My Bridge Day Adventure

After missing the Elton John Concert, my friends and I continued, albeit despondently, to "Bridge Day" in Fayetteville, WV. Bridge Day is the one day a year that base-jumping is legalized in West Virginia and 200,000 people of lesser courage (ie myself) watch others of greater courage (also read: "lesser sanity," "greater testicular fortitude," or "inferior common sense") throw themselves off of an 876 ft bridge and let gravity and a parachute take care of the rest.

These guys jumped for hours and we just watched. You would think the redundancy of watching people jump off the same bridge would get old after awhile. But it didn't. It's like watching "24": If you've seen one season of Jack Bauer escaping captivity, defying authority for the greater good, torturing some bad guys, getting angry and snarling/yelling out some intimidating lines, sabotaging his personal relationships because of his maladjustment to societal norms (see the afore-listed items for reasons why), etc, you feel like you've seen all of the seasons of "24" (because in essence, you HAVE). But you still keep watching -- despite the repetition and predictability.

The day was interspersed with me shooting the fall foliage (I still feel effeminate using that wording), and the abundance of material for people-watching. WV is an absolute GOLD-MINE for this, and my one regret (besides letting my friends purchase two sausage biscuits for $1.50 at a roadside cafe) is not doing an extensive photo essay on the people we saw. Think men with braided beards down to their stomachs; think men with short cut-off jean shorts sporting rainbow lanyards; think my name next to "Pulitzer." It would have been timeless.

Then again, I guess I shouldn't say too much about people-watching -- these three were my travel companions:



We got bored walking the trail from the river back to the bridge, so we had a leaf catching competition. It got intense. The slideshow below does a good job of capturing it.



But back to manly things. Base-jumping. It is steadily gaining popularity, but definitely outside of the mainstream sports we have in America. I think if the organizers created some traditions -- something that we love about our sports here -- base jumping would catch on a little faster. Here are some ideas I have:

• (More) Drunk Fans: I don't think this one needs to be explained.
  
• Ceremonial first "toss" from the mayor: Baseball has someone famous throw out the ceremonial first pitch to open games. Why don't they have the mayor of Fayetteville ceremoniously push the first base-jumper off of the platform, just to get things started? Or toss a base-jumper midget...? This one may need refinement.
  
• Fantasy Leagues: No other phenomenon than Fantasy Leagues has so many people supporting teams and players they would otherwise have been indifferent to. Don't ask me how the scoring would work for a Base-Jumping Fantasy League. I'm just throwing out ideas here.
• Streakers: The occasional streaker never hurt any spectator sport.
• Overpriced Food: Overpaying for unhealthy food is an American sports tradition. The vendors at Bridge Day were selling unhealthy food, but it was way too reasonably priced. This needs to change.
• Costumes: Uncle Sam (below) had it right. Patriotic, tacky.