Hi Ralph.
I wound up adding it to the top of main.js
Always add your code below. (basic rule)
(which I'm sure is bad practice)
Yes, it is a bad practice. Create a custom.js file following the Helix documentation.
but the page load is very slow
You added things that should not be in body and you have connected another jQuery library. JQuery is already on board, connecting another additional version can cause conflicts and problems with the speed of the page.
All this should not be in body. Meta tags not need at all.

I was unable to get the javascript to work targeting the DIV ID on sppb-addon-wrapper class.
I gave comprehensive instructions so that you succeed with this. Perhaps you make some kind of mistake. Check out everything carefully. This is a very simple thing. It is much easier than you did in HTML.
Note: Addon's IDs will change if you copy this block to another page. Therefore, the code may not work. Check it.