The Bay Bridge is in the news these days - an elegant and expensive new span is rising on the eastern side of the bay, and the old bridge itself marked its 75th birthday last month.

All the talk reminded Don Donaldson, a 92-year-old retired businessman, about his excellent Bay Bridge adventure a lifetime ago.

When Donaldson was 15 years old and a student at Berkeley High School, he and a pal managed to sneak on to the Bay Bridge one night and make their way from San Francisco to Oakland.

It was a great trick, because the bridge wasn't open yet - it didn't even have a deck.

"It was just something a couple of kids would do," Donaldson said the other afternoon. "It was a good experience."

The trip was also highly dangerous and completely illegal.

In April 1935, Donaldson and Joseph Arey, his 16-year-old friend, climbed up the bridge towers and down the catwalks on the cables. They dodged guards at the unfinished Yerba Buena Island tunnel, hiked over the island and walked the steel girders of the eastern half of the bridge to the Oakland shore.

Except for workers, they were the first to cross the bridge before it officially opened on Nov. 12, 1936. "We were pioneers," Donaldson said.

An adventurous life

Donaldson, who lives in the Rossmoor retirement community now, had a long and adventurous life. As a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, he flew 47 combat missions over Europe. "I'm one of the greatest generation, I suppose," he said.

As recently as last fall, he and some pals flew in chartered aircraft deep into the interior mountains of British Columbia for a fly fishing expedition. He tries to go every year.

Until three years ago, he took horse packing trips into California's High Sierra to fish for trout. He's fished lakes as high as 11,500 feet. "It's beautiful up there," he said.

But he's always drawn back to the view at night from the towers of the unfinished Bay Bridge. "The ferryboats passing under us all lit up and their lights twinkling. They looked like little toys," he said.

It all began on a visit to San Francisco after a school fraternity meeting in April 1935. Or maybe they went to San Francisco "just to take a ferryboat ride," Donaldson said. The boys' parents thought Donaldson and Arey were upstairs in Arey's Berkeley house where Donaldson was spending the night.

'It was irresistible'

At any rate, the two boys found themselves on the San Francisco Embarcadero, and there before them, was an open door that led to stairs and then a ladder that led, amazingly enough to the San Francisco tower of the Bay Bridge. "It was all lit up," Donaldson said. It was irresistible.

Arey had crossed before, at least part way, and wanted to try again. Donaldson was game.

So they climbed up to the top of the tower, then down the catwalk and up again.

"We just kept going," Donaldson said.

City lights

There were four towers in all. They looked down at the boats passing underneath and the sparkling lights of the city.

There were guards at Yerba Buena, but the boys gave them the slip, climbed over the hill and walked the girders of the cantilever section to Oakland. They were finally stopped when they got to Oakland.

"A guard said to us, 'Where did you guys come from?' "

They were dirty; there was so much red lead paint on their trench coats they had to throw them away.

Their families were furious, but at Berkeley High they were heroes.

Their story made the papers: the San Francisco Examiner called it a "High Adventure."

"We were big shots on the high school campus for awhile," Donaldson remembered.

He was a big kid - 190 pounds in high school, but a knee injury kept him off any college football team. Instead, he went to the Armstrong Business College. In 1941, he tried to join the Marines, but was turned down. So he went into the Army Air Corps.

He was a bombardier and navigator on a B-25 bomber and later on a B-26. He flew over Nazi-occupied Europe, sometimes flying only 30 feet over the water, "to stay under the radar" he said.

He also served in the Pacific.

After the war, Donaldson sold Chrysler and Plymouth cars in Berkeley. He later went into business for himself and retired to Rossmoor 26 years ago.

He had a good life. "I have a nice wife and two sons," he said. "And I play golf two days a week."

He hasn't seen Joe Arey, his partner in his Bay Bridge adventure, for many years.

"I just lost track of him," Donaldson said.