The opportunity to get to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge was one of those things I always wanted to do and several years ago I got my wish.
I got my first chance while I was working at Union Carbide Corporation in San Francisco, when I first got out of college. One of my associates at Union Carbide was the mayor of Cotati, which is a little town that is home of Sonoma State University. At the time I didn’t know how hard it was getting up there for a tour. When I was ready to accept the invitation, my associate had to say he wasn’t on the “Bridge Authority” anymore, and now he couldn’t get up there.
Many years went by, and it was added to my Bucket List. When we moved to Rohnert Park, I met the supervisor of all the toll takers for all of the bridges in the bay area. It was a casual conversation after mass at the Catholic Church, when he mentioned that he could get me up there.
As the day finally approached, I traveled into San Francisco to Adolph Gasser, the biggest camera store in the area. There I rented a “super-wide-angle” camera that was appropriate for this coming adventure. One of the photographs taken with it is the photograph that you pressed to get here. And also, I turned it into one of my business cards.
From that point I’m sure I made a nuisance of myself. I would see him at Safeway or around town. I would ask him the same question, when are we going to go to the Golden Gate Bridge. On one such occasion he said, call my secretary and let’s make an appointment. I called her that afternoon and many times during the next few weeks. “Just checking that I’m still on the schedule for my visit with Greg Norton for my tour of the bridge”.
I remember that it was a lovely day in summer. There couldn’t have been a better day for my adventure. But I was on the freeway on the Novato Narrows when suddenly my van hood fell opened breaking my windshield. I drove off at the next exit which was the Olompali State Park entrance. Undaunted I pressed on, having taped the hood down with duct tape. I wasn’t going to have anything happen to me to miss this appointment. As I was approaching the Golden Gate Bridge, I could feel the excitement build within me. Then, I was on the bridge. I remember looking up and thinking “soon I will be way up there looking down at the traffic”
I got off the bridge and parked. I entered the bridge office where I saw Greg and I noticed he had a big smile on his face. “Are you ready for this?” I’m sure that my smile answered that question. He then introduced me to one of his team who had a golf cart prepared.
Soon we were on the bridge walking path. When we got to the north tower, I saw a door which he un-locked. Behind the door was an entrance to a three-person lift. We could hardly fit in, with all of my camera equipment. I remember that it was dark as we slowly went up the hundreds of feet, I remember kind of being claustrophobic as we ascended to our destination. It was so crowded in the lift, I had to put one of my feet on my camera bag.
Although it was a nice day up at the top of the Golden Gate it was quite breezy. As I got my tripod ready to mount the expensive camera that I had rented, I had to hold the camera case with my foot so that it wouldn’t blow off the tower.
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I took several rolls of film with several different cameras. Unfortunately, the file box disappeared from my studio. So, these are the only photographs I have of that special day.
Tom Patterson – Photographer – Writer – and Seeker 
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