About three blocks from my home runs the Second
River, more a creek with some
geneaologic issues (no one recalls a First River, though a Third River meanders nearby). The Second River served as part of the
Morris Canal 1, once a majestic
towpath carrying rich iron ore from New Jersey to the steel mills in Pennsylvania.
Less than a block from my home a sign designates the site of the old Morris Canal--that it misses its mark by a couple of blocks seems not to bother most folks here. It bothers me, though.
The origin of the name "pooh sticks" is easy enough. A.A. Milne created a world many of us still confuse with the real, and in this world, as in the real, Edward Bear and friends each find a stick, drop them together off the side of a bridge, then run to the other side to see which stick comes out first. The game existed before Pooh, and is reinvented daily by the thousands of children in the world lucky enough to grow up near a small bridge and lucky enough to have a grown up with enough time to amble a morning away with a small child or two on a bridge.
It is nice to have a name for the game--it is easier to say than the "Let's Go Drop Sticks Over the Bridge Game." Still, it does not need a name. Find a park with a small bridge, try not to appear too creepy, and observe families with small children cross the bridge. It takes a healthy family at least 20 minutes to cross a 20 foot bridge, or about a hundredth of a mile per hour. 2
We have two bridges like that in our neighborhood, both over the Second River. Leslie and I travel across the bridges without small children now, and while we still slow down, we still manage to cross in less than a minute most times, even when we're not in a hurry.
"Remember the pigeon eggs Kerry found here?" She was four, and she spent a good bit of her time crouched, elbows on thighs, studying the world beneath her feet. We always checked our pigeon home in the crack by the bridge, but we only checked when no one was looking. Something so lovely and so vulnerable would be destroyed if found by a careless child.
And this spring, as in every spring since, I will bend over and peer under the bridge to see if our pigeons have returned.
"Remember pooh sticks?"
Sometimes we just quietly grab twigs and walk to the side. "One, two, three...."
The game gets complicated. Over years of playing, you learn about tiny eddies and rips, which part of the creek works best, what size sticks to use. If you throw the stick too hard, it sinks a moment, and lags behind.
After the sticks passed under the bridge, we watch them float downstream around the bend, past the shopping cart, the half-sunken bicycle, and the ducks that have long gotten used to children throwing sticks in the stream.
Early last summer, my daughter, now an adult, was attacked just after she walked across this bridge. I have crossed the bridge since then, without looking for pooh sticks, without noticing the ducks. It is early February as I write this. It rained enough this week to reveal the grass again. I looked for crocuses this morning, too early I know, but I wanted to look anyway.
It may still be too early to play pooh sticks. But just in case, I will start keeping an eye out for two perfect sticks. One for me, and one for her.
1 If you want to learn local history, follow the canals. Within 2 miles of where I sit, part of the Morris Canal became the railbed for the
Newark Subway, the roadbed for the 140's section of the
Garden State Parkway, and the streambed for children playing
pooh sticks.
2A garden snail travels triple this speed, at 3 hundredths of a mile per hour. http://hypertextbook.com/facts/AngieYee.shtml