If it’s New Year’s Day, that means Mummers.
It was good to see all those sequins and feathers making their way up Broad Street. You don’t need a calendar in Philly to mark the new year. All you need to hear is that familiar banjo. The sight of men in sequins can mean only one thing: Time to strut.
This year’s parade was not without its issues. A city budget crunch almost put the tradition on the shelf. Talk about your ruffled feathers.
Eventually the Mummers agreed to pick up the cost for anything over a city-imposed cap of $300,000. U.S. Rep. Bob Brady came up big as well, finding private donors to cover some of the additional costs.
Now here’s a suggestion. No, no one asked for one. I’m going to give it anyhow.
I love the Mummers. I believe the parade is one of the region’s treasured icons. I realize that opinion is not unanimous.
Here’s my problem. In a city that is looking to close 11 library branches and slashing other city services as well as cutting jobs, why can’t a similar fund-raising effort focus on keeping those libraries open?
The Mummers are one of our proud traditions. But should children who depend on those library branches cause any less concern?
All those ruffled feathers should be just as upset at the fate of those libraries.
Certainly a fund drive could come up with the money to keep them open.
How about the city’s vaunted sports franchises? They didn’t mind holding out their hand for public money when they built those palaces their millionaire players strut their stuff in.
Maybe now they’d like to answer the bell and help keep the libraries open.
Just one man’s opinion. I love the Mummers. But I love libraries, too. And I think the idea of closing them should at least spark the same the kind of concern as the notion of New Year’s without the Mummers.
Neither should ever happen.
It was good to see all those sequins and feathers making their way up Broad Street. You don’t need a calendar in Philly to mark the new year. All you need to hear is that familiar banjo. The sight of men in sequins can mean only one thing: Time to strut.
This year’s parade was not without its issues. A city budget crunch almost put the tradition on the shelf. Talk about your ruffled feathers.
Eventually the Mummers agreed to pick up the cost for anything over a city-imposed cap of $300,000. U.S. Rep. Bob Brady came up big as well, finding private donors to cover some of the additional costs.
Now here’s a suggestion. No, no one asked for one. I’m going to give it anyhow.
I love the Mummers. I believe the parade is one of the region’s treasured icons. I realize that opinion is not unanimous.
Here’s my problem. In a city that is looking to close 11 library branches and slashing other city services as well as cutting jobs, why can’t a similar fund-raising effort focus on keeping those libraries open?
The Mummers are one of our proud traditions. But should children who depend on those library branches cause any less concern?
All those ruffled feathers should be just as upset at the fate of those libraries.
Certainly a fund drive could come up with the money to keep them open.
How about the city’s vaunted sports franchises? They didn’t mind holding out their hand for public money when they built those palaces their millionaire players strut their stuff in.
Maybe now they’d like to answer the bell and help keep the libraries open.
Just one man’s opinion. I love the Mummers. But I love libraries, too. And I think the idea of closing them should at least spark the same the kind of concern as the notion of New Year’s without the Mummers.
Neither should ever happen.
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