THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507260063
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: MY JOB
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
IT'S AN imperfect world. Nobody knows that better than Mooney Williamson.
If boaters are happy, car drivers aren't. If drivers are happy, the people on the river are in a stew. You can't satisfy everybody.
``You're kind of a referee up here,'' Williamson said as the Shawna Louise, a trawler from New Bern, N.C., chugged past under his watchful eyes. ``You've got to have a lot of patience on this job.''
Up on North Landing Road somebody's patience was pretty thin. Behind the closed gate that kept him from plowing into the dark water, a driver jerked his car into a U-turn and tore back down the road the way he came.
``He can't wait,'' Williamson said, and shrugged.
Marion ``Mooney'' Williamson is a bridge operator. ``Up here'' is the multi-windowed operating house of the North Landing Bridge across the North Landing River on the Intracoastal Waterway in Chesapeake. From here, water traffic flows northbound into the Chesapeake Bay, southbound into Currituck Sound. Williamson works for Halifax Engineering Services, a company under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District to maintain this area's stretch of the Intracoastal Waterway.
Williamson's the man who, every 30 minutes during the day, backs up car traffic on the road so the boats can pass. He's also the man who watches boats chug lazy circles in the river while cars zip across on the bridge above.
A touch of his fingertips, a grip of his fists stops traffic on North Landing Road and swings open the 184-foot, double-span bridge. He's been at it a while - 24 years. He retired five years ago and settled for a part-time job working this bridge, as well as the Great Bridge bridge and the Great Bridge locks where he was lockmaster for 15 years.
``It's a fascinating job,'' said Williamson, who is 72. All his life he's been married to the elements, water and air. When he was a young fella, he used to perform in water-skiing shows up and down the East Coast. He still skis, but for fun. In his spare time, the Chesapeake resident and Norfolk native also enjoys a day on the water in his 24-foot Bayliner.
He's part-owner of a Cessna 172 and is in his 20th year flying for the Civil Air Patrol. It's talk about flying that puts a little more green in his eyes, more pink in his cheeks. Williamson flew C-45s and C-47s in the Army Air Force in World War II and trained navigators, among them some Chinese sent to Texas for training. After he got out, he ran a body shop.
The whole flying business scares the wits out of his wife, Betty. She won't leave the ground. He does it for free.
``I'm like a hound dog in a meat house,'' he said. ``I love it.''
Right now, he's building his own airplane, pretty much from scratch. In fact, that's what keeps him at the bridges.
``It's a two-seater and I needed more aluminum, so I asked for more hours,'' he said.
On the job at North Landing, Williamson operates a big, black, steel General Electric console dotted with buttons, lights and two throttle handles that gently swing the massive bridge spans open and closed. After nearly a quarter of a century watching road and river traffic, Williamson knows the rules of the road and people who break them.
Every movement of the bridge is sequenced for safety. First he turns on the stoplights, then closes the red-and-white-striped oncoming and offgoing gates, then road traffic is sealed.
Most of the time.
``But they run through 'em,'' Williamson said, nodding his head toward the window at a driver who does just that, as if to make Mooney's point.
That bothers him. So do drivers who try to beat the descending gates and get their windshields smashed in and maybe their heads cut open. Nasty-tempered ones who don't make a run for it sometimes toss empty bottles up at him.
``That's what that wire is for,'' he said, passing a hand over his white hair and pointing at fencing stretched across the windows.
For commercial traffic and for all water traffic at night, the bridge opens on demand. Frequent travelers on this section of the river are barges full of grain, wood chips, scrap metal and paper, oil, and fertilizer. Soothing their nerves through a crackling radio, Williamson's easy Virginia vowels coax jittery boat captains through the relatively narrow opening.
``There's no current here,'' he said, ``but the wind can get you. Some of them just panic if their boat's real wide.'' High wind has battered boats into the wooden fender that lines the passage.
Williamson pencils the passage of every boat and barge into a log. Occasionally he's on the horn to the Coast Guard, passing on information about overdue vessels.
Every summer, from May through October, he looks forward to the sight of fancy pleasure craft coming back and forth from Florida.
``We call 'em snow birds,'' he said. ``When they're moving, we're busy.''
The sleek boats are interesting. The passengers run a close second. ``Sometimes they get an old man's heart a-popping. They come around the corner down there'' - he pointed south down the river - ``where it's kind of secluded. I've had 'em come through here top and bottomless,'' he said, eyebrows darting heavenward. ``It's a fringe benefit of the job.''
He troubleshoots bridge malfunctions when he has to and knows where to find nesting mice in the structure that can short-circuit the whole operation.
He's even been a good Samaritan when things go wrong that have little to do with the bridge. He's lent a hand in car wrecks, helped hunters find lost dogs and even traded information about stray people lost in the woods.
``It gets lonely sometimes,'' Williamson said, ``especially the midnight to 8 shift.'' But it's a point of pride with him that his bridge is open 365 days a year.
``We're never closed,'' he said with a satisfied smile. ILLUSTRATION: GARY KNAPP/Staff photo
Marion ``Mooney'' Williamson operates the North Landing Bridge
across the North Landing River on the Intracoastal Waterway in
Chesapeake.
by CNB