By:Jerry Burke
But if I may, there is perhaps another path down which to funnel your love funds. This year I'll be giving some cash to the first woman I ever fell in love with. She's absolutely beautiful, too. Tall, strong, stoic and under no conditions would she allow Justin Timberlake to disrobe her (which reminds me: I'd like to welcome "wardrobe malfunction" into the lexicon of the stupidest things ever said).
Since Sept. 11, though, my lady's been hurting. She's closed off to just about everyone, including me. And the only thing that can open her up again is $5 million. She may be cold, but she ain't cheap.
Her usual sugar daddy is a rich cat, but he's been experiencing some cash-flow problems as of late and can't pony up the funds to keep her safe. Which is an absolute shame, because before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she had about 13,000 visitors a day.
For those of you for whom subtlety is about as effective as our missile-defense programs, I'm talking about that 151-foot, 1-inch sculpture of weathered copper standing watch over New York harbor known to the world as the Statue of Liberty.
Since the attacks, she and the 354 steps leading to her crown have been closed to the public because of safety concerns. The National Park System says the $5 million is needed to make more and better exits in case something should happen, as well as a more advanced screening system for visitors.
Now, granted, after seeing the whopper of a budget last week, I can hardly blame the administration for the oversight (not including the costs of rebuilding Iraq -- that I can definitely blame it for). It is essentially a drop in the bucket, and that's a drop every corporation and individual should consider making.
When sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design a statue celebrating the friendship between France and the United States (don't hold your breath for a sequel) back in 1876, the fund-raising was largely private. In the 1980s, President Reagan asked Lee Iacocca to raise money to overhaul the statue and Ellis Island. Eighty-seven million dollars in private funds later, she was looking good once again.
Some have asked why the federal government hasn't provided the cash, but with the statue's populist history, it may be better off without it. Perhaps no monument in America so much belongs to the people as Lady Liberty. Space won't allow me to go into the "first thing I saw when the boat arrived" stories, but it does represent the promise of this new world, a promise made specifically to the outcasts of the old.
The country -- heck, the world -- is just not the same without her. If you'd like to help her out of this jam, go to www.statueofliberty.org. She'll love you for it.
