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The book records his personal quest to swim across the famous channel in Turkey, but it is as much about the power of a personal dream.
Successfully completing the Aug. 21, 2000, swim and publishing a book about it made it doubly rewarding, said Bridgers.
"My reward is, as the Gershwin song says, they can't take that away from me,'" he said.
Bridgers wrote the book for his grandchildren, Quentin, Carly, Vanessa, Jackson, Kate and Little Ben - who range in ages from 2 to 6.
"I wrote all the time during my training and trip, but leaving a loose manuscript of typed pages did not seem like much of a legacy," said Bridgers, a Sylva attorney. "That's why I decided to put it into book form. When I am dead and gone, I want them to know something about me."
Since he wrote with such a specific readership in mind, Bridgers said, "I don't know if anybody else in the world will be interested in it."
However, readers of all ages can identify with his quest. Additionally, local readers can identify with references to names like Sue Ellen, Cliff, Nagui, Art, Otto, Dr. Bob, Dottie and Lacy.
Throughout this book, which is part adventure story, part memoir, Bridgers talks not only of growing old, but of growing up. During his personal pilgrimage, Bridgers discovers he is young where it counts - in the heart.
Married to accomplished author Sue Ellen Bridgers, who served as his copy editor, Bridgers said he found writing "a humbling experience." During the writing, he recalled a note affixed to someone's refrigerator door that read, "Tell your own story. If you don't, someone else will and they will get it wrong."
So in "Swimming the Hellespont," Bridgers sets the record straight for his grandchildren. He gives them the following advice from a framed quotation that sits on his law office desk, "Day is short and the task is great. It is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but neither are you free to neglect it."
A man who had received a "wake up call" from prostate cancer, Bridgers tells how training for the swim took over his life. The rigorous regime developed him into a man who "felt better physically at 60 than when I was in my 20s, though hardly more buoyant than a rock," said Bridgers, who admits at first he could only swim well enough to keep from drowning.
Connecting the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, the Hellespont, as Bridgers puts it, is "on the opposite side of the world from North Carolina... Swimming such a wide body of water was daring, beyond my physical ability."
Bridgers challenges readers to exceed their own limits.
Until Byron accomplished the feat in 1810, swimming the channel had been considered just a legend, one that dated back to the ancient romantic myth of Leander, who swam the Hellespont to be with his lover, Hero, a priestess of Venus.
In his book Bridgers tells of remaining in the afterglow. "When I finished swimming the Hellespont and stood on the rock tower, my eyes misted. The adventure was over. My success was getting to a place where the physical world intersects with thought and dream, where I could just feel, just be. That morning I could have swam forever."
Still swimming, "but not every day," Bridgers lately has considered forming a Jackson County relay team to swim the English Channel.
"It's only 20 miles," he said half in jest. "But I need to find five other good, strong swimmers, preferably younger than me."
If you are interested, see Bridgers at his book signing this Friday night.
See related story in The Herald's Sept. 7, 2000, online archives at www.thesylvaherald.com.
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Bridgers