Letter to the editor: Remembrances of causeway practices past

To the Editor: It seems that we are reading about the bridge daily, so I thought a true story from the past would be in order.

When I moved here in 1973 to run the clinic, the toll system was like this: 50¢ for car and driver, and 20¢ each for other passengers. You paid that coming on the island, AND going off the island.

Late one night, a resident suffered a fatal heart attack in his home. Because this was an unattended death, the body had to be taken to the medical examiner’s office in Fort Myers. We had no ambulance service at that time, so one of our volunteer EMS members and I put the body in the back of the station wagon we used for an ambulance and headed to Fort Myers.

When we got to the toll booth, I gave the attendant 50¢ for driver and car, and 20¢ for me. The attendant saw the body in the back, and said, “20¢ for the guy in the back.” I told him the man was deceased. He said, “He don’t look dead to me.” He refused to open the gate until I gave him another 20¢.

My how things have changed.

Henry L. Wright

Boca Grande