Tag Archives: bridge

Girl Scouts’ Bridge Ceremony

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

“Everytime in Girl Scouts that we went up a level; so, Daisy to Brownie, Brownie to Junior, Junior to Cadet, Cadet to Senior, and Senior to Ambassador. We had a Bridge Ceremony to mark the transition. There are a lot of different ways that we did them. But, generally, they include a bridge or something to like physically pass from one side to another. And generally, before this ceremony happens, you will talk to the level above you to ask them about wisdom and what questions you might have and you talk to a troop in the level below you and pass on your wisdom to them”

“And then at the actual ceremony there’s plenty of stories that everyone has to read a bit and it’s all about like the Girl Scout Promise and Law. Sometimes you just skip straight to calling each girl across the bridge and then giving them their next badge that goes on their vest to signify ‘hey, you’re older!’ So each girl crosses the bridge. Yay! You’re all the next level”

What are some variations?

The informant described having “something reminiscent of the year below or the year that you are,” such as when transitioning from brownies to juniors, they had brownies and junior mints.

“There’s a lot of variations on that. One year, we limboed into cadets, I think. We started having pool parties, so we kind of just jumped into the next year. 

But the actual physical bridge is a big one. The most institutionalized version of this [would be that] many people when they bride to cadets fly to San Fran to cross the Golden Gate Bridge because thats when you’re younger girl to older girl. You’re expected to start volunteering and helping out with events and stuff. You’re going into middle school, so it’s a big transition.”

Analysis: While this ceremony is institutionalized in the idea, the international organization of Girl Scouts provides endless opportunities for multiplicity and variation of this tradition. In fact, not all troops even participate in this tradition since it is not a required ceremony. Other troops even have completely different ceremonies for transitions. These ceremonies signify the girls’ growth each year and excite them for moving up in the ranks. The bridge itself has a symbolism of moving on into the next state of life, which becomes a little looser as they get older and the bridge becomes less literal. The informant even recognizes an important coming of age transition into cadets and sometimes go to San Francisco, emphasizes the weight of their new responsibilities of an older girl. These ceremonies set the tone for the new expectations each year and celebrate their achievements thus far as well as getting passed down wisdom from the girls a level older, making them feel more prepared for their next year of life. 

Suicide Bridge

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text: 

“I grew up in Pasadena, and I’ve always heard stories about the Colorado Street Bridge, which everyone calls ‘Suicide Bridge’. The legend says that during the Great Depression, so many people jumped off the bridge that now it is haunted. Supposedly at night you can hear footsteps behind you when no one is there, or even him standing on the edge.”

Context:

The informant grew up in Pasadena. She heard this story from her parents and friends in middle school. The bridge does have a history with suicides. My informant let me know that she heard this legend mostly during Halloween, or when she was a teenager and her friends would drive over the bridge. 

Analysis:

The Pasadena Suicide Bridge legend is a blend of history and supernatural folklore. It was built in 1913 but became famous in the 1930s during the Great Depression. The legend reflects cultural anxieties about tragedies, mental illness, and death. By turning a site of real-life tragedy into a location for ghost stories, the community creates a way to process trauma. 

The Legend of the Tilly Willy Bridge

Tags: Legend, Ghost Story, Northwest Arkansas, Bridge

Text

The Tilly Willy bridge is a site in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was never meant to be used as a bridge because it’s not wide enough but it does look like a road. One night a lady drives through the bridge. There was heavy rain that night and she ended up driving off the bridge into a ditch and she died. Now people report that they see a woman in a white dress yelling in agony whenever they pass the site. At times, they even see hand prints on cars passing the site.

Informant Info

Race/Ethnicity: Vietnamese

Age: 20

Occupation: College Student

Residence: Northwest Arkansas, USA

Date of Performance: March 2024

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): N/A

Relationship: Sister

Context

GP, the informant, was born and raised in Northwest Arkansas (NWA).

Analysis

This legend of the Tilly Willy bridge is one of the most common ones shared with both locals and tourists. While enough to send chills down the spines of those willing to listen, it serves as a warning to those considering a drive through the bridge. A means of the Fayetteville community preserving the safety of those visiting the town.

The Goat-Man Of Pope Lick Creek

Nationality: American (Kentucky)
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/7/2021
Primary Language: English

Informant’s Background:

My informant, AH, was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, but now lives in Los Angeles where she attends undergraduate study at USC. She is 21 years old.

Context:

The informant is a close friend and former roommate of mine. I asked her if she had any folklore from her hometown in Kentucky she could share with me. For the purposes of this performance, she is labeled as AH, and I am labeled as AT.

Performance:

AH: “So there’s this creek, pretty close to my house, probably about like ten minutes away, it’s called Pope Lick, I don’t know why, but uhm me and my friends would go there pretty often because there’s these like train tracks that run up above and underneath there is where the goat man is supposed to be. So the goat man he’s supposed to be like legs of a goat, top part of a dude, and what he’s supposed to do is if you’re there at night (which we were pretty often), he’d go and like either like lure you down and then go and like grab you and eat you or he’d like fucking jump down and get you. But that was his whole thing like (*in spooky voice*) oooOOhhh we’re hanging out, and we might die! Someone’s gonna get killed by the goat man! But it was very fun, yeah, that’s most of the stuff.”

AT: “Where did you first hear about it?”

AH: “So I first heard of it… my uh-my girlfriend at the time she was like “oh, have you heard of the goat man?” and I was like “no” and she was like “yeah so if we go here at night we might see this like goat man person thing.” And that was like when I first heard about it and then we went together and we didn’t see anything, but it was definitely kind of like a creepy vibe, like abandon fucking train tracks, kind of creepy.”

Thoughts:

The first thing that came to mind upon my hearing about this was Ray Cashman’s article Visions of Irish Nationalism, which we read in class, more specifically where Cashman discusses how a seemingly innocuous location can hold a special meaning to the locals of the area or to those properly informed (Cashman, 373). In this case, the location is seemingly mundane, a railroad trestle bridge, yet there it has a different meaning to those that live in the area that are “in the know”. According to my research, there actually have been a number of deaths as recently as 2019 at the location, as it is actually not abandoned and is a major railway for trains. So in this case we see an example where depending on the time of the visit, and how safe they were being, the informant and their partner could easily have been seriously injured by going to a location that is actively dangerous and prohibited of entry to the public, yet the myth surrounding the location provides a new meaning to the location, and makes it a desirable destination to visit for locals.

Cashman, Ray. Visions of Irish Nationalism. Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 45, No. 3. Pp. 361-381.

The Haunted Tilly Willy Bridge in Arkansas

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 47
Occupation: Freelance Editor
Residence: Fayetteville, AR
Performance Date: 4/25/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

“Right outside of Fayetteville, there’s a famous bridge known as the Tilly Willy Bridge and it’s a very old bridge and it’s torn down now but it still has a lot of legends about it. Mostly, there’s this legend of a lady dressed entirely in white who fell off the bridge into the nearby creek and died so now her spirit haunts the area including a nearby field. It’s a common attraction for people to go to the bridge to try to see something scary.”

Background:

The informant for this piece is a woman in her late 40s who lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was born in Joplin, Missouri but moved south to Fayetteville and has lived there for almost 18 years by now. Fayetteville is a college town as it is adjacent to the University of Arkansas. Due to the proximity of the town to the Ozark mountains, the Ozark culture influences the town alongside the culture of those going there for college. 

Context:

The piece was shared with me via a phone call with the informant. This exact topic was brought up in response to my general question looking for local folklore of the Fayetteville area. 

Thoughts:

I think this bridge is used in a similar manner to other pieces of ghost folklore. The bridge is used by the town to establish a communal identity coming from knowledge of the story. Fayetteville is also the convergence of several cultures, as it is the college town for University of Arkansas, making the Tilly Willy Bridge possibly the result of several different cultures converging on the town. The use of ghosts in this story is also useful because it shows a lack of interest in the past and the non-urbanized world. As mentioned before, the town is somewhat close to the Ozark Mountain Range, which is known for its isolated communities. As such, inventing a story about a haunted area of the wilderness would incentivize staying within the boundaries of civilization, which makes complete sense. Making the abandoned bridge haunted also shows the classic bit of American folklore wherein the past is haunted as a means of putting one’s perspective towards the future. The final bit of folkloric importance in this bridge is how bridges are common places of superstition and liminality, as seen in other cultures. In that regard, the Tilly Willy Bridge fits into this tradition.