Span in Time

Span in Time

Noel Laflin

1-5-20

Fifty-one years ago,come this March, the Crawford brothers and I stood on the other side of this ravine, the one not so well seen behind the chain-link fence pictured here, and stared in both wonder and confusion at the connection that no longer linked the two sides of the road. The old Santiago Creek Bridge had either been blown up by the Army Corps of Engineers in order to release massive amounts of water and debris built up behind it in a last ditch effort to save homes from being washed away, or it just went on it’s own, due to the terrific flow of water and trees washed down stream. Reports vary. Regardless, it was gone. The usually dry - or at best, gently flowing creek - had become a raging river of destruction during the unprecedented winter storms of 1969.

The brothers and I, who had been on our way to Irvine Park, via old Santiago Road, dropped our bikes and clambered down the embankment to investigate the giant broken concrete pillars, asphalt, and jutting rebar scattered downstream. We then had to figure out a detour to the park, and were eventually on our way.

And although I have lived only a couple of miles from this very site for the past thirty-six years, and have been to Irvine Park a few hundred times since the day three teenage boys on bikes discovered the loss of the old bridge that connected Villa Park and Orange, it was not until this afternoon that I went to revisit the site.

This time I came by car and stood on the opposite side of where the bridge once spanned the creek, noting the old asphalt that led to the edge of the precipice. I also noted the many homes on the other side of the creek. I recall few houses in the area back then, as it was still mostly orange and lemon groves.

I tried to picture the three boys on the opposite side of the creek, their discarded bikes, and sense of adventure as they clamored down the steep embankment to get a firsthand look at what both Mother Nature and man had wrought that winter.

I sought no such urge to venture further as I had once done so long ago. Instead, I took pictures of the span, and was about to leave when a pretty little kestrel landed at the top of a dead eucalyptus tree branch, not far from where I parked.

So, I thanked him for his timely visit, took its portrait, and asked him to scout the area in my stead. He did so a moment later, diving off the dead branch from where he perched, and disappeared over the edge of a ravine that once anchored a mighty bridge.