When discussing how best to position the Catch Ministry’s most recent end-of-the-year campaign, a dear Catch MemberPartner recommended we build a bridge to the year 2021.  Giving credence to her suggestion, we called in many of our Catch community citizens with expertise in bridge building to determine whether we had the capability to build this bridge into 2021.

Mike, a long time friend of the Catch served as our design consultant. He wanted to know if the bridge was supposed to carry cars, trucks, and buses, or be just a footbridge, and if it was a footbridge did we want to build in wheelchair access for seniors? Not one word about that in any of our plans, we responded to Mike with a shrug: “You know: a bridge. Whatever.”

Up until this discussion had anyone thought about budgets? Did anybody bother figuring out beforehand what a bridge to 2021 was going to cost? Plenty, I’m sure. So initially we had lots of complaining and moaning about cost coming from the same people who dreamed this project into being!  And we couldn’t make it a toll bridge, because how do you charge people for moving from one point in time to another?

To build a bridge across time instead of just across a river, bay, or inlet – well that was indeed going to be a challenge. Nobody had ever done that before, not even the ancient Romans. But engineering problems were actually the least of it. You see, our Catch Construction expert, Dave, explained nobody had specified where it would start. We had survey teams in D.C. and down in Arkansas, and some wandering around here and there in Kansas, even across to the land of fruits and nuts.  We had meetings and more meetings before we realized it didn’t matter where the bridge started.  We could start it from anywhere, as long as it was the present. And, of course, it was always present, at any given moment.  What a relief!

Structural Engineer Roberta pointed out that the bridge would be totally obsolete right after midnight, December 31, 2020, and by January 1, 2021, everybody who was going over to 2021 would be there already. Since it only had to stay up for one day, we cut corners, and that helped bring the cost down and get some of the budget hawks off our backs. We didn’t even bother painting it.

The thing was structurally very rickety, to be truthful. One decision came early: it was going to be a oneway, one time bridge, period. Allowing for return trips to 2020? No thanks. Talk about budget-busting.

Arthur, our legal advisor, said that frankly, we goofed on the legal aspects. People see a bridge, they say let’s walk over, drive over, whatever, for the day. But this bridge is across time, so once they do it they can’t go back, ever. Oh, the lawsuits! So Arthur took out a black marker and wrote on some butcher paper a sign that read – “You Are Now Leaving 2020, All Exits Final.”  He said it would be strong enough to cover us legally.

Now for the Cable Stringer:  Once you got up on one of the towers, it was a beautiful sight. Joe, our Cable Stringer, had steel reaching over into 2021, and the end was so far away that no matter where you stood, the bridge just seemed to disappear into a kind of mist. We know Joe had hundreds of guys working on it somewhere farther along the span – close enough to 2021 to reach out and touch it – but nobody realized that to finish the bridge these guys would have to physically cross over. That’s why none of them were seen again until January 1. Then there they all were, waiting for us on the other side. And for a while, everyone regarded them as being as famous as the first astronauts.

Many of our members served as Traffic Police Officers who had to let the Hell’s Angels, junkies, all the convicts in jail, and who knows how many North Korean spies – just everyone, no exceptions whatsoever – cross that bridge. It was idiotic to build only one bridge, that’s for sure. Sounded nice in a Catch Ministry Board of Director’s meeting, but jeez, the crowding was awful. Of course a number of Officers foolishly left their squad cars parked on the 2020 side during the opening ceremonies on New Years Eve.  After the ball fell, they ran back to try and get them. Bonk!  It was like  running into a glass wall.

Everyone claimed credit for the bridge, and the ribbon-cutting ceremony had to be this really awkward business with everyone trying to clutch the same pair of scissors. Jesse Jackson got in there somehow and upstaged John giving a seemingly endless speech about the meaning of time. Marti held a press conference a few feet away, saying 2021 would have come to us anyway, bridge or not, and we’d bankrupted ourselves for nothing. She was right on the facts, but she had no sense of the symbolism. None whatsoever.

So follow the lead of our bridge builders below and help pay for the bridge that got us here. If we can’t cover this, we’re not going to get very far in 2021. Some may even want to give again and help make up for those who have been hit hard by Covid losses. Thank you, all of you, for your commitment to the Catch. If you wish to send a check, our address is: The Catch Ministry, Inc., 1278 Glenneyre, Laguna Beach, CA 92651.