Bridging land and sea
Karen Kraus has a view that spans Cape Cod’s geography and economy. It is a vantage that measures the region’s economic maturity and its poetic majesty.
From a tiny drawbridge house on Water Street, she has chronicled nearly two decades of local growth: all those cars and trucks crossing this modest span that connects the peninsula to Cape Cod’s expansive technological and scientific community – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory. The endless parade of boats that boast the region’s maritime and recreational roots – and its ever-expanding personal wealth.
For 15 years, during weekly shifts that sometimes reach 77 hours, Kraus has hydraulically raised and lowered the Woods Hole drawbridge 13,102 times to let pass more than 34,000 craft – from modest sailboats to luxury yachts. And that’s just during her shift – one of three.
The mechanical repetition of her job is lost in the wonder and frequent joy she encounters from season to season. For every quiet – and, yes, boring – Saturday in the middle of the winter, there are all those frenetic summer days managing bumper-to-bumper traffic or coping with a bomb threat or encountering yet another celebrity sailor – from Marlo Thomas and husband Phil Donahue to Sen. John Kerry.
For every struggle with an antiquated and soon-to-be-replaced hydraulic system or a temperamental sailor, there’s the next sunset or sunrise that confirms her commitment to Cape Cod and to the balance she has sought as a worker, wife and mother.
Kraus brings a deep sense of pride to her job. She is, in fact, the only female full-time bridge tender on the Cape.
“I was told I could never get the job,” she recalled. “So, on a dare, I applied. At the time, I had two young children in school. I left my job in Boston, where I managed a chemical company. My husband was working in the security department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.”
When she interviewed, she showed up in a suit with high heels. Officials at the Falmouth Department of Public Works looked at each other somewhat incredulously.
“You want to be a bridge tender?’ the director asked me. “I said, ‘Yes.’ Then, I inquired about the dress code. They said, ‘You can dress any way you want, honey,’” she recalled with a laugh.
Fortunately, they had an open mind. “Obviously, some things about my work are physically demanding, and the town may not want me to do it, such as crawl into the pit and grease the gears. But I can put on my Tyvex suit and go down there.”
For this position, Kraus must possess both a mechanical hoisting license and a hydraulic operator’s license. While most of the time the daily operation is predictable, she has encountered sheer crises. Once, the hydraulic line burst and she had fluid literally in her ears and up her nose and mouth.
She even was the star of a Popular Mechanics video in 1995, part of an after-school series titled “How Do They Do That?” Her segment was on big bridges and little bridges.
“One day, I was staying at a hotel, and a man came up to me. ‘Oh, my god, it can’t be you,’ he shouted. ‘Karen, my kids love you.’ He recognized me from the video,” she laughed.
As challenging – and temperamental – as the bridge’s hydraulic system can be, it doesn’t come close to matching the impatience of summer tourists backed up along Woods Hole’s congested thoroughfare.
She frequently has to stand her ground. “When the bridge is raised, pedestrians have to stand back behind the white line. Well, one fellow was quite drunk after a few hours at Captain Kidd’s, and he was not inclined to stay on the right side of the line. When I asked him to step back, he had to impress his friends.
“‘Hey, baby,’ he said. ‘I am behind the white line.’ So, I said, ‘Yes, sir, but I need your stomach behind the line as well.’
“You can’t be intimidated. If you are, they will eat you alive,” she laughed. “I never planned on this as a career, but now that I am here, I have fun with it.”
So much so that Kraus regales in her unofficial Woods Hole nickname, ‘the Bridge Bitch.’ “People ask if that is my choice. Sure it is. I think it’s pretty funny.”
In the middle of a busy summer, Kraus can log more than 120 boats a day. “We log in every one. We have to know what time they have passed through; what kind of boat it is.” Such meticulous record keeping has helped Kraus identify when a boat is overdue and possibly in danger. Other times, the Coast Guard has inquired to be sure a boat has returned. The ship’s captain may have headed to a local watering hole and failed first to call home.
Cobbling jobs to live on Cape Cod
Kraus and her husband could be a poster couple for Cape Cod. Like thousands of others, they have managed to raise and educate children here while owning their own home – theirs on a Falmouth pond. But it has not been easy.
In addition to her bridge-tending for the town of Falmouth at $15 an hour, Kraus also has worked for more than 15 years as a part-time bookkeeper and office manager for Woods Hole Marine. The privately owned company manages 22 slips and 40 moorings.
“It’s the price we pay for wanting to live near water and stay on Cape Cod,” said Kraus. “I work two jobs because I don’t make enough at one job. My husband also has side jobs. He is an auto mechanic and a full-time police officer. It shows that the economy is truly challenging.
“We don’t live an extravagant life. We don’t drive new cars. We just try to live comfortably and put money aside.”
“We say sometimes that we want to move, retire someplace else where the crowds are not so bad in the summer and it’s cheaper to live. But, honestly, I could not imagine living someplace where I cannot see the water every day at work. You take it for granted until you see the sun rising or setting, and no one else is around you.”
Originally published in the March/April 2007 issue of Cape Cod.
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