The sign of the diving lady

When I was a lot younger, I was often fascinated by animated neon signs. These old signs have lately become an icon of the fifties and earlier. Mesa, Arizona still has one of these old signs, prominently displayed on East Main Street. It is the famous diving lady sign. There are actually three of the ladies, each of which light up in succession giving the appearance that she is diving into a swimming pool.


We have to drive by this sign almost every day of our lives. She is supposed to be diving into a pool of blue water. Right now, the water is not working, so we wonder if she is diving into the sidewalk or the grass or whatever. The irony of the sign is that this particular motel, no longer has a swimming pool, so the diving lady is obviously a fraud as well as not particularly smart to be diving into the sidewalk. It is always something we notice when sometimes the diving lady is missing or there are only two of her.

Mesa has recently gone to these huge full color monitor displays. But the problem is that when you are driving down the street it is like trying to watch TV and not nearly as cool as the diving lady. (Thanks to who ever put the picture on Flickr)