“Break on through to the other side,” the Doors’ hit song from 1967, was an important part of the soundtrack of my last semester in college, in the spring of 1980. Today, as I ponder the fact as of Monday I finally will be eligible to be vaccinated, the idea of getting to “the other side” is both appealing and frightening.

Getting to the other side is what came to mind when I looked at today’s #stampoftheday, which pictures the Niagara Railway Suspension Bridge. Located 2.5 miles downstream of Niagara Falls., the bridge officially opened on March 18, 1855. Oddly, though, the 3-cent stamp was issued in 1948, on the 100th anniversary of the competition of a temporary bridge designed by Charles Ellet, who had been hired in 1846 to build the permanent bridge. But due to disputes with the companies backing the project, he left in 1848. The project was on hold until 1851, when backers hired John Augustus Roebling, who went on to design the Brooklyn Bridge (and die while he was working on it).

Roebling concluded that Ellet’s design was too heavy and too expensive. He scrapped it in favor of what he had proposed for the crossing in 1846: a double-decker suspension bridge with paths for pedestrians and carriages on the bottom and train tracks on top. That structure, which opened in 1855, was the world’s first working railway suspension bridge. It stood until 1897, when it was replaced by what is now known as Whirlpool Rapids Bridge. (The first of two bonus #stampoftheday offerings is a 1901 stamp showing the “Honeymoon Bridge,” when was located much closer to the fall. When it opened in 1898 it was the largest steel arch bridge in the world; it collapsed in 1938 when a sudden wind storm on Lake Erie sent a massive amount of ice over the falls and then into the bridge’s abutments. The other is a 1922 stamp showing just the falls.)

As the 1948 stamp shows, Roebling’s Niagara bridge was beautiful, elegant, and functional. But as I looked at it with the Doors’ song in mind, I realized it doesn’t tell you anything about why people wanted to use it. And that made me wonder: what were Jim Morrison and the other members of The Doors thinking about when they sang:

“You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side”

Or, for that matter, what was I thinking about when I listened to the song, late at night when I unexpectedly agreed to become managing editor of The Argus, Wesleyan’s student newspaper, particularly given the fact that up to that point, I had written exactly two columns for the paper. The answer, I’ve often said, is I took on that job because I was part of a “coup d’etat” at the paper led by Jenny (then Jim) Boylan, who had been writing a humor column. Since I’d been active in some campus politics, since I didn’t need to take a full course load to graduate, and since Jenny had assembled an amazing group of people, I agreed to become the managing editor, focused on news and issues I thought the Argus should cover.

It turned out to be a life-changing decision that set me on a path I didn’t know existed. Of course, I didn’t know I was making such a major crossing when I agreed to do that job. I did know that it meant that on Sundays I could go to the Argus’ offices, call the Wesleyan operator, and ask for a WATS line, which allowed me to make free long-distance phone calls to my parents and siblings.

When we laid out the paper (which came out either once or twice a week, depending on how we felt), we would have to stop in the middle of the night because someone else had bought time on our then new typesetting machine. So we would take a break and go to Alpha Delt, the literary fraternity near the Argus offices where someone (I don’t remember who), had a room. We would get high and listen to the Doors, who were enjoying a resurgence because their song “The End,” had been featured in “Apocalypse Now.”

I think I was trying to “break on through” to whoever I was going to do and wherever I was going to do it after I graduated. My short time at the Argus had gotten me hooked on journalism, so I wanted to find a job as a newspaper reporter. After mulling over options with some friends who were equally vague about their plans, a few of decided to move to Boston or Cambridge (because New York was too crazy and San Francisco and Seattle were too far away). I found cheap room in a group house in Cambridge. Over the next year, I sent out a lot of letters, worked as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant, worked odds shifts as the substitute night or weekend manager of some halfway houses, did a little freelance writing, and found some other odd jobs. Finally, in September 1981, I got I got a job as a reporter for a new weekly newspaper in Cambridge for the princely sum of $165 a week (about $465 in today’s dollars).

That job was another crossing in a journey that has brought me to the present moment, where I I’m pondering the crossing to the other side of this pandemic life. To be honest, while I’m looking forward to the freedom of post-pandemic life, I’m also wary of what I’ll find when I emerge from my COVID cocoon. So while Jim Morrison spoke to me when I was 23, my energy and feelings about this journey are better summed up by these words from “The Water is Wide,” a wonderful song written by Pete Seeger:

The water is wide, I can’t cross o’er
And neither I have wings to fly
Give me a boat carry two
And both shall row, my love and I

…There is a ship that sails the sea
She’s loaded deep as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I made
I know not how I’ll sink or swim

I know not how I’ll sink or swim. But together with “my love” – Jody, my daughters, my family, my friends, and my community -I will cross over to the other side.

Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.