Bridges that collapsed

Bridges couldn’t wait until Biden visits for visual backdrops.

It just gives.

Like anything and everything else. It’s time.

To have that pig-heart transplant, that blood infusion or the ventilator unplugged.

Fullness of time. Expiration date.

Friday, end of work week, end of that bridge; from point A to point B, a straight line is the shortest. Not when the line is broken. Story of a once-bridge, story of our lives.

Unlike a hockey-stick graph, more than often, with more downs than ups, our lives zig-zag. Allegorically, that Pittsburgh bridge paints a picture of us, once…presided over trouble water and helped many cross-over in trouble times.

Let’s rebuild and see a re-union of Simon and Garfunkel at Grand re-opening (as Simon did a solo at One World Centre). This time there won’t be a Bin Laden for Fox’s Chris Wallace to blame. Or the 19 terrorists.

Take a look at me now…and at ourselves in the mirror. It’s us, who neglected, who did not take good care of our infra-structure (Pittsburg steelers, of all places) physical or talent infrastructure (brain drain, per TIME’s latest piece on College enrolment drifting North to CANADA…just like they once did during Vietnam War protest).

In the span of 50+ years, we have managed to move from Hubble Space Telescope to James Webb Telescope.

And we have managed to:

• ship most jobs overseas (auto assembly – Detroit – and chip/drug manufacturing – San Jose)
• automate our work (even our trucks…but still testing – our warehouse forklifting)
• before Omicron, already sent workers home to save on office cleaning and maintenance – WE (didn’t) WORK
• stop bearing children – talking about homogeneous unit principle in Church growth
• nominate De Vos and Jerry Falwell jr for our highest Education post (and DJT jr for his publisher post – touting his facebook family album, the best sellers)
• follow the one-eye Oath keepers guy : “Be sure to not break the human chain leading up the steps ” (with weapon depot stacked in Ballston, VA hotel) – to push fake electoral votes
• import new refugees, this time, from Kabul (once Saigon and once thought of as burden turned blessing)
• piss off friends and allies, accrue more debts, while forgive student binge drinking bills.

I have listed top mind stuff e.g. students once fled to Canada – conscience objectors, today, enrolled in Canadian colleges, by (financial and future) choice; whose borrowed books were asked by librarians to return. Today, it’s the borrowed gun that is argued in court.

Not just the bridge that collapsed. It’s our discipline, our habits of the heart. Our screen time that took away our social-activism time. Meanwhile, in the span of 50 years, “nerds” like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google have taken over, leaving “hill- billies” behind (not even with a smokestack)…Country Road, take me home…to nowhere on that bridge to Red countries. to covid and to leaders like Palin and Cruz, who couldn’t wait to flee to Cancun or NYC restaurant (unmasked).

I have ranted enough. Rest my case. P.S. Go Carter, go Carter. No fraying there, still with a farmer’s smile, eating peanuts, tool belt on the side, touting Habitat for Humanity. Please expand your construction services to Pittsburgh, where one of its bridges has just given in. Time served. Point A. Point B. Looking on, helplessly without a bridge. Who is coming – to stand in the middle, “blessed are the peacemakers”…