JOY ALONG THE WAY: A BRIDGE OVER THE CREAK CROIX

"Troll! Pack your bags and get ready to come home. Not to your old home which has long been gone, demolished, hauled away, kaput, but to a new home which is well under way just a few yards upstream from where your charming, old, wooden, arched bridge home was.

"I've been going down every day to see how it is progressing. I'll have to skip some this week, but I suppose the bridge builders will halt too, in deference to the Ferris Wheel, Merry-go-round, funnel cakes, big pumpkins and other facets of the Fair.

"Compared to your old structure, this is going to be in the Frank Lloyd Wright category, lasting well into the next century. Big, white, jammed-together rocks line the banks underneath where the new bridge itself will cross the Creek. And there are sturdy concrete slabs rearing up on each shore, way back from the banks, to provide anchors for the bridge and backstops for access ramps. Who knows, these ramps may even be landscaped. I've seen some dug-up shrubs lying around, seemingly just waiting to be replanted somewhere.

"It is going to be much higher, Troll. No log nor loosened limbs, floating on a brown flood will meet a hang-up under this bridge. You won't have to temporarily vacate at such times as you did before. You can just climb way up to secret little places at the top of the white rocks or even onto some understructure of the bridge where even barn swallows may build their nests. Wouldn't that be delightful? Already red-winged blackbirds, meadowlarks and robins nest in the vicinity. I know you trolls don't like noise because old god, Thor, used to throw his thunder hammer at you, but you surely don't consider birdsong noise as you did the Billy Goat Gruff family when they four-footedly tramped harshly across your roof.

"I must warn you, though, there is going to be a lot more traffic on this bridge, far different from the old days when the only footsteps you heard for long stretches of time were mine, and I stepped lightly in deference to your idiosyncrasies. The bridge is on a hiking-biking trail. Already the ground is broken for this trail on both sides of the creek. Probably no goat family will be crossing the bridge for you to accost and threaten, but there'll be lots of leather and rubber footsteps and sound of rubber bike tires screeching for, coming into the Park, the bike riders will have to make a rather quick left turn. And there will be the soft padding of dogs accompanying their masters as they make their way along the trail. Pay no attention to these travelers unless they throw stuff into the creek. In that case, make mysterious, threatening sounds of some kind. Maybe you can keep a little supply of mud balls on hand and do a Ewing hook shot right over the bridge guard rails, splattering anyone right in the middle of the forehead who throws a paper cup or plastic container into the creek.

"I said, 'pack your bags.' That was only a figure of speech, for I know all you trolls travel lightly. Gray jackets, pointed red caps and leather breeches are about your only worldly possessions, except for some kind of little bucket or container in which to brew your ale. I know that little tidbit about your race.

"I'll scatter some elderberry seeds along the banks and ramps as soon as the Fair crowd disperses and the workmen are through. I'm told trolls like elderberry ale and I want to keep you happy. You are grist for my whimsical mill."

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.