Since the dawn of creation, parents have been asking their kids, “If all your friends jump off a bridge, would you do it too?” I know I’m supposed to present the same rhetorical question to mine, but what if I want to jump with them? As long as it’s not too big, of course. And there are no rocks down below. And we can’t get in trouble. If a police officer shows up, I’m not as fleet of foot as my co-conspirators, and we all know who’s going to field the blame if we get caught. It was all his idea! There is no honor among thieves.
On a recent vacation to Cape Cod, we all got the idea to do a little bridge jumping. And why not? I’m sorry, but whether it’s at an amusement park or out in the wild, at some point, every kid between the ages of ten and twenty has contemplated jumping off some high platform into a body of water. The only difference is that when you’re on vacation with the fam, the bridge jumpers don’t usually get to dictate the plans.
The Sandwich Boardwalk
But the friends we were with suggested heading to the Sandwich Boardwalk one day, at high tide, to do a little bridge jumping. It had been so long since I’d done something like that, I honestly couldn’t remember. Twenty years? Thirty? I’d been hearing about my kids doing some bridge jumping, and I was getting a little curious. Although, some of the stuff they’ve been doing looks pretty huge. I don’t think I need to scare myself, so the Sandwich Boardwalk sounded like a nice, reasonable place to start.
It was. We missed high tide by a little bit, but the drop wasn’t too far—maybe twelve feet—and we made sure not to pencil dive into the water so that our feet didn’t hit. Even still, on the first jump, big Dad hit the channel sand with his heels. I had a feeling they would. The tide was going out, and it wouldn’t be long before it was too dangerous to jump. I did one more, and this time, lifting my feet to avoid contact with the ground, my tail ended up touching the ocean floor. Okay, I’m satisfied.
But not satisfied enough. A little bridge jumping got us thinking about another target, when we considered taking the ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard for a day trip: the Jaws Bridge.
Jumping for Jaws
I hadn’t been to Martha’s Vineyard in twenty-five years or so, but back then I never even realized jumping the Jaws Bridge was a thing. But it is. Even though local officials have signs posted saying jumping isn’t allowed, the island runs a shuttle service that makes a point of stopping right at the bridge, where hordes of people jump off all summer long.
At the Jaws Bridge, there was no risk of hitting the ocean floor. Good and deep, there were several safe places to jump, and we got a few good ones in. And I’m so glad we did it. I forgot that much of the town stuff to do in the Vineyard is centered around shopping, which doesn’t interest me at all. Outside of making the teenagers embarrass themselves by forcing them to ride the Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs, there was little else that captured my attention.
But jumping the Jaws Bridge gave us a mission. A purpose. A new way of experiencing a place. And a chance to look at that place through the eyes of a kid again. I could use more of that.
As long as it’s not too high.
