London Bridges....

falling down, falling down.

I never understood the horrific images offered up by that childhood game. You'd walk around singing that stupid song. Then, if you were the unlucky one, you got caught in the arms of two of your friends.

Falling down, falling down.

As I sat in Chicago O'Hare's Admirals Club on Wednesday, we were eating our pretzels and watching the Minneapolis disaster unfold on a 65 inch plasma. The nursery rhyme was now all too real. What exactly did happen? How did it happen? Why did it happen? The questions flowed out as the airline passengers' wine glasses emptied.

No surprise here. Remember those black and white posters from the 1920s. The one where the workmen, eating their lunch, are sitting high up atop some skycraper girder. Well, that's pretty much when our country's infrastructure was put together.

Yep, the 1920s.

Over eighty years ago.

The stuff doesn't last. I am reminded how vulnerable this all is everytime I travel to NY. I can't remember a time when I was driving across a NY bridge when it didn't have some workmen on it doing something to keep it functional. Most of those spans have been standing out in the hard cold and wet weather of the Northeast since the 1930s. The elements eventually take their toll. Look how Shea Stadium has crumbled over time.

This is the way it is with all that stuff built two generations ago. The steam pipe that exploded a few years ago in midtown Manhattan probably needed maintenance years ago. It should is getting it now.

Some dumb dora in NY is now suing Con Edison for not properly keeping up with code. She is looking for millions of bucks in damages because she lost somebody on 9/11 and the steam pipe blast brought back all the mental anguish for her.

I am sure her pain is real. Her reasoning, however, is off the proverbial beam. For Con Ed to do everything it needed to do, the borough of Manhattan would have to be closed down to everyone for at least five years. Ain't going to happen, honey. And siphoning off millions from the utility company to pay for your Zoloft is going to further tax them from doing what they can barely do now.

Money has been diverted from our infrastructure maintenance for years. Now, it's too late. By paying for nonsense, we're now going to be paying with lives. When is anybody going to spend a dollar wisely? And, by spending a buck with smarts, I don't mean using it to help out all those people we keep inviting into this country willy nilly. It's amazing how many of our problems can be tied back to the nutty immigration open door policy we keep adhering to. But, I digress...

While I was in Wrigley Field the other night, I was astounded how many of the adjacent apartment buildings had been completely converted over to sports bar/viewing perches. The roof scaffolding for added seats scared me to death and I was standing on solid terra firma. Those things are one walk-off homerun away from complete collapse with bodies spilling all over Waveland and Sheffield Avenues. Well, at least, there's a fire station right there for the rescue recovery.

Granted it's not a decrepit bridge in Minneapolis, but it's human life just the same. Dispensed once again for dollars going in the wrong direction. There's always hand wringing after the fact. The time to do it is before you have a bunch of crushed cars flowing down the Mississippi toward St. Louis.

Falling down, falling down.

My fair lady.

Dinner last night: The Friday Phillipe's before the Dodger game. French Dip Ham with cole slaw and potato salad.