Secrets Of The Golden Gate Bridge
This book was originally published in 1987 under the title The Great Golden Gate Bridge Trivia Book (not my idea). Trust me, a great deal of research went into the writing of this little missive, research which consisted mainly of spending long hours in a dusty library staring at a microfiche machine and sneezing my brains out (I’m allergic to book dust). The subsequent relationship with its original publisher was a nightmare beyond belief (never ever get involved with a publisher without an agent to buffer you from their insanity) the extent to which were I to write about it the post would be rated XXX.
The bottom line is, the original book is out of print and nearly impossible to get though you can find it listed on such sites as Library Thing, AbeBooks (one fool has it listed at $99.00!!!), Alibris, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Whether they have it or not is anybody’s guess. Hell, I probably have more copies of the original in a box in my garage.
A year or two back I decided to revise the original manuscript, add a few illustrations, and put it in pdf format. Believe me, there is not another book on the Golden Gate Bridge like it. Indeed, during the research and writing of this book, the powers that control the Golden Gate Bridge wouldn’t even talk to me about my research. They didn’t want to see the book published, feeling it was bad publicity for the bridge.
Secrets Of The Golden Gate Bridge covers a bit of the history before the bridge was built as well as anecdotal tidbits covering the building, the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 and the wild and weird things that have taken place on the bridge in its first 50 years. There’s even some suicide stuff for the more morbid among you.
Here is an example of what you’ll find inside:
Before There Was A Bridge
A certain mystery seems to surround the earliest inhabitants of San Francisco Bay. They left behind huge mounds made up of oyster, clam, and mussel shells, animal bones, polished whistles, shell beads, and, occasionally, human remains. The largest of these mounds - 200 feet long, 25 feet high, and 50 feet wide - was situated in present-day Emeryville and took particular advantage, in certain seasons, of the sun setting the Goh the Golden Gate straits. Anthropologists consider these shell mounds to have an as yet undefined socio-cultural or religious significance.
Who were these first inhabitants? Why did they build these mounds? Why at that particular place? Let your mind drift back through time, back, back, four millennia before our time, back through the misty ruins of history. ..
Let your eyes wander over the vast wilderness of a continent without K-Marts, a continent still sleeping, and let your eyes fall on the tiny channel and the virgin hills by the Bay. There we see Lucy and Carl Costanoan dining and dancing as the last rays of the sun slip down over California’s first oyster bar; a shell mound with a fantastic view of the Golden Gate. So what if a Costanoan or two slips forever down into the shells after one too many fermented acorn daiquiris? The sun god smiles on the souls of those who have patronized four-star restaurants.
Anthropologists may take a dim view of this particular ethnographic analysis, but then, the sun god takes a dim view of anthropologists.
The book is available on Lulu as an ebook download. They’re asking $5.90 for it. I’m trying to figure out how to make it a Kindle book so it may be available there soon or, you could buy it direct by clicking on the Buy Now button below. Payment is via PayPal, the eBook is in Adobe PDF format.
Thank you.
E. J. Knapp
Contact the author: [CONTACT-FORM]
