Most of the covered bridges that we saw last weekend, were out in the country, off by themselves. This seclusion naturally made them prime candidates for secret rendezvous, trysts and the like. Based upon our informal survey of covered bridge graffiti most of the participants in these meetings were high schoolers. Most of their graffiti recounted who loved who, but a significant portion of it had devolved into who no longer loved who. This was usually accompanied by hate speech, typically directed at the female half. Sometimes it was frightening in its intensity. Many of the bridges had whitewashed walls. Anne thought that this was done to make the walls easier to see at night. I think that it was just to tamp down the hate speech, even with seemingly newly whitewashed walls new rants soon appeared, because haters got to hate.
Three notable exceptions to this norm are the examples shown here. Two are from the Wilkens Mill Bridge, which was one of the first covered bridges that we saw. The third is from the Roseville Bridge, which was one of the last bridges that we saw. I love the artistry of the eyes, the humor of using a knot hole to make a Scream figure and wonder about the age of the script initials that were carved into the bridge’s limestone footing.