Footbridge over troubled toes

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

Although it may not look like it at first, this is really a column

about a footbridge over Outer Bolsa Bay. But before we get to the

bridge and where to place the footings for it, we need to talk about

toes. Feet, toes, trust me, this will tie together.

The first part of this story is about coffee tables and the

disastrous effect that they can have on little toes that come into

contact with them at high velocity. Like most accidents, this one

started innocently enough.

Late one evening last week, Vic was preparing for class. He looked

so cute sitting there amid his pile of papers that I got up from my

comfy chair, intending to give him a peck on top of his head. But the

coffee table got in my way in a big way. Vic said that the sound of

my little toe cracking against the solid wooden leg of the table was

frightening, but not as bad as the scream that followed.

I sank back into my chair wailing for an ice pack. Vic ran to the

freezer. But by the time he had sorted through the packages of frozen

vegetables and meat and located the ice pack (a process that I

estimate took six hours) the pain and my crying had subsided

somewhat.

Vic thought I should go to the emergency room, but two things

stood in the way. First was my solid conviction that doctors can’t

really do anything for a broken little toe, and the other was that we

had just switched HMOs and had no primary care physician and no idea

what hospital we should go to or how to contact them.

The first step -- albeit a painful one -- was for me to hobble

over to the pile of incoming mail that had accumulated and look for

our health care paperwork, while Vic searched his office. My stack of

mail was quite high, filled with the inevitable mass of magazines and

stuff that I just can’t seem to get around to dealing with. I began

sorting through it desperately, perhaps too desperately. I lost my

grip and a foot-high pile of catalogs tumbled off the wet bar onto my

foot. This wasn’t going well.

Finally I found the right paperwork and called the HMO. I got an

introduction to their delightful health couldn’t-care-less system. I

was shunted to a nurse, who, after asking me a number of questions,

discouraged me from going to the emergency room. She pointed out that

I would be waiting in line behind all the heart attack and auto

accident victims. A broken toe doesn’t count for much.

The nurse said that if I decided to go anyway, there were two

hospitals I could choose from, conveniently located in Santa Barbara

and Calexico. Well, not quite, but when you’re in pain, they might as

well be that far away.

The solution that the nurse hit upon was to simply play a

recording for me that told me how to treat myself. I guess that’s

what our health care system has come to. She played a generic “what

to do with injured extremities” tape. The recording suggested that I

tape two fingers together. I tried that but my toe still hurt. I was

surprised that the recording didn’t give me instructions for mixing

plaster of Paris to make my own cast.

I’m happy to report that my toe probably isn’t really broken and

is mending on its own. I can hobble about using a cane, but my

mobility is limited. And that’s why I can’t get to the Bolsa Chica to

see for myself the purportedly endangered tarweed plant that may hold

up the footbridge project. See, we told you this would all tie

together.

Department of Fish and Game biologist Brian Shelton met recently

with a number of people representing different Bolsa Chica groups to

discuss the possibility of a footbridge across Outer Bolsa Bay near

Warner Avenue. The idea is to get pedestrians safely from the parking

lot at Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway to the Bolsa Chica

mesa. Currently, people have to risk their lives in traffic by using

the Warner Avenue bridge, which doesn’t have a sidewalk on its south

side. We’re certainly in favor of a safer crossing alternative.

One potential hang-up is that there are tarweeds growing on the

mesa that may be rare or endangered. Since I can’t walk over there, I

can’t locate the plants and key them out, so I’ll just have to go on

hearsay that they may be one of the endangered tarweeds such as the

Mojave or Otay tarweed or the rare southern tarweed rather than a

more common tarweed species.

The other hang-up, of course, is money. If the Department of Fish

and Game doesn’t even have money for trash removal and portable

potties, it seems foolish to consider a major construction project

like a footbridge. But in the strange world of funding, it is often

easier to obtain grants for construction than for routine

maintenance.

So far there is no agreement on what type of bridge should be

constructed, or where exactly it should be located. If this story

develops further, we’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, we wanted to give

you a leg up on the issue, so to speak.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.