A Letter to Philadelphia

Dear Philadelphia,

  
Thank you.  You have officially made it impossible for me to shocked into silence or rage anymore.  It has been a long journey, taking me almost exactly 3 years to become completely desensitized to the nonsense and insanity that is the experience of living within the city limits.  Like the Borg, resistance has been futile and I resign myself to doing all the things that make no sense.

Sincerely,
April



I have thought many times of writing a letter to someone in city government, or the newspaper.  And then I realized they are all in the same boat as I am.  Sure, some people escape to the suburbs, but not all of us have the stamina to take the expressway to work every morning.  We are trapped in our rowhouses, forced into the belief that the city has turned everything around.  Black is white, day is night, etc, etc...nothing here makes sense anymore, and I am helpless to fight it.

Example 1: The taxes.

I am a democrat.  I love social programs.  I am a teacher.  I think that we should spend money on public schools.  I don't mind paying my fair share so that programs for children, the elderly, the infirm, and those less fortunate can continue.  But REALLY?  We have the highest sales tax in the state (8%), the city is assessing all the properties to boost the tax revenue  they can collect, and they charge a 20% parking tax in the garages!!!!  I


Example 2: The streets.

One time, I remember thinking that Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen was one of the most beautiful songs I'd ever heard.  Then I moved here, and POOF, romance gone.  Suddenly I knew why The Boss was bruised and battered and why his legs felt like stone.  Driving in this city is full contact affair.  I once had someone honk, pass me on the right, during a RED LIGHT!!! (gosh, I'm not sure why I didn't think to go through it instead of waiting like some sucker)  There are also the four wheelers and dirt bikes that are exactly "street legal" zipping beside cars and the wrong way on one way street.  I wonder if the inspiration for the Fast and Furious franchise came out of some poor guy's waking nightmare of driving on Front Street under the EL and praying that he'd make it out alive.

Example 3: The sidewalks and empty lots

There is trash everywhere.  My garbage men somehow make more trash.  It seems as though the discarded cartons of Arctic Chill iced tea and the wrappers from flaming hot Cheetos are procreating to create street pizza and debris of soft pretzels and cheese steaks.  Stuffed into the grates of the sewer, and overflowing from any open can there is a soft buzz of giant flies and piles and piles and piles of garbage.  Every week we put out trash to be collected, only to wake up to a swirling eddy of wrappers and cast offs.  It makes no sense -- we as a people can't possibly produce all the trash that I see.  Soon we will be waist deep in detritus, and the city will continue to pay sanitation workers to create more.

But today the prize for most ridiculous goes to the bill that came in the mail from the City's Department of Finance.  I knew upon reading it I should have been incensed, I should have railed against the idea of a city charging me to prevent crime in my home (I would assume that it would make it easier for police, me actually deterring crime using my own money and resources), and doing it ANNUALLY!  But instead of rage and fury I felt resignation, and that's when I knew that maybe the Hangover 2 was onto something -- Philly has me now.

Support your local sheriff, I mean, library

Some of my fondest memories of childhood take place during the summer.  Creating dance routines to NKOTB with my sister in the back yard, camping under the stars, staying up late, and sleeping in.  Summer brings the joys that I wait for all year, and then look forward to again as soon as it is over.  Despite the heat and the sweat, summer holds magic that other seasons envy.

Some of my favorite memories of summer revolve around the public library.  Every summer my mom would enroll my sister and I in the summer reading program where we would be allowed to check out up to 10 books to read, and once a week we would go to the library, walk through the gates and head for the children's library in the back.  The walls were painted with scenes from notable fairy tales and stories, the seats were bean bags, and there were tiny turtles hidden in the murals that you could search for all day and not find every one of them.  Sometimes there were stories, sometimes there were new books on display with beautiful covers, and sometimes the children's librarian would come and personally help you to pick the perfect book.  My mom would keep track of each book that we read and then report it when we returned them to the library.  At the end of the season there would be a picnic for all of the summer readers, with prizes for top readers.  I am proud to say that I won as top reader for all the students in the 1st grade -- I already knew then what most people take a lifetime to comprehend -- it's hot outside, stay indoors!

Unfortunately there is no competition for adults, no incentive to read your heart out during the sweltering months of summer.  There has been a steady decline in the number of books I have read since those summers of furious reading -- there have been undoubted spurts of overachiever level reading during those years but no return to the consistency that was my formative summers.  I could give excuses (I'm busy!  The TV needs me!), or simply say that it no longer interests me to have read the newest releases and be up on my literature, but that's all lies.  It is simply because I am too poor and too lazy to keep up with all of it.  Books are expensive, and the cheap books for my Kindle are sometimes self-published pieces of garbage, which has made me weary of the sale books.  And the library is so far away...and I have to pay to park...and the librarians aren't as nice as the ones in my hometown...and it's really big and intimidating...and I'm embarrassed to check out the books that I really want to read (ie ones with half naked men on the cover)...and the list goes on.


However, this summer has been a resurgence, and not just because I have finally decided that I can squeeze a bit of reading in between watching full seasons of Dr. Who and Burn Notice, but because my library has catapulted into the 21st century.  I no longer have to travel the 5 miles in traffic to the central library branch (or pay to park, or talk to the customer unfriendly librarians) and I can download e-books and audio books with fully naked men if I want -- sans judgement (I'm still a little embarrassed, but only because I know what the covers look like).  The library will even email me when my titles are available for download, so that I don't have to miss precious minutes of the TARDIS checking to see when I can download the first of the Game of Thrones books (right now it looks like I will be reading that particular volume when flying cars become a reality).  It really has been an shot in the arm of a former compulsive reader -- and really this goes back to the true reality of the matter -- it's hot outside, stay indoors! (and read)