A Few Semi-Solemn Words on the Truck Cab Graveyard

"WARNING!" Flash, flash-- "CLEARANCE 11 FEET 6 INCHES!"

"WARNING!!!!" Flash, flash-- "CLEARANCE 11 FEET 6 INCHES!!!"

"Yo! You in the Peterbilt!... WARNING!!!" Flash, flash-- "CLEARANCE 11 FEET 6 INCHES!!!--"

And SMASH! Crunch. Grind.

Ah, yes... another one gone to the Truck Cab Graveyard.

Every couple of months, my exit on the Parkway looks like the parking lot after a big Steelers loss-- unmoving, clotted with cars, black exhaust and steaming rage. And then I know:

Some semi-tractor-trailer has gotten wedged under the bridge to Second Avenue again.

The area is like a great Venus fly-trap for large trucks, drawing them down the road under increasingly lower bridges until eventually the truck cab can go no further...

Then the bridge peels off the top to get to the gooey Tootsie Roll center.


The berm along Bates Street looks like the truck cab equivalent of heads on pikes at the gates to a medieval fortress. Twisted metal and large chunks of expensive equipment sit to the side as a way of saying, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

Of course, the flashing yellow signs with the clearance levels should be a warning, as well.

Yet the truckers always seem to miss that part. Why, I've seen truckers plow forward with not a care in the world-- thinking of their loved ones back home... outrunning Smokies... overcome by the stink of pig carriers and diesel... or hampered by lack of sleep...

Only to get lured like a mosquito to a bug zapper under that bridge.

It's the song of the Sirens... the lighthouse lure of privateers on the rocks... or just long hours and a lack of java. But it's a regular feature of my commute.

Then yesterday, I saw a semi headed down the very road toward oblivion.

A quick eyeball estimate-- even from us shorty four-wheel amateurs-- said that Big Mack was never, ever going to clear the 11 foot six area. It'd be like a tin of beans to a can opener.

His fellow commuters watched in rapt anticipation as he went through the first series of warnings... went through the second flashing cries and...

STOPPED...

Twenty feet from Ultimate Doom.

He put on his flashers and waited to back up.

I applauded, the claps echoing over my car radio. Yes, this day, the Cab Eating Bridge would not feast on the good travelers of Western Pennsylvania.

Ah, but it will be twice as hungry tomorrow.

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Now Taking Auditions for Pittsburgh's Mothman

So a few weeks ago, one of the piers on the Birmingham Bridge dropped a few inches-- the pier over which I commute these days.

Interestingly, the side of the bridge that IS currently closed to traffic is the one that… HASN’T SHIFTED.

Now I understand that SOMETHING has to be closed. Because, of course, this is Pittsburgh; unhindered movement through the city is simply not allowed.

It’s for our own good, of course. We might all get swimmy in the head from going a heart-pounding 25 miles per hour… Or for more than two consecutive blocks without stopping. You know: experience some automotive version of “The Bends.”

That’s just the city looking out for our best interests.

So, yes, something has to be closed. I accept that. But it seems to me-- and I’m not a construction worker, or a structural engineer, or a mathematician, or even very good with a slide-rule or anything-- but it seems to me, the side of the bridge that SHOULD be closed should be…

Oh, I don’t know…

THE SIDE OF THE BRIDGE THAT DROPPED SEVERAL INCHES.

But no.

Now, the bridge has been propped up with hydraulic jacks, and supports, and steel, and thirty energetic superheroes, and duct tape. So it’s perfectly safe for tons and tons of giant shiny bits of metal and people to press down on it each day. That allows them to close the bridge pier which HASN’T DROPPED, in order to “design and manufacture a new bearing system for it.”

Then they’ll attend to the dropsy side.

It makes no sense to ME. But again, I don’t construct, engineer, math-up or have slide-rule savvy.

What I DO know is that driving on Mr. Dropsy each day tends to give a person a slightly different perspective on things like, oh, traffic back-ups. I see that light up ahead on Fifth Avenue turn red, notice myself 50 cars back and idling in the center of the bridge, and I find myself thinking:

In the 60s, the Silver Bridge in West Virginia fell into the river and hundreds of people died, almost including Laura Linney, except that was in that Richard Gere movie and they’d had the Mothman to warn them. Pittsburgh has no Mothman....

Pittsburgh NEEDS a Mothman.

So I think I'd feel more confident in my commute if we could take a serious look at some Mothman-style talent for Pittsburgh.

When I say "Mothman-style" talent, I want to give the applicants a little leeway. I mean, yes, Mothman himself had merits. The legend of the creepy apparition with red eyes at the window, making prophetic telephone calls, all culminating in the Silver Bridge disaster, well, it has showmanship.

But, really, is Pittsburgh prepared for anything so convoluted, so overdone? Plus, there's that whole rotten phone reception when he calls. Pittsburghers are practical people. Instead of listening to these crackly warnings, half the city would be calling Verizon and Vonage about issues with their cellular service.

So I'm thinking if there's any local, say, Troll-lady (trolls notoriously have good bridge skills), that would be an excellent place to start. Or maybe a Gargoyle-man (also appropriate for our historical architecture). Or even, say, a turn-of-the-century Steelworker type, that's something I think the city could get behind.

The job of fortelling potential collapse, now THAT is going to have to be a little more straight-forward than Mothman's approach. Sure, the right candidate should try to make a grand entrance. The burning-eyes-in-the-dark schtick is an attention-getter, certainly, but not a deal-breaker. The applicant will want to use their own discretion about that-- and be creative!

Now the warnings, they're going to have to be easy to hear. We have a lot of older people in this city, and they have a right to hear the proclamations of potential doom as well as anybody else. So any candidates for the position-- you're going to have to remember to project. Speak up. No mumbling. You're prophecizing disaster, not asking little Suzie for a date.

With Pittsburgh's own Mothman-style entity, I think the City of Bridges can keep going safe and strong for another century. And I'll feel just a bit better on my drive home.

Applicants for the position can submit their resume, headshot and previous hauntings to the Pittsburgh Casting Office for Paranormal Phenomena and Mascots, or leave a comment with this post. We'll get back to you with an audition time.

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Recruiting for our mascot from Humor-blogs only netted us some dead roosters, pointless banter and a bunch of clowns.