Personal Narrative #1

Matt Ribarich, "Bridge/River."

A lot of high school evenings were spent under the Love Bridge. It's capitalized because that was its proper name to us; my friends and me. Its namesake doesn't have any sappy connection to my romantic life, rather, the bridge was named after the massive LOVE painted in red on the support pier, which stands underneath the bridge in the middle of the river. We used it as several things: a meeting spot, smoking spot, chilling spot, music spot, and decision-making spot. Most other people knew it as the Union Avenue bridge, which crosses the Arkansas River in my hometown of Pueblo, Colorado.

After a 1921 flood, the Arkansas was re-channeled and confined to a large, V-shaped concrete levee. The levee walls are painted continuously with murals and I find them really pleasant to look at. The paintings are colorful memorials, portraits, political statements, graffiti, geometric designs and more, and go on for about three miles. There wasn't really too much to do in Pueblo except go to parties, so when not doing that we would mostly hang around downtown where the river was.

If we wanted to smoke, we'd have to scale down the levee wall, check for others under the bridge, then proceed down. There was a flat ledge to sit on and overlook the river, city lights, murals, and graffiti on the bridge walls. Around sunset the bats would be coming out from their bridge lairs and would swoop pretty low, but never actually hit anyone. Regardless, “guests” we brought to the bridge would get paranoid with the bats around.

Going from the road to river lever required descending 109 (I counted) stairs that zigzagged down the levee face that always killed us on the walk back up. Down at water level there were several artificial peninsulas created to make rapids for kayaking. One peninsula in particular had large rapids at the end that made a sound like white-noise and beautifully swelled, swirled and foamed. Once I saw a dog, a chocolate lab, ride down the rapids, swim to the levee wall, walk upriver, and do it again several times. People would fish or bring surfboards and surf the river. We used to sit on our peninsula, talk, read, or wade in the water. We'd take our shoes, socks and pants off, not caring who saw, and slowly get in, feeling the icy temperature and slimy stones underfoot. It was easy to also do nothing, lie back and enjoy the sounds, the sun, the paintings, the water. The site is rife with past conversations, angst, and problems that have all since resolved and seem rather insignificant. The amount of time spent and memories formed at the Love Bridge bond it and I.