Nobody ever created a legacy with the slogan . . . .

"I filled the potholes."

From Joe Soucheray's column today, another take on the collective vision for the St. Paul riverfront.

There sure has been a lot of talk and stories in the newspaper lately on the grand vision for the development of the property along the river in St. Paul. Nobody can really tell me what the vision is, but it will be arrived at communally, or collectively, as though from central planning, and it will be grand and quite a vision at that. Very grand.

I get the feeling that the vision is fated to be poetic, with a heavy emphasis on nature and naturalness, on vegetation and birch-bark canoes and walking arm in arm along paths lit with the lemon glow of gas lamps. I don't know what we're supposed to do for money, but we will have a nice place to stroll around and remember the good old days when we made things along the river, like cars and cranes and derricks and Dingle boats.

In the meantime, I have a vision less romantic. I see it every time my eyeballs aren't vibrating from suspension trauma.