Out of the Frying Pan

Adventures of Elwood & Mike - Part 3

Yep, if I wasn’t with Elwood, that’s where you could find me: at the library. I always loved to read mysteries and ghost stories, and especially “how to” stuff. That’s right, I’m a dang book worm and proud of it. I still to this day don’t watch much TV. I prefer to read or work with my hands.

Once inside the library, I asked the librarian, Mrs. Kennedy (who knew me well), if there was anything about the Ironton Russell Bridge, how it was built and so on. She found two large books for me and let me check them out even though she wasn’t supposed to. See there, bookworms have their privileges. I carried those books home as if they were made of gold.

What had dawned on me was the bridge’s design. Unlike most bridges I’d read about or seen pictures of, it had a sharp turn at the end when you come from Kentucky into Ohio. Where most bridges spanned from one bank to the other in a somewhat straight line, or have a gradual curve, this bridge just suddenly and sharply turned right. I wanted to know why.

In the first book, I read that the main local resources were iron ore, coal, and steel, and the railroad was there first. If they would have made the bridge straight, it would have come down right in the middle of the train station. Even if they would have curved it, they were afraid that if a train derailed, it would knock out the supports of the bridge. The only other alternative would have been to build it down further, which would have meant the city wouldn’t be able to collect the revenue from tolls.

So they redesigned the bridge with that big old turn in it.

The second book was filled with details about the bridge design, including blueprints. It was in those blueprints that I spotted something – well, actually three somethings, that I couldn’t hardly wait to share with Elwood. I was so excited, I couldn’t hardly sleep that night.

The next day I met up with Elwood to walk to school. I didn’t bring the books in fear something might happen to them. All I told him was I had something he just had to see after school. As soon as the bell rang, we met up, and off to my house we went so I could show him my find. When we reached my house, I scurried off and emerged back out with the two prized books and was greeted with a frown and a raised eyebrow. Elwood wasn’t into books like me. He got good grades but could have done better if he wanted to, it was just the part of about him wanting to that was the problem.

As I opened the book, he became as fascinated as I was about the blueprints, but finally asked, “So what’s the big deal you wanted to show me?”

When I showed him, he got a twinkle in his eye and an all too familiar smirk on his face.

There they were, right in front of him, printed in black and white, three of them. One at each end of the bridge, about 200 yards from each shore and the other one right smack dab in the middle of the bridge, at least 80 feet above the water. There was our next challenge, our newest adventure.

Unknown to the general public, our bridge had three workman tunnels beneath it.

Each tunnel had square holes on both sides called viewing holes so the workmen could inspect the tops of the pylons, the underside of the bridge, and the wiring of the lights on either side. That was it, we had to know what was in those tunnels, like lost treasure in a cave. But the next question was how.

So back inside I went to get my telescope to better see our next appointed challenge. The telescope was Elwood’s idea since he watched the Man from U.N.C.L.E. and had a stupid pen with invisible ink that fired a cap. It wasn’t worth the two dollars then but I wish I had it now, it’d probably be worth a fortune.

We went down to the bridge and realized we had to go over to the Kentucky side to get a look because that big flood wall was in our way. So up the ramp we go, pausing for a moment to check out the repairs that had been made. Wow, if it wasn’t for the nick in the walkway, you wouldn’t have even known anything happened, they even painted that section there (had to touch it to see if it was still wet, too). We walked across, waved at the toll booth operator, trying to look inconspicuous, and finally got to the other side.

We went down the embankment a ways and there it was, not quite as far as we thought, but far enough. We took turns peering through the scope to see if we could see inside the viewing holes. Didn’t see anything special, but we still had to know. We looked up at the side of the bridge to find a landmark so we would know right where the tunnel was situated below the bridge, but everything looked the same and no way were we going to count that many rivets in the girders.

Elwood had a stroke of genius. He told me to go up on the bridge while he watched, and he would signal me when I was right above the tunnel, and I could mark the spot. I walked for a ways and he kept waving me further. I kept moving and finally he gave me the thumbs up. I marked the spot by scratching a line in the walkway with a rock.

We didn’t realize how much time had passed, but it was getting late and we needed to get home. We knew we’d have to wait until the weekend.

It seemed such a simple solution. We knew where the tunnel was. All we’d need to do was go over the side of the bridge, climb underneath, and swing from girder to girder like monkey bars until we could climb inside that tunnel.

It didn’t quite work out that way.