Old Steel Bridge: History lesson or progress report?

?Time is a jet plane; it moves too fast.

Oh, but what a shame if all we?ve shared can?t last…?

Those words of Bob Dylan are offered apropos of the imminent demise of the Old Steel Bridge, a Kalispell landmark that has spanned the Flathead River since 1894 and more importantly has spanned the collective imagination of generations of local residents who see in its simple grandeur something of themselves.

The bridge is certainly a vital connector in our shared history. Think of it. It connects Conrad Drive on the west bank with Holt Stage Road and Steel Bridge Road on the east bank. Conrad Drive is named for the founding family of Kalispell and its patriarch, Charles Conrad, while Holt is one of many old stage-coach routes that remain in the Flathead Valley to remind us just how quickly time passes, and how far we have come since Kalispell?s pioneer days.

It is, of course, inevitable that a sense of nostalgia should hit all of us who ever drove across the bridge, either in the old days when it could handle plenty of traffic or in recent years when it offered the adventure of ?risking? the one-car load limit over creaky wooden planks or its newer metal deck.

But the bridge was more than just a transportation aid to the Flathead; it was also a landmark of our senses and sensibilities. Probably thousands of local youths have taken the plunge into the Flathead River from its rusty girders. Probably dozens of Inter Lake photographers over the years have sought those jumpers out on hot summer days to try to capture the joys of a rite of passage that always left teen-agers laughing and parents terrified.

There was also the terrific fishing from the bridge itself or from the river bank in its shadows. And thanks to the local Kiwanis Club, there has also been a park along the west bank of the river for many years which offered easy access from town to an ideal spot for a picnic or a lazy afternoon walk looking for water-sculpted pebbles or skipping flat rocks into the river. Always part of any day trip to the park was a meditation on how the works of man and the works of God sometimes came together just right in a picture that was perfect for a postcard. Such was the Old Steel Bridge, which closed for business on Thursday and will be replaced by a brand-spanking-new bridge by next summer.

Many readers have written their thoughts about the old bridge in recent weeks, and many suggested that something must be done to save it. Of course, something had been done already when the bridge was saved from destruction a few years ago by the efforts of an enterprising college student named Will Hammerquist and many other supporters, but the state Department of Transportation made it clear all along that the bridge simply didn?t meet the standards necessary for a modern structure.

If the bridge were to be saved, it would have to be through some kind of private effort. Indeed, the bridge was put up for sale in 2005 ? well, not exactly for sale; the state actually offered to pay any person or group $50,000 if they would agree to move the bridge out of the way of the new structure that is scheduled to be built there now.

Of course, there were no takers. Who could envision moving a 500-foot bridge weighing almost 80 tons for the sheer purpose of saving the bridge, with all its rust and overhead trusses. After all, it isn?t really the bridge itself that matters to us; it is what the bridge tells us about ourselves ? who we were and who we have become. Yes, it is a piece of history, and history is worth preservation, but ultimately we all have to come to peace with the idea of letting go of the past, too.

Indeed, if mankind had preserved all the interesting and unique mementos of our journey across the earth since that journey began thousands of years ago, we can be pretty sure the word clutter would take on a new meaning, perhaps approximating what some of us think of as hell. Much as we all harbor an instinct to preserve our past to keep a marker of our own presence here on the planet ? to say ?Kilroy was here? to the next century?s inhabitants, as it were ? we are also fighting a losing battle against entropy, time and progress. The old inevitably gives way to the new; the obsolete to the futuristic; the quaint old steel bridge to the efficient but soulless bridge which will itself one day become quaint and old.

Though some memorials of mankind?s great adventure will remain for eons, others will only last till the land they are built on is needed for something else. Even the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China have been valued in many generations mainly as a source of building materials rather than because of their structural grandeur.

So let us each make a pilgrimage to the Old Steel Bridge this week or the next, whether in person or in our memories, and say goodbye to an old friend. I visited the bridge Friday afternoon with my daughter, Meredith, and the other second-graders from Russell School. Meredith and I and my wife, River, all took pictures of each other with the bridge in the background in a futile gesture of holding off the future and holding on to the past.

But just as death claims each one of us eventually, so too the grim reaper will cut down our favorite buildings, bridges and monuments. Some of us will lose our own houses to fires or floods. All of us will lose loved ones, and many of us will even lose our favorite memories before we die ? victims of injury or disease.

Saying goodbye, also known by its other name ?change,? is part of staying alive. It?s a shame, but it?s also the truth. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said 2,500 years ago, ?You cannot step into the same river twice.? But that doesn?t mean we don?t try.

? Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com