I’m Back!
I missed posting in February. I was being dragged down by my health (although I didn’t know how far gone it would go) and never had enough oomph to put pen to paper (actually, to press down a MacBook’s keys).
Then, came March, and a week in, I ended up in the hospital with heart failure.
Luck of the un-Irish, I was sent home on St. Patrick’s Day. Sucking oxygen, I’m feeling fine and getting my strength back under the eagle-eyed attention of my grandsons, Tomy and Benja.
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A Story
The old stone bridge was falling down. All the villagers agreed on that. Rocks regularly fell into the river and the towers were leaning precariously.
The elders of the village put their heads together and decided, since the village itself was poor and could not finance a new bridge by itself, to approach the regional council in hope for assistance. The council, which was usually not very beneficent to the villages, hemmed and hawed, debated and argued, but amazingly—to the delight of the village—eventually decided to underwrite the construction of a new bridge. Well, the village was only partially delighted as the stingy councilors did not take into account the effect of inflation on materials and the money offered could not completely cover the cost of a new stone bridge.
What to do?
Ideas were debated for weeks by the village elders. Finally, a bright thought caught everyone’s attention—and approval: to integrate wood into the superstructure of the bridge alongside the stone.
Building began immediately thereafter, and workers spared no effort to erect the new span, for a bridge was crucial for the village’s economy.
The new stone-and-wood bridge was opened to great glee by the villagers. Horses pulling carts laden with goods soon crowded the two lanes, so much so that cracks soon began to appear in the roadway. And then the structure collapsed into the muddy water of the river.
Later, when inspectors from the provincial council came and examined the ruin, they determined that it was a bridge too fir.
