For James O’Neill, this walk was a long time coming.
The 93-year-old Windsor resident walked onto the Gordie Howe International Bridge on Wednesday, reliving memories of crossing the Ambassador Bridge on foot in the 1940s.
Generations have passed since O’Neill first walked from Canada to the U.S. on the Ambassador Bridge. Now he can say he has done it again on the new bridge, joining many people from both sides of the border for the opening of the multi-use path.
“I was trying to repeat something I did when I was about 14 years old, when I walked the other bridge,” O’Neill said.
“This one is a little higher, and a little more slant. But I’m doing it… Well, I’ve been very lucky with my health. And if it continues, I’ll walk the next bridge that they create.”
To get ready for the bridge’s five percent incline, O’Neill took daily walks for coffee and worked out on a treadmill.
He did not do it alone. His family came with him, including his children, grandchildren and a great-grandchild. He also used a cane, a walker and a mobility scooter.
O’Neill and his family reached the middle of the bridge, the international boundary line between the Canadian and U.S. sides, around noon.
They marked the moment by taking a few steps across the line into America and eating caramel corn, the sweet treat O’Neill remembers buying in Detroit after walking across the Ambassador Bridge in the 1940s.
His eldest son, Tim O’Neill, said the family was proud of him. Out of caution for his health, they decided to head back to Canada instead of continuing to the Detroit end of the bridge.
“He’s always been an inspiration, for our whole lives. So he’s just doing the same thing and making an example that is incredible,” Tim O’Neill said.
“It’s hard to imagine him doing anything else.”
For O’Neill, stepping onto the new bridge brought back memories of a time when Windsor and Detroit were a walk away from each other.
“It feels good just to be alive, and it feels better to be a citizen of both countries,” O’Neill said at the boundary point.
“Because I love Americans… I’m glad that Mr. Trump was not able to put a monkeywrench into it.”
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