Jumping From The Republican River Bridge

Most of us started at a young age, I know I did. Long, hot, summer afternoons at the swim pool were great in early June, but energetic, thrill-seeking boys are easily bored. The rush of the high diving board could only take you so far, the taste for adventure would quickly creep into the pit of your stomach, begging to be slaked. It usually just took one of us to get the ball rolling, "Let's go swimming at the river." We were off. We jumped on our trusty 20 inch two-wheelers, Huffy's if Cliff Caldwell was your man, Hiawatha's if you were a Nate Guy, well, guy, and south to the river we pedaled. The jump wasn't the adventure, it was the landing. The hole you had to hit wasn't very big, about the size of a car tire, and you had to avoid some huge chunks of submerged concrete left from the previous bridge. Now, we didn't just pedal up climb over the rail and leap. We worked our way into it. Jumping off the rocks at water level we would swim around, play in the current, make our way to the middle of the river, where it was always shallow on the sand bar there. Finally someone would mention jumping, and one or two of us would run back up the road, and all the way down the bridge until we were above the river. Over the railing and down to the big steel girders. Sometimes jumping off the bridge was a two man job. One in the water, marking the landing spot. One on the bridge doing the jumping. The guy in the water would start upstream a ways and then come down through the current with his hands above his head. The spot where that guys hands disappeared, that was the landing spot. I know there were kids who wouldn't jump, but I don't recall who they were. I know I jumped. Many times. One day I came home from spending the day at the lake. My mom broke the news to me, "Rick Hansen got killed jumping from the river bridge." I don't remember her next sentence. Knowing my my mom a fair guess would be, "I don't want to ever hear of you jumping off that bridge again." We did. We slowed down for a while. Rick's death caused a heightened awareness of the dangers involved. Many of us were forbidden by our parents to even swim in the river, and a few who were not already scared of jumping, were now a little spooked. I kept jumping. We even had an encounter with the Sheriff. The summer after Rick drown someone reported to the sheriff some kids were jumping off the bridge. He showed up lights flashing and proceeded to give us an ass chewing, told us he didn't ever want to hear of us jumping off that bridge again, and sent us on our way. We left, but we came back. Again and again we came back. I wonder if anyone still jumps off that bridge?