Sixties Chick

3/26/ 2016

Inspired thought sparked by PECO and its high voltage ticker-tape of revolving info – a major part of the skyscape up here in my Center City nest.

The PECO building is right outside my window. Or so it seems. Framed by the window facing North on 22^nd, there in my nest of a third-floor walk-up, there’s PECO in all its illuminated splendor.

Anyone who’s ever driven in Philly after dark knows the building I’m talking about. Unless you never look up, you can’t miss the high wattage ticker-tape of revolving messages at its top.

For some reason, when I moved in, these rolling dispatches made me think of Gatsby. You know, the billboard with the ubiquitous eyes of the Optometrist silently commenting on the goings on below.

PECO gives me the time and the temperature (both helpful) and then a rolling public-servicey kind of announcement. Since moving in, I’ve been notified of the Vatican Splendors (might be better for Rome not to play up the stash), The Travel and Adventure Show, membership to The Franklin Institute, a couple of plays and of course, a few fearsome diseases of the month.

The month of March is for us women. March is Women’s History Month, it proclaims. Isn’t it lovely, Blanche! It is to honor us; to show us how far we’ve come. And, just to prove it, PECO is adding some historical corroboration, notifying us that in 1920, just five years after my mother’s birth, women secured the right to vote, and sixty-one years later, in 1981, the first woman was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hail to the Divine Feminine, the Black Madonna, bringer of life… and JUSTICE!

Yesterday, the posts took a rather menacing turn. ELECTRICITY THEFT IS DANGEROUS AND A CRIME, it warned as it gracefully flowed around the building. REPORT ANY TIPS. 888-231-PECO.

 I thought back thirty-five years, to life in the impoverished Northeast of Brazil. Electricity theft was common. Like squatting. People spliced wires and tied into trunk lines. It was simply to light their homes, or to plug in a small refrigerator. Not to power on a big screen TV.

At the time, I had never heard of stealing electricity. In America, you didn’t need to do it.

I guess now you do. Welcome to the Third World!

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