The Girl on the Golden Gate Bridge

Near the end of 2003, the company I work for had one of their yearly trade shows in beautiful San Francisco. We arrived on a Thursday and wouldn’t fly out until early Monday morning (and I do mean, early).

That Sunday was a “free day” in which we all could roam the city and see the sites. The group I ended up exploring with consisted of two "direct co-workers" with the remaining three being “extended co-workers”. One of my biggest thrills that day was seeing the Golden Gate Bridge up close and in person. Touching that bridge was like meeting a celebrity and shaking their hand, it’s just so “iconic”.

As I was taking photos of the sites and of my friends, I decided to pose for a few myself. When we reached the first support beam structure on Golden Gate, I leaned up against it and directed my friend David on how to photograph me. As I posed like a celebrity would for a magazine shoot, a girl that was jogging by, stopped as to not get in the shot. Before I saw her, I heard her say to me, “Oh, come on, you can pose better than that!” A quick glance revealed that she had dark hair and was dressed in running clothes, I never seen her eyes because of the sunglasses she was wearing. Before I could even think, one of my “extended co-workers”, Tim Pate, said to her “Don’t you know who this is?” She replied “Should I?” But unfortunately the fun stops there, because all I said was “No”. So, she continued on her run over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I guess I just wasn’t ready for the fast thinking of Tim Pate! If that would ever happen again, I would have more fun with it. Anyway, Tim Pate became my friend that day and that story became better each time it was told for a while. I can remember our first day back at work that following Tuesday. Most of us that hung out that past Sunday went to the Mall food court for lunch to reminisce about our trip. We laughed so hard as we told stories of the happenings from our tour of San Francisco. Most of the laughing was because Tim had us rolling!

The image at the top is one I took of the Golden Gate’s support beams. I wanted to capture a uniuqe view of the bridge.