Danube-Networkers
Two Bridges – duty and free style
Text / Picture(s): Monika Pfiszter
I grew up in an bavarian small town by the Iller, this river flows into the Danube at Neu-Ulm. After four years of primary school I had to go by train every day to cross the distance of 25 km as far as the grammar school in Neu-Ulm.
Only people having undergone the sparingness of these years themselves can imagine the daily grind. There were cars, but only for business men and higher professionals. The monthly train ticket was valid until the the bavarian border train station Neu-Ulm. Train station Ulm meant Baden-Württemberg, the other side of the Danube and an additional fee to pay. Thus it was normal for me to go there only walking.
Our group of learners of about a dozen children arrived normally with the same train, took the same footpath to the school and the same return train into the province. For some months, of Neu-Ulm I only knew the way to school and interior and vestibule of the train station.
Then my father gave me an assignment. He owned a small workshop and needed materials
by an supplier situated in Ulm, Karlstrasse. It was my job to get it for him. My brother gave the directions: I had to walk from school to and over Gänstorbrücke, along Gideon-Bacher-Strasse, down Frauenstrasse, to cross Karlstrasse in order to reach my destination. The way back led until Frauenstrasse and Herdbrücke to the train station Neu-Ulm.
For me this path was very long and strange, I was frightened and didn't risk a look to the right and to the left until I was securely landed at the train station Neu-Ulm again.
The first bridge was the difficult one. I had to get around a traffic circle unto the accurate path and to walk alongside four lanes of traffic for a relative long time. I did not trust this bridge, therefore I entered it slowly, wanting to be able to return in the case of the bridge collapsing. Then I ran to the other side and was always relieved when I had reached it. The rest of the route out and back I trotted along without sense. But then I met the second bridge on the way back, Herdbrücke. This bridge deemed secure to me.
The Herdbrücke allured me to investigate the city of Ulm without detours or duties, hesitantly the first time, but then again and again and with increasing familiarity. This bridge led to the Schwörhaus library, to the town's baths across the city hall, to the Ulmer Münster plaza and to the beautiful promenade along the Danube. This very day I like to cross this bridge with pleasant anticipation.
And this very day I quicken my pace over the middle of Gänstorbrücke. Maybe the number of cars could still cause a collapse.
