The inside is covered with graffiti, most along the lines of "Lydia Lives."
Every once in a while different thoughts,
senses and events come together to form the perfect convergence, creating
perhaps more questions than answers. I
just returned from a vacation in Southern California, which reminded me of a
song that I grew up with (Hotel California, Eagles). I never really paid attention to the lyrics,
but I did tonight and it surprised me how the message leads you to a dark
place. Don Henley of the Eagles was asked about the meaning of the song lyrics
during a 60 Minutes Interview back in 2007 his answer was: It’s basically a song about the dark
underbelly of the American Dream, and excess in America which is something we
know about.
I started to relate a story that I read in
a newspaper as a teenager but I got sidetracked when I located the story of
Lydia’s Bridge. Some non-believers,
might call it hogwash, others yet may call it Urban Legend. The important thing is, what do you think?
On certain rainy nights, where US 70-A
twists around a sweeping curve that passes by an old, overgrown underpass,
drivers will see a young woman in a white evening dress standing by the side of
the road, desperately trying to flag down a passing car. If anyone pulls over
to help the young lady, she climbs meekly into the back seat of the car and
explains that her name is Lydia, and that she's just been to a dance and now
she's trying to get home. She gives the driver an address not too far away, and
he kindly agrees to take her there. The driver may try to engage Lydia in
conversation, but she seems distracted and in a world of her own, so he just
leaves her in a respectful silence and concentrates on the road ahead.
When
the car pulls in to the address that the young woman gave, the chivalrous
driver invariably hops out to open the door for her — only to discover that she
has vanished.
Perplexed,
the man goes to the door, where an old woman answers. The man explains that
he's picked up a young lady named Lydia by the overpass who asked to be brought
to this address, but she's no longer in the car. He wonders if she may have run
out before he could open the door, and he just wants to know if she's safe and
if everything is as it should be.
A
faint, pained smile of recognition passes over the old woman's face, as she
reaches for a picture in a silver frame sitting on a table by the door. It's a
photograph of the young woman the man drove to the house.
"Lydia
was my daughter," the old woman says, "She died in a car wreck by
that overpass in 1923. You're not the first one, and I suppose you won't be the
last. Every so often, her spirit flags down a passing driver. I suppose she
still doesn't understand what happened to her. I suppose she's still trying to
get home."
That's
why the overgrown underpass near Jamestown is called Lydia's Bridge. Drive past
it on a rainy night and you may see Lydia, too. ~ Stories from the Piedmont
The post I was originally
going to write (also about a hitchhiker) will be written shortly, look for it
soon. The best is yet to come…
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