RON HENGGELER

March 1, 2010
The Bridge, and a low-tide surprise ending

Late this afternoon, despite the overcast sky, I went out to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge.

Very soon, the look of the iconic span is going to change dramatically. Bridge officials are preparing to begin a 3½–year effort this summer to repaint and repair the two main cables, which contain remnants of the original 1930s lead-based paint. Up to four crews will snake slowly along the cables inside 60-foot long, prairie schooner-style tents as they replace paint and perform maintenance work.

Today the tide was the lowest I have ever seen on the stretch of beach running south of the bridge. Boulders and rock formations that are always under water, were littering the beach today. The cold wind blowing was filled with a pungent odor from all this newly exposed area. Slowly making my way through these rocks toward the bridge, photographing all along the way, I came across a tattered small canvas bag similar to a fanny pack, partially buried in the sand. The bag was filled with sand and busting at the seams, but a discernible profile of something else was showing in the surface of the wet canvas. I picked up the bag, and pulled hard on the stuck zipper until it tore away from the canvas. Inside was a green plastic woman’s billfold filled with sand, credit cards, a new-looking California drivers license (with a young woman’s face in the left bottom corner), and some shreds of paper that had once been money.

When I got home, I tried calling this 28 year old woman, but her number was not listed. The drivers license showed me her address to be on Laguna Street, just 7 block from where I live. When I went to the grocery store later this evening, I tried to return the billfold to the address. I rang the apartment number but the woman who answered was not the woman who I was attempting to reach.

When I returned home, I Googled the woman’s name who owns the billfold I’d found. Sure enough, entries for her filled the first page, and several lines of the second page.
She had died unexpectedly in the middle of March last year. (She had jumped from the bridge. )She had lived in San Francisco, was originally from Michigan, and she had earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

She will be missed by her loving parents, her three sisters, and all her friends. In lieu of flowers, her family had suggested that donations be made to their small town’s Humane Society.

 

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