AMERICA STARTS HERE Second Street in South Philadelphia is as good a place as any for America to start a new year. The Mummers Parade is so quintessentially American, both awesome and ridiculous, a cold weather Mardi Gras born in South Philadelphia and, more than a century later, still proudly marching up Broad Street to be judged by the swells in Center City. But the core of the Mummers experience is neighborhood. This photo is what the neighborhood on South Second Street looked like on Mummers morning 2007.
Just a flash of red and a cluster of umbrellas held by little boys or girls beneath a warrior flag. That's the way I see it. And I never see it like THIS!!!!! . . .this clearly. . .except on New Year's morning.
Happy New Year, my Philadelphia brothers and sisters. This Mummers thing of ours is ours alone and it is so willfully weird, so committed to madness, so perfectly irrational that it makes me believe, at long last, in intelligent design. God loves drunks, little children and Mummers -- the New Year Trifecta. God bless America. Have a great time today but remember, don't piss in the mustard. Fun's fun but that just ain't right.
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