Learned a new word today......gephyrophobia

[Stuart G]

I was looking at the on line edition of the New York Times..and came across a new word...gephyrophobia...fear of crossing bridges..
here are two paragraphs that include this word.. You never know what you will get at the New YOrk Times..


On page one,,with a link to New York Region

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/nyregion/08bridge.html



"Mrs. Steers, 47, suffered from a little-known disorder called gephyrophobia, a fear of bridges. And she had the misfortune of living in a region with 26 major bridges, whose heights and spans could turn an afternoon car ride into a rolling trip through a haunted house.

Some people go miles out of their way to avoid crossing the George Washington Bridge — for example, driving to Upper Manhattan from Teaneck, N.J., by way of the Lincoln Tunnel, a detour that can stretch a 19-minute jog into a three-quarter-hour ordeal. Other bridge phobics recite baby names or play the radio loudly as they ease onto a nerve-jangling span — anything to focus the mind. Still others take a mild tranquilizer an hour before buckling up to cross a bridge."

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. My mom had that fear

Yet, she managed somehow to drive us from Oklahoma to Minnesota and back every summer, crossing many back road bridges (I-35 was not complete back then.)

I think the reason she would stop and take us for chocolate eclairs to a place called "The Prom" in Kansas City, MO, may have been because she "made it" once again across the Missouri River Broadway Bridge from KC, KS to KC, MO.


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