If I Had My Way Page #3

His Pa kicked him

out through the door.

Don't let anybody sit here. I'll

be right back. All right, honey.

He sure was a gay old bird.

He didn't come home 'til early

mornin' And this is what we heard.

Oh, hello, Slim, where did Buzz

go? He just walked down the road.

He said he needed some air. Oh.

Oh, Buzz.

Hello, Pat. Don't you feel well?

Sure, honey,

I... I feel all right.

Then aren't you going to see

the rest of the show?

Axel and the band

and everything?

Oh, it's too nice a night to

sit in that stuffy old hall.

But where are you going?

Just thought

I'd take a little walk.

Can I come along?

Sure, Pat, maybe you'd better.

My, but it's quiet.

Seems quiet after all the racket

we made getting her put together.

And tomorrow we'll move on, but she'll

stay right here forever, won't she?

Practically.

The men go, but the bridge

stays. It's beautiful, Buzz.

Pat, do you remember that poem

that you learned in school?

You mean

"My Friend, the Bridge?"

That's the one.

Would you it say for me?

"I wish that some day

you'd climb with me

"to the peak

of a windblown ridge

"where I go to visit

my oldest friend

"my faithful friend, the bridge.

"He has looked for years

this friend of mine

"at the river that swirls below.

"He has suffered the heat

and the biting cold

"and the wind

and the rain and the snow".

"For there's more to a bridge

than the stone and the steel

"there's the soul of the man

who willed it

"there's the strength of the

men and the hearts of the men

"and the blood of the men

who built it".

Daddy always says that, too.

He was right.

And he says one reason

this is a great country

is because we build bridges

instead of bombing them.

Sounds just like Fred.

We used to sit and talk about

things like that by the hour.

He was my best friend. He was

closer to me than a brother.

Was?

Honey, you've been around men

like us since you were a baby.

You're growing up now and that's

the way I'm going to talk to you.

Every job like this has to be paid

for, not only in money, but in men.

It seems like a high price,

but not when you remember

that a man who loses his life

in work like ours

is just as much a hero as a

soldier on the battlefield.

Except that soldiers have

to die destroying things,

and we die building them.

We...

We die?

Buzz.

Something's happened to Daddy?

You'll have to be brave, honey,

just like he was.

Oh, Buzz.

He promised you

a star tonight, Pat.

I guess maybe he went

to get it for you.

Well, it's one of two things.

I either got too much clothes

or I ain't got enough suitcase.

Did you ever hear of the

Baldwin Development Company?

What do they develop?

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