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Special | 2m 41s | Video has closed captioning.
Barb Abelhauser worked in an office for 14 years until one day she quit and decided to become a bridgetender on the Ortega River Bridge in Jacksonville, Florida. She planned to work there for a year. Eight years later she came to StoryCorps to talk about why she stayed.
Aired: 09/07/20
Barbara Abelhauser (BA): The pay's horrible, the benefits are worse, but I have the most gorgeous view in the entire city.
I mean, executives who make hundreds of thousands dollars do not have my view.
And I'm getting paid to stop and look.
That's the thing I think I love the most about this.
John Maycumber (JM): You must see a lot of things that the rest of us miss.
BA: You know, I think about that a lot, because I've been sitting in the same exact spot for all these years, and I see the passage of the seasons.
I see the alligator that hangs out below my window and when she lays her eggs, I hear baby gators barking.
And people don't even realize we're there.
They'll walk past us and say the most intimate, private things, and we hear them.
People go on dates on these bridges, and they propose.
So you get this little tiny snapshot of people's personal lives that they don't even realize that they're giving you.
There was a fisherman that used to come through the bridge every morning like clockwork.
I never knew his name.
You know, we had a connection, but we don't really know who each other is.
And one day, he came through; and I waved.
And I found out in the news that maybe 10 minutes later, while he was on his boat heading out to fish, he had a heart attack and passed away.
His boat washed up on the shore of the river.
He was on the boat alone, and, so, I was the last person that saw him alive.
It makes you think.
It makes you appreciate.
You know, I'll be out there at 3 in the morning, there's no traffic, it's quiet.
And I'll look up and there's the moon.
And I try to thank the universe at least once a night for this opportunity.
You know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
And if that happens, I want have woken up that day and not thought, "I don't want to go to work."
You know?
Most people don't have that.
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