ENCHANTÉ sessions. Central Park in New York has many bridges and arches that serve as bridges. I’ve spent many hours sitting and staring at Gapstow Bridge in the park’s southeast corner. It’s one of the most inspirational and stunningly beautiful bridges in the world. Perhaps it’s just a matter of fond memories opening my heart to associating bridges with love. As a child, I would go fishing with my father. Nothing serious. Just pleasant time together. We’d find a bridge, sit on it and drop our fishing lines into the water. I also have fond memories of walking barefoot across a bridge near cottages we rented in Sylvan Beach or Saranac Lake, New York. The most significant childhood memory (that includes my own children) is playing the game of Pooh Sticks. If you’re not familiar with it, Pooh Sticks comes from the writings of British author A. A. Milne in House at Pooh Corner. All you need to play the game is a running stream
Continued from page 23
A young woman in love would write her own name and her cherished one’s name on a padlock and affix it to the railing of Serbia’s Most Ljubavi (Bridge of Love). Over the past decade, locks have been appearing on bridges around the world, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. In Ottawa, you can now find hundreds of love locks on the pedestrian bridge crossing the Rideau Canal between the University of Ottawa and Somerset Street. I think it’s a wonderful tradition, and provided it doesn’t affect the structural integrity of the bridge, I think they should be left alone. I checked with an engineer and he rolled his eyes and told me it might just give bureaucrats a reason to create another set of rules, regulations and policies. In other words, he wasn’t worried about these things affecting the structural integrity of bridges; he was more concerned about paper-pushers’ ob-
Enchanting and fascinating people….and their world
of water, a bridge (preferably a small wooden footbridge) and a stick. Any number of players drop (no throwing allowed) their sticks or twigs into the water on the upstream side of the bridge, run to the downstream side and watch to see whose comes out first. I’ve played this game with my family in many locations, including on a small wooden bridge over a stream on the grounds of Blarney Castle in Ireland and in secluded waters in Hawaii. There aren’t a lot of rules, but the stick must be a natural twig of some sort. Extending the rules a bit, we’ve used popsicle sticks at times. As for prizes, we’ve used such treasures as winner gets to pick the treat of the afternoon (popsicles or ice cream) or what we have for dinner. It’s a healthy game, physically and emotionally. You’ll notice that no purchase of plastic or electronic toys is required. It is played outdoors. And, it’s good for all ages, from toddlers to slow-moving great-grandparents. Parents and
teens love it, too. It taps into some universal childhood that is good for all of us. Carl Jung might have proposed that bridge symbolism has something to do with transitions and
Mark Bergin
Freudians would invariably find some unconscious sexual reference. I prefer the simpler approach. A bridge is a magical entrance to another world. Most of all, you need a bridge to play Pooh Sticks.
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