about when I got to Lemaire, although not as many familiar faces as I'd expected. The bookseller, natch, the movie maven (we compared notes on "Love and Mercy," got excited about our upcoming film al freco), and later on, my fellow history geek (lamenting over a recent lecture where the author had read, rather than spoken, the entire hour, boring us both to death), an editor and a smiling restaurant owner.

After procuring tequila from one of the overtaxed barkeeps, I decided to bide my time until a bar stool opened up. Conveniently, it was near another book lover, a guy from Ashland who, like me, had reckoned that there was no better way to spend this Monday night than waiting to be handed a book written before "To Kill a Mockingbird."

"Besides, I stay up late and get up late," he tells me. Welcome to the club, kindred soul.

It was his laughter that started the conversation because he'd tweeted about trying Belle Isle Moonshine for the first time a few minutes earlier and in response, someone had sent him a crazy headline about a goat drinking a beer and making some bad choices.

We bonded over our preference for books over electronic reading of books and newspapers (kill me now) and our mutual love of train travel (he can walk to the Ashland station), but it was sharing teenage drinking stories (his involved moonshine surreptitiously poured into a beer, leading to him walking his terrified dog down the median of a four-lane highway) that cemented the bond.

Naturally I shared my old chestnut about a gallon of Gallo wine and a Black Forest cake that, like the goat's sorry tale, also did not end well. "And such quality wine, too," he joked.

Talking about our love of reading and library book sales (Ashland's happens on the Fourth of July, as does the parade which he likes to march in), I floored him when I mentioned the downtown library's annual book giveaway. "I thought I was getting a deal paying a quarter for books! You got me beat." Yea, well, I do that sometimes.

Curious about how I'd found out about tonight's event (pu-leeze!), he'd come across it in Style Weekly's feed, making for a natural segue to what I do. Explaining the life of a freelance writer, he got points for intuitively knowing the challenges as well as the perks.

All of a sudden, people were starting to leave and we realized they had handsome books clutched to their bosoms. Midnight had come and gone without our even noticing it. We decided to be those people who didn't rush out just because they had book in hand.

We rounded out the night talking about the VMFA, east coast versus west coast, and about his swinging annual groundhog day party (he's a native Pennsylvanian) before Ward brought my book over and we said our goodnights.

"It's been fun talking to you. Here's hoping we run into each other again," he said as I shook his hand.

You may call me many things, but shy and retiring are not two of them.