My Gump Ride

My Therapy Bridge

Bessie

“That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run”.

-Forrest Gump

bridge (brij) noun: a time, place, or means of connection or transition.

My first two-wheeled bicycle at the age of five was a hand-me-down red Schwinn with white trim and attached training wheels that I rode daily up and down the dead end street behind my house. I was the last in the line of five children to possess it. Considering Michael was 10 years older than me, that bike had been around many blocks for a very long time. Then one day, unbeknownst to me and not having procured an approval, my father decided to remove the training wheels. I wasn’t ready! I didn’t have the balance or the length in legs to keep it upright long enough to get anywhere. And, for some reason, every time I tried sitting on the seat the chain would scratch up the insides of my calves and cause them to bleed. As a result, I started riding it like a recumbent bike, sitting on the back fender with my legs extended to the pedals. Most likely looking like a dang fool, Kathy approached me one afternoon after witnessing the spectacle before her and asked if she could help me learn to ride the bike properly, to which I gleefully obliged. She repeatedly helped me up onto the seat, holding my body so I wouldn’t fall down to the ground, giving me sufficient support to get moving. I don’t remember if she simply lowered the seat or if her confidence in my ability to ride got me going. Either way, from that day on, if I was going somewhere, I was riding a bike sitting on the saddle!

There’s a brief memory of having one of those banana seat bikes later on (purple comes to mind for some reason), but I don’t have any good stories to tell about that one, if in fact it ever existed. The next hand-me-down was from my second eldest sister Maureen. It was a light brown 10-speed bequeathed to me at the beginning of high school. It was the easiest and quickest way to get around when you just didn’t feel like walking and were too young for a driver’s license. On a 10-speed, I could go much farther as well. I rode that bicycle everywhere I went, using it nearly every day for the next three years. Naturally, I was devastated when it disappeared from our garage during my last year of high school – a garage we never locked up because we didn’t need to, at least not until the day it went missing. Weeks later I caught the bike thief, the drug addicted boyfriend of an old friend I’d fallen out with thanks to her drug addicted boyfriend getting her hooked as well. No doubt she told him about the unlocked garage too. As would be expected, from then on, all my garages and all my bikes would be locked and secured.

My first brand new bicycle was a black 10-speed with gold trim that I bought at a local department store with the money saved from various yard work and babysitting jobs throughout high school. Unfortunately, I had to sell it a couple of years later to help pay for a ticket back home to New Jersey after a failed year-long attempt at adulting in Arizona. At least it went to a good friend who I knew would take care of and love it as much as I did (hopefully).

The seed for my true love of cycling, however, was planted when a boyfriend in college (circa 1986) lent me his mountain bike one summer (when he returned home to cheat on me with his other girlfriend in Maryland, only to return to school and cheat again on me and his other squeeze with an older friend’s 16-year-old daughter). I don’t recall what brand it was, but he assured me that his parents had paid thousands of dollars for it. By the way it handled, I can tell you it was worth every penny. Having to return that bicycle in the fall was agonizing. And then, for some reason, I stopped cycling (except for the bike rental in Ireland to explore the Gap of Dunloe). Perhaps bicycles reminded me too much of him and what he did. Either way, my newfound love suddenly disappeared and life had taken over.

Almost 20 years later, I found myself in another local department store looking at the racks of bicycles, reminiscing about the good old days and the ghosts of wheels past. For a mere $89, I convinced myself to buy a shiny, brand new red Schwinn mountain bike with white trim (who says you can’t go home again?). Coming full circle, I promised to keep up on its maintenance and started getting more serious about cycling. I rode every chance I got, pushing to travel more miles on-road and learning to ride on every and any kind of trail I could master. But all good things come to pass. I couldn’t expect that Schwinn to last forever, especially considering the torture I put that poor thing through.

Enter Ole Bessie the Mule, a 2009 white Trek 6000 mountain bike with turquoise trim. She cost a lot more than the Schwinn, having a price tag that took the hubby a while to catch his breath and swallow. I promised he wouldn’t regret the expense. Ole Bessie and I were going places! Fifteen years and hundreds (probably more like thousands) of dollars of repairs and upgrades later, I think he’s gotten over the initial sticker shock.

Aside from that 20-year gap, there have been many times when I stopped riding on a regular basis: illness, surgeries, caring for my elderly parents, being overwhelmed with work and motherhood. But I managed to get back in the saddle every time. After my visit to Milwaukee with the kid in July of 2015 and all those conversations with Michael about cycling, I realized how much it meant to me. From that very first hand-me-down red and white Schwinn to the now ancient Bessie, cycling is something that has kept me going, regardless of life’s obstacles. Returning from that visit, I found myself more and more motivated to ride. For the first time in my life, I decided to do some kind of charity bike tour. I wasn’t sure what it would be, but I needed a goal to set my sites on and something to honor my brother’s fight against cancer. Many of these tours, however, are overloaded with much more experienced cyclists who focus only on their time and how quickly they can get to the finish line; that’s not what I wanted. There was so much out there to see while riding long distances, but I knew I wasn’t going to see it racing through the streets. It dawned on me that I didn’t want to race, something many cyclists don’t seem to get. I needed a tour that I could simply ride at my own pace and raise funds for an important cause. My training wasn’t about how fast I could go or how quickly I could complete the course; that’s when I remembered Forrest Gump: “I just felt like running.” My brother no longer had that option. I was riding for my brother because he couldn’t. I was riding for me because I could.

It all started on Tuesday, September 16, 2015 at precisely 11:38:45 AM. During that summer I began following a schedule that would coach me to ultimately ride 30 miles with little effort. That particular day I needed to ride 15 miles. Six weeks before Michael died, I got on Ole Bessie for no particular reason and decided to go for a little ride. Setting out early that morning in hopes of beating the heat, I headed to a place I’d been to the year before: the 102-year-old Centerton Bridge in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Following the back roads, Bessie and I were in search of the rickety old bridge crossing the Rancocas Creek that would bring us to Rancocas Village, a mid-18th century town of days past long ago, abandoned by its citizens and for which the creek was named. It was a beautiful morning with temperatures in the 70s, low humidity and a crystal clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight.

On that day, I also decided to start taking pictures of my bicycle rides and post them on Michael’s social media page as a way of cheering him up while he was in and out of the hospital. Determined the first photo would be of the gorgeous views from Centerton Bridge, along with the antiquities of Rancocas Village, I rounded the bend leading to the bridge off Centerton Road, only to be met with a blockade: the bridge was out! After 10 long miles, I was pissed and demanded to know why it was closed, later reading that it had been shut down indefinitely five months earlier due to structural safety factors. Having ridden that rickety old bridge, I completely understood why the township made the decision to close it. However, their decision didn’t make me any less angry. I was taking a stand! Logic told me the sign just said “BRIDGE OUT,” not that I couldn’t take a look beyond the triple panel and barrel barricades. So, in absolute defiance, Ole Bessie and I walked past the sign, continuing to disobey the rules of traffic and society. Bessie took a much needed rest against the Jersey barrier (aptly named for New Jersey and the neverending construction throughout our lovely state) while I hurled myself over. The bridge may have been “out,” but it still extended across the creek and was seemingly safe and easily walkable to the other side. I strolled about halfway down to take some pictures but turned around soon after, fearing that Ole Bessie might get lifted or I might get picked up for trespassing, both of which I had experienced enough in my youth and still haunted me. Looking around, there wasn’t much else to photograph, except for the fluorescent yellow goldenrod against that crystal clear blue sky. It would be the sky I would see nearly every ride I took over the next six years. Even if it was raining when I started out, the sky would usually end up looking like it did in that very first photo on Tuesday, September 16, 2015 at precisely 11:38:45 AM – it was Michael’s sky.

Keeping to my training schedule, I continued to cycle throughout September and into October, but the bike tour didn’t happen that fall. Before I could finish, I was back in Milwaukee saying goodbye to Michael; that’s when it dawned on me that he was no longer seeing the photos I posted during the weeks leading up to his death. It had all been for nothing. I didn’t stop riding after my return, however, and set my sights once again towards my first bike tour. I was more determined now than ever to ride for Michael and continued to post photographs of my travels on social media.

Throughout the following year, I considered starting a blog about my cycling adventures, somehow weaving Michael into its stories. I wasn’t sure what the purpose would be or in what direction it would go, but I liked the idea of recording my travels and knew I would find some kind of solace in writing. Finding my thoughts on Forrest Gump, I contemplated utilizing the themes from the movie: “That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run.” It would be my Gump run, the birth of My Gump Ride having been delivered.

So, on September 16, 2016, I decided to return to the currently defunct Centerton Bridge in hopes of finding it reopened, only to discover the same blockade of triple panel and barrel barricades with a new sign stating “BRIDGE OUT – DO NOT ENTER.” Risking life and limb, let alone possible legal apprehension, once again, I hitched Bessie to the same K-rail and took pictures of the view. Aside from the barricades having been moved along with newer warning signs, not much had changed. Along the way, however, I managed to find some vibrant blueberries growing wild, abandoned train tracks leading to nowhere, wild flowers growing along (and sometimes in) the road, a soybean farm, local growers selling off their autumn harvest and a peaceful creek running under that closed bridge.

One of the most important lessons I have learned from Kathy is to “move slow and steady.” There were so many things I was missing with Bessie. I wanted to stop and look around, but the impulse to “race” took over. I was missing those wild blueberries growing on the side of a parking lot I’ve parked in dozens of times. I wondered where those train tracks ended up, thinking about how much Michael loved trains and of the train set he had since childhood still sitting in his and Liz’s home after his death. I wondered how a pretty little flower would grow out of concrete at one of the busiest intersections in Moorestown, New Jersey and not get crushed by every car, pedestrian and/or bicycle that drove through. I looked in awe at field after field of soybeans growing less than a mile away from a mall. I thought about the farmer whose land was attached to his market, how hard he worked all year long to make ends meet and how much I wanted to “act local, think global.” Then there was that sky, Michael’s sky, ridiculously blue with puffy white clouds. I call them “fake skies.” If my eyes hadn’t seen them, I’d think they were a piece of art. All this within a 10-mile radius of home, taking one hour, 37 minutes and three seconds of my life to discover.

Since September 16, 2017 fell on Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath), I needed to get to my Therapy Bridge one day early. And guess what I found? The bridge wasn’t any different than the year before. Ole Bessie and I now had an annual pilgrimage and a new custom of defying entrance.

Over the next five years, every September 16th I made the trek back to Centerton Bridge in hopes of crossing over the Rancocas Creek once again, each year bringing the disappointing fact that I wasn’t getting across any time soon. I followed whatever updates were made available regarding the fate of the bridge, different ideas of what to do with it being tossed around. From rebuilding a vehicular causeway to creating a pedestrian bridge to tearing it down completely and doing nothing, any solution would cost millions of dollars the township didn’t have. I wasn’t hopeful. As the years came and went, Mother Nature adjusted to the lack of human intrusion, her flora booming more and more each time I visited. The road slowly deteriorated and ultimately succumbed to renewed vegetation, becoming virtually unrecognizable. Each year the blockade also grew larger with eight-foot high chain-link fences eventually being erected, multiple signs warning “BRIDGE IS OUT,” “DO NOT ENTER,” “ROAD CLOSED” and “VIOLATORS PROSECUTED.” And every year I challenged it all, walking past the barricades, climbing over the Jersey curb and squeezing my body through gaps in the fences in order to walk on what I now refer to as my “Therapy Bridge,” a place that helped me heal from six consecutive years of death. Ole Bessie and I had crossed that bridge once, as death-defying as it was, and came out alive on the other side. But then I was denied access and kept returning in hopes of reentry, only being met with recurring disappointment each time.

Every year I was given that beautiful crystal clear blue sky from September 16, 2015 at precisely 11:38:45 AM, the only change being the juxtaposition of the blockade and the vegetation being more overgrown than the year before (along with my weight). The angels provided the day and life had gone on. It was no big deal by the time I finished. By the end of seven years, I knew what to expect when I got to the bridge, but not without the ever-present nagging prayer the bridge would be repaired just in time for my return, as if the Burlington County Board of Freeholders knew how important this was to me. What can I say, I’m an idealist. I never give up hope.

Resolved to get to the other side of Centerton Bridge in 2018, I vowed to find an alternate route that would bring me back to Rancocas Village and sat down at my computer to look at a map. I was also encouraged by a friend who asked if there was any kind of loop around the Rancocas Creek where he was not required to simply turn around and take the same way back home. Like me, he preferred loops. Weighing my options, I learned there were only two ways: another bridge about six miles west of Rancocas Village and an overpass on Route 130, a six-lane highway to hell including multiple entrance and exit ramps. Sounds like a plan!

Between several online maps and my backup handwritten notes, I managed to find my way to Bridge Street outside Rancocas Village on the other side of Centerton Bridge, but not without threatening storm clouds that followed my travels the first 15 miles and temperatures in the high 80s with suffocatingly high humidity, along with some rather shady neighborhoods, long stretches of nothingness and frighteningly narrow bicycle lanes on four-lane highways with crazy-ass people who repeatedly honked their horns screaming, “Get the fuck off!” and attempting to run me off the road, only to discover the bridge pretty much looked the same as the other side: triple panel and barrel barricades along with their warning signs of “DO NOT ENTER.” Ever the rebel and defiantly walking up to the still intact bridge, I finally got to see the eastern view I had waited three years to see and all I felt was disappointment. Needless to say, I didn’t recommend this loop to my friend.

By December 1, 2018 at 3:38:45 AM I had ridden for three years, two months, 14 days and 16 hours. It was time to say goodbye to my blog and my Therapy Bridge. As news of the ultimate destruction of the bridge made the news in 2019, graffiti artists (I’m a serious fan of graffiti, by the way) rushed to make their marks on the Centerton Bridge’s remains. The township had made their final decision: the bridge would be torn down completely and nothing would be done to replace it. When COVID 19 shut down the planet in 2020, Ole Bessie and I watched in dismay as construction crews dismantled the bridge, piece by piece. By 2021, I sadly pondered if I would make it to the bridge or if I even had the wherewithal to bother. September 16th was on Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days of the Jewish year, which meant I would need to go the day before or the day after. Going into a 25-hour fast and ending the day before Shabbat, I decided September 14th was it or nothing. Mulling it over the week before, the hubby suggested, “Maybe you’re finished.” I secretly wanted it to be true. I was exhausted and dismayed by death, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t capable of stopping, so I decided to check it out one more time, needing to know whether or not I was indeed “finished.” That ride was more difficult than I remembered in previous years (welcome to middle age) and certainly hadn’t resulted in anything unexpected, except for the multitude of newer deposited triple panel and barrel barricades with new pylons and signs warning that the “BRIDGE IS OUT,” “DO NOT ENTER,” “ROAD CLOSED” and “COUNTY PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING VIOLATORS PROSECUTED” greeting me before the eight-foot high chain-link fence encasing the Jersey barrier and restricting any entrance whatsoever. What else would I do after seven years of visiting my Therapy Bridge? I entered and violated with a vengeance, of course, joyfully challenging anyone who would forbid my opportunity to bid a final farewell. Resting poor Ole Bessie against the fence and clutching its diamonds, I watched as the tail end of Centerton Bridge on the other side was being demolished. The hubby was right – I was indeed finished…or so I thought.

Because I am a curious and idealistic human being, however, in 2022 I drove to my Therapy Bridge, two years of pandemic robbing me of health and motivation to ride Ole Bessie the 20 miles roundtrip. I wasn’t getting any younger, a third gynecologic surgery and pending fourth impeding my ability to ride long distances. As I stood on the edge of the bridge pondering my seven year long steadfast determination to get through to the other side, I recalled taking that first photo of Centerton Bridge and posting it on Michael’s social media page. Even in my resistance, a complete crossing just wasn’t in the cards. He had lost his battle with cancer and gotten over to the other side before it disappeared, something I hoped was in the distant future for me. I’m not quite ready to cross that bridge yet and more than content to wait. Eventually we will all see one another again on the other side.