The Pigeon and the Live Load Pier

The Fremont Bridge is the busiest bridge in town, due to the fact that it is the closest to the water of the four bascule bridges on the Ship Canal between Lake Washington and Elliott Bay.  In my years with the City of Seattle I have been on that bridge, and under it, many times.  When the drunken bridge tender set the south span down on the flying bridge of the passing tugboat, guess who got to crawl out on a plank over the water to repair the shaft coupling?  I made the evening news that time.

So one time I was down under the bridge on the south side, in the room with the main transmission.  The bridge was being held open for some reason, and the live load piers were exposed.

Down under every bridge, on each side, is a pair of big footings, probably 2 foot square, with serious concrete under them to handle the load.  When the bridge goes down the frame rests on these live load piers at the exact moment the two spans line up in the middle.  The bridge crews adjust that point by placing or removing ¼” thick sheet metal shims on the piers, but you can only do it when the bridge is open.

So I happened to be at the southeast live load pier under the Fremont Bridge one day during a full opening, when I saw the strangest thing.  It was the remains of a pigeon, feathers and all, spread out on the top of that live load pier in a constant thickness, a bird shim, if you will!

I tried to imagine how even a bird as dumb as a pigeon could be sitting there for any length of time and not notice the bridge was coming down.  I wonder what the bird thought when it realized too late that something was definitely wrong…

Then I made a critical error.  Assuming the bird had been there a long time, even though it was still recognizably a pigeon, since there was no smell in the air, I picked up a flat nose shovel that was nearby and proceeded to scrape the pigeon off the live load pier.  The stench that boiled up off that pier was enough to gag a maggot!  I swear the tip of the shovel turned brown and began to smoke.  I threw it down and beat a hasty retreat, as the bridge began to descend.  The stench followed me through the transmission shack, past the electrical vault and out into the yard where, realizing that nobody had seen me back there, I casually strolled back through the offices to the bridge deck to see how things were going.  Somehow, I forgot to mention to the bridge crew what had happened, so I never heard the upshot of it, if any.  I bet they had to call the haz-mat squad.

I wondered if the bridge deck was misaligned due to the removal of a shim.  I wondered who had to go put a new shim in.  They had my deepest sympathies.

The moral of this story is:  Forgiveness is sometimes easier than permission… and ignorance is truly bliss, for someone.  Whew!  I feel better now… :-{)}