Jeff and De Hef

I like Jeff Bezos because he has people who will bring cat litter to me for less money than I pay to buy it and schlep it home myself.

And his money is keeping the Washington Post alive. We can never thank them enough for their coverage of Nixon.

But doggone it. I think Jeff's money is starting to go to his head. 

Remember the new kid in the neighborhood who got a hefty allowance and set about making friends by buying everyone snoballs and TastyKakes? Imagine that kid is now Jeff, and he wants to go sailing, so he is building (or having built) a 417-foot three-masted ship so he can take everyone out on Middle River for crabs.

The PT (patrol torpedo) boat that John Kennedy skippered in World War II, PT 109, was 80 feet long, by comparison.

At 5' 7" tall, Jeff towers over no man, and yet, he towers over us all.

It's Jeff's money; he earned it selling me cat litter and English Leather after-shave and AA batteries and Lightfoot's Classic Pure Pine English shave soap and Dockers Socks and my White Noise machine, which offers a variety of 31 sounds to lull me to sleep and I only use one of them (Factory Fan).

He can certainly afford to buy this boat. 

But is this too much? Rotterdam*, in the Netherlands, Europe's largest seaport, is going to spend weeks and tons of money to take down a historic bridge so that Mr Bezos’s B.A. boat can sail to the open seas.

You see, when the boat (my suggested name:  "Rich Little") is finished being built at a Dutch shipyard, it will be too tall to pass under the famous Koningshaven Bridge, which allows but a 130 foot clearance.

I recall the Navy construction battalion in World War II had a motto: "Don't raise the bridge, lower the water," but that won't work here.

The answer is to temporarily dismantle the landmark bridge. Jeff promised to pay the city back for expenses, and God knows he's good for it.

The bridge is known locally as "De Hef." Taking the bridge apart and putting it back together should take more than two weeks. Rotterdam officials call this a  revenue generator.

“From an economic perspective and maintaining employment, the municipality considers this a very important project,” municipal project leader Marcel Walravens reportedly said. “In addition, Rotterdam has also been declared the maritime capital of Europe. Shipbuilding and activity within that sector are therefore an important pillar of the municipality.”

Rotterdam was bombed in World War II and the bridge (originally built in 1878) was significantly damaged and then rebuilt. It is now a national monument and was just refurbished in 2017, at which time the city pledged not to take it apart again.

And then along came Jeff and his Y721 superyacht.

“Employment is important, but there are limits to what you can and may do to our heritage,” Ton Wesselink of the Rotterdam Historical Society said.

Another local leader who loves metaphors calls this "a bridge too far."

 

“This man has earned his money by structurally cutting staff, evading taxes, avoiding regulations and now we have to tear down our beautiful national monument?” Rotterdam politician Stephan Leewis Thundertwittered.

All the while, local officials point out that shipbuilding is an "important pillar of the municipality." Many ultra-rich folks spend many dollars having custom-made ego boosters  ships made there.

 

The trains don't run on this bridge anymore; it was made obsolete by a tunnel built in 1993, but the locals wanted to keep it as a monument.

Listen, this boat of his is so tall that it will be a hazard to helicopter traffic, so Bezos is hiring a support yacht with a helipad to follow it around for whirlybirds to land upon.

And later, he's buying everyone a soda and a Baby Ruth, so don't complain, see?

(*favorite joke in 4th grade: "My sister ate all the candy and I hope it'll Rotterdam teeth out!")