New Year's Day and Mummers

When I was a teenager and until I left home, we would travel to Philadelphia -- whomever wanted to get on a bus, then subway -- and go to the Mummers parade. http://mummers.com/

Today, it was on TV. And as I was watching it, I wondered what the fascination was back when I was younger for this parade. To me, at this stage of my life, it looked like a bunch of drunks having a blast on their drunkenness. I don't remember the drinking part of the parade. And the costumes, are nothing like what they used to be, although the commentator said that they were the most elaborate and most beautiful he'd ever seen, in the 25 years or so he'd been commenting on the parade. Well, I guess he missed the ones we saw 40 years ago.

Anyway, we went to south Philly (camped out at Aunt Rita's and Uncle Joe's) and went to Broad and Snyder (see map on website) to watch the parade. I was really only interested in the string bands. Maybe that's why I didn't see too much of the drunks -- you can't really play music well if your stoned! We would go to the parade site, watch, get cold, go back to Aunt Rita's get warmed up, and then back out again. They lived only a couple of blocks from Broad and Snyder at 1810 South Juniper. Which is between 13th and Broad St (not on the map, because Juniper street is a very narrow street).

Most times the weather was lousy -- in fact, I don't remember any beautiful, warmish, sunny days when we watched the parade. If we didn't get to South Philly to watch the parade in person it was on TV, but black and white doesn't do justice to the colorful costumes.

Aunt Rita's "spread" was bountiful -- we were fed, warmed, and sheltered between trips to actually watch the parade. What fun! Oh, yeah, today I fell asleep watching the parade on TV. What does that tell you?