Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 19, 1993 TAG: 9304190092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: AMY SATTERTHWAITE THE FREE LANCE-STAR
DATELINE: BURGESS LENGTH: Medium
Below him the Great Wicomico River dawdles toward the Chesapeake Bay, waiting just beyond the far bend he can see from his perch.
Donald "Cooter" Bryant has been the bridge tender for 12 years. With his eyes closed, he can open the bridge that his uncle Fallin Booth helped build.
There are days he does nothing but enjoy the view from his tiny room in the bridge's ceiling beams. But should the "Miss Barber" or the "Connie D" troll up to hunt crabs in deeper water, Bryant will halt what traffic there happens to be on Virginia 200, which cuts through the lower end of the Northern Neck's Northumberland County. Here on the Great Wicomico, boats have the right of way over motor vehicles.
He will tug a few levers and underneath him the simple gears oblige. Out swings the 262-foot center of the bridge, taking him and the house out over the river with it. Once a boat is safely through the channel, the bridge pivots back to meet pavement, and cars are given leave to cross.
Bryant and the handful of other tenders have spent the best part of their careers at the solitary helm of what locals call the Tipers Ferry Bridge.
"I'm part of a dying breed," he said. And sure enough, each day brings Bryant's craft a little closer to obscurity.
Just as the pivot bridge killed the cable ferry in the mid-1930s, so it must die now for progress: a higher, paved overpass to be completed in June. Its bulk looms above the tender's house, shading the sun.
Only 13 swing-span bridges are left in the state. Almost every year spells the end of one of them. The last hand-operated drawbridge, which spans the Mattaponi River in King William County's Walkerton area, is scheduled to be closed in 1995.
The modern versions don't need gears or people to work them, and they won't delay rescue vehicles while a yacht on a pleasure cruise passes underneath.
Built in 1934, the Tipers Ferry Bridge will live on only in snapshots and, for Bryant, in a watercolor he commissioned from Virginia artist Mary Lou Hann.
"I know I'll miss this bridge," Bryant said. "You do grow attached to it."
Tenders start their shifts by catwalking "off shore" along the edges of the bridge and climbing steel stairs to a pantry-sized room they call the house.
It has picture windows on all four sides, providing what Bryant calls one of the best views in the state. A recent visit turned up some homey touches: wooden floors painted baby-blue, a pair of soft slippers, magazines, plenty of coffee and some delicacies best enjoyed solo, like spicy Vienna sausage and olives. A toilet sits unabashedly exposed in the corner.
A telephone is provided for talking to landlubbers, a radio for communicating with sailors and a bullhorn in case a tender must yell down to a small craft.
There is no lunch hour or break of any kind. "If a boat comes through you just put down your sandwich and crack her open," Bryant said.
Reminders that you're sitting about three stories high are plenty. Heavy trucks rumbling across the bridge cause the house to experience something like airplane turbulence. On a blustery day, the windows rattle. A thunderstorm has left more than one tender shaken.
"It don't feel too good to be up here in a storm," said 61-year-old Garfield Parker, who lives about 12 miles away in Heathsville and works an occasional shift as bridge tender. "My wife said she'd never come up here, period."
Parker watches the seasons change and listens to the country radio station. "All kind of thoughts go through your head up here."
Out on the Great Wicomico, one of the state's cleanest salt rivers, you can watch ospreys dive for their supper. River otters have been known to play near the bridge pilings. Water snakes and bay stingrays will slide by.
One of the youngest tenders, 27-year-old Eric Landon, finds it all "boring, real boring."
He and the other tenders are applying for other jobs with the state Transportation Department. Landon and Parker will probably end up on road crews. Bryant wonders what will happen to him.
"They told us we can fill an existing vacancy, but they couldn't create a new job for us," he said. "I hope to be on another bridge. All bridges are unique."
by CNB