Tappan Zee

Early this morning, I crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge on my way to New Jersey while the news station I was listening to talked about the two proposed designs for the new bridge that was to replace the one I traversed. And I realized, I was older than the bridge! I remembered being on that bridge shortly after it was opened to traffic. It was a clear, warm day in autumn when the man who would become my Dad picked up my small family for a ride in his new Cadillac. I sat in the front between him and my mother and, as we crested the bridge and saw the level stretch ahead of us, he teased that we were going to drive right into the water. “No we’re not”, I said, knowing he was teasing me but somehow fearful and excited at the same time. We hit the section where the pavement flattens and seems no more than ten feet from the water when suddenly, water sprayed up on the windshield. I gasped! He laughed a laugh I would come to know and love; a genuinely joyful laugh from a hearty man who loved life and always lived it to the fullest. Of course I had no way of knowing that the new Cadillac came with automatic windshield washers; I certainly had never seen it on either the Chevy or the Oldsmobile we owned. It was a magical moment and a special day as we drove into the country and went to a turkey farm and saw live turkeys and had a marvelous dinner, turkey, of course, at a big round table with a white linen tablecloth. I have such good memories of that day. I don’t recall anything about the other people in the back seat or seated around the table, namely my newborn brother and my birth father. Were they there? They must have been. It was 1955 and my parents wouldn’t divorce until a few years later. And my brother was born in August of 1955 so we wouldn’t have left him home. Or did we? Maybe with my grandparents? Or were they in the car too? Was that even my mother in the front seat with me? Maybe Dad had a date. They did double date occasionally, as I learned years later.

If you are reading this and gasping with wonder or disgust, please don’t. These relationships were meant to be. The marriage of my mother and father was dead long before the appearance of my Dad-to-be. The love between him and my mother was so profound that their eventual marriage was a truly joyous occasion for this impressionable child. I had an infinite capacity to give and receive love. It was just the adults who couldn’t make room for each other.