Sixties Chick

PECO NAMED BEST MID-SIZED UTILITY EMPLOYER.    PECO EARNS NATIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE AWARD. The tributes just kept running across that four-story illuminated ticker-tape all month.

Self-promotion. Why not?  Self-promotion is where it’s at these days,  practically the number one American pastime.

I know nothing about these awards—like what criteria was used or who else was in the running. I’m not all that interested to go find out either. I may be jaded—but it all seems a bit bogus.

Here in the US of A, we love to hand out awards. We love competition. And we love winners. Our latest cultural icon, Donald Trump, is all about that.

We have the TOP DOCS issue every year in those glossy magazines for which I get an annual email from my dentist’s office asking me to please cast my vote. Then there’s the usual 30 under 30 who, we are told, we should keep an eye on. My advice is to steer clear of that particular issue unless of course you didn’t waste those precious years carrying on like I did.

Then there’s all the rest with their ever-compelling list of winners in categories of vast proportions such as “THE WORLD’S TEN MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN,” “AMERICA’S SEXIEST DUDE,” and “MOST FAMOUS PERSON IN THE WORLD.” Talk about bogus!

I’m not into competition. Never really have been, except if you count the couple of years of childhood when I’d  hit my younger sister over the head with the Parcheesi board if she dared to win a game off of me.

Competition doesn’t really spur me forward. It doesn’t excite me. It doesn’t push me to do better.

To me, competition’s got a rather protruding underbelly. Anybody who’s attended a kid’s soccer game with Dads frothing-at-the-mouth along the sidelines can attest to that.  Then there are all those ‘bothersome’ concussions -Shhhhh. The undercover drugging -Shhhhhhh. The hyped-up hoopla of  “do or die” admissions into the Ivy League.

Even the Olympics—oh boy, now I’m in trouble—was recently described to me as a “private franchise paid for by public money.” The Brazilians I know are not so crazy about that sort of ‘artful’ deal. And yes, the athletes are still amazing!

So as not to be a spoilsport, I extend my heartiest congratulations to you, Peco, on your  latest accomplishments… whatever they are.  I will sing your praises just for keeping the lights on. What’s more,  I’d sing you the whole ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ if you’d only lower my bill.

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