My mom, Ethel, was born in 1920 and raised in a 3-story North Philly row home that was inhabited by various members of her extended German-American family. As a young adult, she met my father when he threw a snowball at her. (And no, he wasn’t a kid then; he was in his twenties when he did that.) They formed an unlikely pair, marrying and then raising a family of four kids with very little in the way of financial resources. Mom spent most of her adult life working as a waitress, a difficult and demanding occupation, for a tiny paycheck and tips.
Mom read the newspaper but didn’t read books. She watched TV in the evenings, but often listened to the radio at other times of the day. I can recall just a few times when she and Dad went out for an evening together – once they went to the movies to see an Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton film. They just didn’t have the funds to support entertaining themselves, and generally Dad was not interested in going out.
That is not to say that Mom wasn’t enthusiastic about different types of entertainment. She absolutely adored the flamboyant piano player Liberace, and in her later years, she and my sister Sue went to one of his shows at the Latin Casino nightclub in New Jersey. Another favorite was the Ice Capades, a figure skating show that traveled the nation, competing with the Ice Follies, a similar show. There was even an occasion when Mom came up the dollars to buy front row seats for her, Sue, Michael and me for an Ice Capades performance at the Arena in West Philly.
And to say that she would go crazy over certain popular songs is an understatement. She would sing along loudly with radio, even though she did not have a sensational voice. In 1977, Debby Boone had a mega-hit with You Light Up My Life. Mom bought the 45, the only time I remember her making such a purchase. Then she asked me how to make it play “over and over again” on the dining room stereo. To my later regret, I showed her how to do it, and that damned song is all we heard, along with Mom’s off-key accompaniment, for what seemed to be weeks.
Then there was her love of the mummers, which was never fully consummated. What are mummers? The earliest, going back to the Middle Ages, were actors who participated in traditional seasonal folk plays in Britain. In Philadelphia during the colonial period, that tradition mixed with the Swedish custom of boisterous celebrations when the old year turned new. Groups of mummers would travel from home to home, reciting verses and receiving food and alcoholic drink in return.
That informal tradition continued throughout the 1800s. Then, in 1901, the City of Philadelphia organized its first formal Mummers Parade on Broad Street. Despite various controversies over the years, it remains a New Years Day extravaganza, with about 10,000 folks parading and the sidewalks jammed with spectators for the event that lasts most of the day.
Back when I was a kid, I was glued to the television watching the parade for much of the day. The Comic divisions would kick off first in the morning for a few hours of madness, often satirizing the news of the day. They would be followed by the Fancy brigades in their lavish costumes. The late afternoon was for the String Bands, bedecked in fabulous outfits and playing banjoes, saxophones and other instruments, stopping at predetermined locations to run through a performance.
Mom didn’t like the Comics, and she was just okay with the Fancy brigades. But she loved the String Bands. Now, we never went to the parade in person. That was way down in South Philly, and we lived in North Philly and then the Northeast. So, it was pretty far to go, and Dad was never eager to take us anywhere. Plus, Mom was busy cooking a holiday meal anyway. So, she watched the Mummers on TV.
The adult Conway brothers – Carl and Jimmy – lived very close by. Carl was still living with his parents in a row home just a couple of houses up Ninth Street from our home. And Jimmy was living with his wife and kids in a row home on Darien Street almost directly behind us. From our tiny paved-over backyard, their equally minuscule paved-over backyard was just across the very narrow alleyway, maybe 3-4 feet wide. With that amount of nearness, everybody was into everybody else’s business. And everyone knew everyone else’s peculiarities. The Conway brothers knew of Mom’s love for the mummers, and Jimmy was a prankster.
It was summer time, definitely not mummers’ season, but Jimmy decided it was the time to strike. He told Mom that there was going to be a parade with mummers’ string bands that evening and that it was going to come right up Hunting Park Avenue, the main cross street at the end of our block. Mom was nobody’s fool, but she believed him. Back then, there was no Internet to verify such information, and we did live across the street from Hunting Park, where special events often took place. So, it was conceivable that this might happen. Yet, the source was Jimmy. She should have been dubious.
In advance of the appointed time, Mom trooped down Ninth Street carrying her folding chair in great anticipation of the big parade. It wasn’t much later that she came right back, disappointed and fuming. There was no parade, and she was made to look like a fool, sitting in her folding chair on the pavement faced out to Hunting Park Avenue.
It was not funny, although I am sure that Jimmy got a big laugh out of it. Beginning then, I have taken a dim view on all types of pranks. He took advantage of Mom and made her angry and sad. That’s not fun. It reinforced what I already knew – don’t play nasty tricks on others. And what else did I learn? Thinking back, it showed me that sometimes we so want to believe what someone tells us that we disregard common sense and accept what is being said hook, line and sinker.