WHAT MAKES THE WOMEN of Philadelphia so beautiful? You know what I mean. Striking. Original. Classy.

Ask a glint of sunlight on a speechless Saturday afternoon in June. How can a woman turn a rowhouse street corner into an event? How can light and shadow and architecture conspire with a flash of red to make Philadelphia look like the coolest city in the world?

It's the women. It's the Philadelphia girls. They're as real as you get. Even the flakey ones. Maybe "especially" the flakey ones. I don't know a Philadelphia girl worthy of the name who doesn't pack more style with less fuss in a stroll down the street than Paris Hilton ever mustered on a red carpet. But unlike Paris Hilton, Philadelphia girls know that the first rule of cool is keeping it together, even if they are out of their freaking minds. Which most of them will admit, eventually, if they know you well enough.

I could tell you stories. But my wife won't let me. I mean, I could tell you. But then she'd have to kill me. Let me just say that I've never met a Philadelphia girl who didn't have more balls than common sense. By that, I mean, you know, testicles. Cajones. Huevos. That je nais se whatthefuckareyoulookin'at? qua. . They don't always say it like that. But Philadelphia girls are capable, each and every lovely one of them, of tearing someone a new way of respecting them.

I romanticize, of course. But I speak as a grandfather who was once a son, a husband who was once a teenage boy, a father of two magnificent daughters who haven't thought I was cool since the Reagan Administration. I was born in Philadelphia and have lived here all my life. And I haven't known a Philadelphia girl who couldn't kick my ass, if she wanted to. And by "kick my ass" I mean being right when I'm wrong, but more importantly, by being right when I'm righter. The only way to win an argument with a Philadelphia girl is to have her referee and announce you the winner. A joyous phenomenon most male Phillies fans can only relate to as a hypothetical, but who , in their hearts, know has actually happened. . . Once. . . In a hundred and something-something years.

Like I said, I could tell you stories. But then, frankly, I'd have to kill myself, because at least I'd get the choice of weapons. Here's what I'm talking about. This happened almost exactly ten years ago in a neighborhood bar in Grays Ferry. I was standing next to a Philadelphia girl with an Irish freckled face and an Italian last name, a vivacious, funny, sweet woman in her mid-30's. She lived in Dagoland, which is what the resentful Hibernian residents north of Moore Street and west of 26th called their latinate southern neighbors living in more modern brick row houses with tiny well kept lawns.

I was new to the scene, so I didn't know quite what to make of the reaction of a guy standing at the bar when this skinny Colleen-looking girl from the wrong side of the Dagoland frontier shouted that she wanted everyone to sing along with the song playing on the juke box. "Go fuck yourself!,' the guy suggested, loudly. And these were the words this Philadelphia girl offered in response:

"I wish I could fuck myself," she said, glaring. "Because I'd be the best piece of ass I ever had."

Sing it girl!

" Well, East Coast girls are hip, I really dig those styles they wear.
And the Southern girls with the way they talk, they knock me out when I'm down there.
The Midwest farmer's daughters really makes you feel all right.
And the Northern girls, with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night.."

(Bada Bing. Bada Boom. You know where this is going.)

I wish they all could be Philadelphia girls.

"I've been all round this great big world
And I've seen all kinds of girls.
Yeah, but I couldn't wait
To get back in the states.
Back to the cutest girls in the world."

Bah-doom. I wish they all could be. . .