Free Covered Bridge by Brian Doyle Page A

a new barn, you’d leave the old barn there, all falling down and rotten so’s future generations could stand around and admire it and say, My, look at the tumbled-down old shack they used for a barn in those days!I wonder why they bothered leavin’ that there at all. Sure, it’s only an eyesore!”
    On our noon hour, one farmer, while he was eating a pig’s leg for his dinner, gave us a little speech about the history of the bridge.
    â€œImagine them building our covered bridge in 1900! Everybody from all over the countryside coming with their picks and shovels and tools to work on the bridge. Just like building a barn! The walls, put up one big piece at a time, just like a barn, and the roof beam and the rafters and then lumber and the shingles—just like a barn and the hammers all hammering and the saws all sawing away and the men all shouting and then the big outdoor picnic at the church and the pies and cakes and beans and potatoes and bread and pork and tea and onions and cabbage and pickles and even tomatoes if it was the fall! Oh, it must have been lovely!
    â€œAnd not one car came through the new covered bridge for a long long time. Only sleighs and wagons and carts!
    â€œWill it fit a load of hay? Will it take a load of logs?
    â€œThen it’s all right!
    â€œAnd after that, only a few cars a year came. And maybe a truck. Then a few more cars and trucks. And then more. And more.
    â€œAnd then, in the last few years, it seemed like every day there was more cars and bigger trucks.
    â€œSo now we need a new bridge.
    â€œTime to tear down the old bridge and build this nice new one like we’re doing right now...it’s progress!”
    It was quite a speech. Specially while you’re eating a pig’s leg.
    Then Mickey Malarkey tried to tell a story about a cousin of his who was told not to shove a bean in his nose and did. And how the bean took root and began to grow and how the leaves were hanging out of his nostrils. Mickey tried to say they had to get hedge-clippers to trim some of the foliage hanging out of his nose, so they could get at the root and dig it out—and did he ever learn a lesson about shovin’ things up your nose, especially beans!
    But even Old Mickey Malarkey couldn’t keep the subject off the bridge for long.
    Sometimes some people who lived in cottages up the river in Beer Bay and on Beer Point would drive up and get out of their cars and ask about the bridge.
    â€œAre they going to tear down the old covered bridge?” they’d say.
    Then the argument would start all over again.
    And the farmers that came from up in around Low would always seem to wind up arguing with the farmers from down in around Brennan’s Hill.
    And even though they might both be on the same side of the argument, they’d argue anyway.
    Then somebody started up about how hard it is to keep
up
a covered bridge! All the things that can happento it. Trucks hitting it. Heavy loads. Porcupines. Bark beetles. Lichen. Moss. Wind. Rain. Ants. People carving initials. Kids. Drunks. Vandals. Suicides.
    And then some other people would start talking about the good stuff about the covered bridge, about how school kids could meet there to wait for the sleigh to take them to school in the winter except there were no more sleighs. And also about in the summer how kids could swing on a rope attached to a lower cord or stringer under the bridge and flip into the creek to swim and cool off; or how a farmer could rest his horses in there, stay in the bridge for a while to cool off and get their breath before they went up the other side pulling their load of hay or logs; or the advertisements you could pin up inside the wooden portals about meetings or dances; or how you could hold your breath and make a wish while you’re passing through; or how at night your girl would be afraid (she was only pretending) because of the dark and you put your arm around her; and