THE FADING ADS
OF PHILADELPHIA
Bombay, and not Mumbai, is how the faded postcard
named the place, in 1966. From a Mrs. Ida Wilmot to
a Jermian Phace. I could not tell the difference between
the real. You would not either, knowing how old family
portraits fade. An insensitive graffiti, all this, anyway :
maybe Jermian was her boyfriend. Was she the mother
of the son? But would the name have changed like that?
I couldn't know in any way, but in 1966 she visited India.
The faded ads of Philadelphia are like that as well : all
these brick-checkered old buildings still somehow standing,
having withstood a plague and a riot or two, ten storms and
forty feet of snow. The old lettering still, now and then breaks
through : 'Cunnigham Soaps and Pumice' from 40 years ago.
In this day and age, now, as well call the moment, what little
maters what we've salvaged o'er the years or what's still kept
before our eyes and ears. We see nothing. We hear little.
The battles of World War II are now taught by little unionized
teachers in their slipper-feet and bunny-tail pajamas, as it
were. They tip-toe through their tulips of dread, afraid to
mistake what they haven't got right. Bombay,
not Mumbai, is the place.
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