This picture is taken from Google Maps and, as you can see, it’s Farrell Parkway in Nashville, Tennessee—specifically the spot where it runs under a railroad and also I-65. It’s not the graffiti on the train car that interests me, though—it’s the lack of graffiti under the tracks.
When I was a student at the nearby John Overton High School this was “The Bridge”. The bus I rode took me and lots of my fellow students down this road way every day. At the time, though, it looked very different. At the time The Bridge was covered with elaborate graffiti. A lot of it, including a huge mural of Grecian columns, stayed there for years—maybe even decades, although it was kind of a rite of passage for Overton students to make their mark on the bridge. Well, it was for most students anyway.
One night when my parents were out of town I had a bunch of friends over. Because I was a geek this wasn’t a party—this was a bunch of guys spending most of the evening playing D&D, maybe watching a movie or two, and eating up pretty much every scrap of food in the house. And then around two a.m., bored and hopped up on sugar and caffeine, my friends decided to explore the basement and dug out half a dozen or so cans of spray paint that dated from the Eisenhower administration.
“Let’s go and paint the bridge!” one of my friends said. Everyone thought this was a great idea. Well, everyone except me. I knew my parents had asked the neighbors to keep an eye on the house and even though I was pretty sure the neighbors would all be asleep at that time I was still wary. So all my friends piled into a car and left me alone. I sulked around the house and listened to the radio, discovering Janis Joplin for the first time.
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…
When my friends got back they told me the ancient paint cans had been dry so we put them back where we found them. One of my friends spun an elaborate yarn about how they’d been caught by the cops and arrested, which I knew wasn’t true since they’d only been gone an hour, but it still sounded funny.
Sometimes the saying that as you get older your greatest regrets aren’t the things you did but rather the things you didn’t do is true. Even though the paint cans were dry I wish I’d gone with my friends. I wish I’d at least tried to leave my mark on The Bridge.
Since I still live in Nashville I’ve been over The Bridge regularly and I’ve noticed that for several years there’s been no graffiti at all, something confirmed by Google Maps. I guess painting The Bridge is no longer a rite of passage. I wonder what’s replaced it, and what, in a few years, some lonely kid who’s a student at Overton will look back on and regret not doing.
It’s not too late. I have some cans of spray paint in the garage. 🙂
If you’re feeling up for a road trip I think we need to restart the tradition of painting the bridge.
That sounds like the best party ever, aside from not getting to spray paint anything!
It was a pretty good time, although also pretty typical for a weekend with my friends. We’d clear all the food out of one house on one weekend and move onto another the next.
Thanks for leaving your mark here, Chris.
Thank you for dropping by. I’m always happy to see your marks.
That sounds like good.