Cleaning Out The Stables - One Diocese At A Time

Defaced Image of Pharaoh Hatchetsut - Karnak

Seeing the recent press release at the beginning of August, press dump from the swamp, the Diocese of Harrisburg of all the constipated backed up hidden shit, clergy abuse of kids, for decades in the all male clergy's club I have to wonder at the recent decision of Bishop Gainer of Harrisburg to purge the names from all buildings and hospital wings and glory holes of the names of the hierarchy that did little or nothing to prevent the abuse of children. And I know that Bishop McFadden was not in Harrisburg long enough to do anything good, bad or indifferent to change anything in that diocese after fucking up so gloriously in the his efforts to cover up clergy abuse in Philly.

Whitewashing over the names of various Hatshepsut like RC bishops lends itself to the saying of Edmund Burke "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."


AMERICAN RC BISHOP'S CREDO:

The road to paradise is lined with the skulls, bones and broken wasted lives of the innocent. 


My friend Dave says that the Allentown Diocese Abuse News Dump happens next week or so. He is not Catholic but lives in that territory and is deeply saddened by the state of the RC church end of X-tianity.

As noted before Bishop John Barres has no doubt finished his work in Allentown and probably after Harrisburg as well and has moved onto to Bishop of Rockville Centre on Long Island to clean up the mess of Bishop William "Mansion" Murphy, fan and student of the late Cardinal Law.

Rockville Center by the way is the diocese of two the the four counties on Long Island, counties of Nassau and Suffolk, and excluding Queens and Kings (Brooklyn) counties.

Reading through the carefully manicured Wikipedia bio of Bishop McFadden I am struck of what I do not see and can from memory possibly read between the lines.


Bishop Joseph McFadden

McFadden then attended St. Joseph's University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in politics in 1969.^[3] He played on the freshmen basketball team at St. Joseph's, and also coached at St. Thomas More High School and West Catholic Boys High School.^[2]Following his graduation from St. Joseph's, he joined the faculty of West Catholic Boys High School, where he taught social studies.^[6] In addition to his teaching duties, he coached the junior varsity basketball team and served as the school's athletic director.^[6]

In 1976, McFadden decided to study for the priesthood, a vocation he had considered "through high school and when [he] went to college."^[3] 



One - It was St. Joseph's College (Jesuits) when he graduated from it.

Two - Crunching the numbers, his parish was in Overbrook with the Seminary, he could have avoided peers from high school who did the seminary thing in eight years, peers from senior and junior year in high school by going through at a later date. Just saying. 

Three - was he asked to leave as Athletic Director at West Catholic? Vetting on resumes such a loose thing back then and of course we are talking Christian Brothers at West Catholic. "Mums the word Joe. Now hit the road"?

I say the three item because I remember an incident from my senior year in high school. Of the brother High School being taught by the same teaching order at my High School.

I say the three item because I cannot after much research and or "search" under many different tags cannot find the story of the basketball coach at the other high school inviting the team over at the end of the season for a party and sleep over at the coach's house and distributing beer no doubt to the boys and "yawn" sleeping arrangements having the star player of basketball team sharing coach's double bed. 

And the star player running out of the house after being awoken by a groping naked coach and going home reporting it to his parents and one's parents reporting it to the police. Or so the salacious details reported in the local papers. Just because I cannot easily find this story on the Internet from 1970 or so, it does not mean that the Internet has been purged and or no longer exists. Merely that certain editions of the same newspapers were no doubt not imaged etc. There might also be a gag order still in place, privacy and all that etc.

The incident I remember because first period senior year was Physics and the Physics teacher was our high school's basketball coach, an unmarried young (draft deferred) male lay teacher. I remember his face being beet red in class and all day long when I saw him passing by his homeroom classroom and saw him coming out of the faculty dining room off the student's cafeteria. I am guessing his flushed face was the reaction to stares all day from students and faculty and he being somehow representative or connected to the scandalous story from our brother high school. To see the world differently or to be seen differently - oh what a treat. 

But who did the vetting when Joe McFadden entered St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Philadelphia btw?

Wink. Nod. ?

Shrug.

Cathedral School - Allentown Pa.

Who Truly Won in the Papal Elections of 1978 - the CIA or the KGB?

Downtown Philadelphia Street Corner Billboards 1971 *

Putting aside some truly false and or misleading family oral history about a very distant cousin and the Archbishopric chair in Philadelphia, I have to reconsider making some real and or (my?) imaginary cross referencing of facts "sacred" and or profane "secular".

Two glaring facts stick out in my mind in the last two years, with consideration of the long term plannings of the RC church and the Czar's Private Secret Police, the KGB. Isn't it a marvel how institutional or ganizations like the RC church and or the Czar's gatekeeping Bodyguards go on and on like a law of physics, once set in motion.

And since all politics and religion are LOCAL, let me mention two things.

The official PR line of a snake like Donald Trump that he took a million dollar loan from daddy and starting flipping trash properties in Philly while a student at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania is total bullshit.

The extra truth that many liars throw into the story, any story, is that Donald's name is not on any Philly deeds or records is because he did not want to make the prices go up. A real flipper would want the name thing to go around, to start a trend, and then have other real estate investors get on a gentrification Ponzi scheme of sorts and the first in to cash out as the later investors come along pay much more.

Like I say, I lay claim to it, that Trump paid back daddy with profits from money laundering probably first with the Philly mob, the Angelo Bruno crowd, and very familiar with the then Police Chief and later Mayor Frank Rizzo back then in 1967. And then when Donald got in over his head, like he does on every thing he does, he found a friendly front for the KGB and or they found him is more accurate and the M.O. of Trump INC was established with the brilliant Wharton Student Trump and the gentlemenly "Cs" (never really earned in any way shape or form) of an I-V school @Penn, and an "ivy league school" being in folk or origin myth being one of seven or eight American college institutions in existence before the American Revolution and or break with British Rule.

So getting back to Vatican murder and backstabbing and the usual shit thereabouts in Rome, I always wondered why one of my distant cousins, as a popular Irish American auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia did not succeed Cardinal O'Hara upon his death. ???

And then all of a sudden, the Polish Catholic minority in Philly, and not the Irish majority of RCs takes front stage with an auxiliary bishop from Cleveland (Cleveland !?) taking over the archbishop's chair in Philly.

Joe McShea did not have to bear any or much  embarrassment as a very popular auxiliary bishop in Philly, who delivered the eulogy at (Saint) Mother Katherine Drexel's funeral, and serve the new Pollack archbishop by getting an almost instant consolation prize of five northern counties (mostly coal country) of the Philly archdiocese in "upstate" Pennsylvania, by being named First bishop of the newly created Diocese of Allentown Pennsylvania. Or the grand duchy of Allentown as a reward to Joe from his once time boss, Papal Nuncio to the United States for 25 years, 1933-1959.



Amleto Giovanni Cicognani (24 February 1883 – 17 December 1973)


And also a good friend of Amleto's older brother Gaetano to whom Joe McShea as a seminarian in Rome would nightly read in private to the poorly sighted Gaetano in his papal apartments, or so the might be faulty family oral history goes. (in that family history, the older brother was much older, not two years older, and almost legally blind and could no longer read lengthy dogmatic documents without assistance etc.)


Gaetano Cicognani (26 November 1881 – 5 February 1962)


No problem for Secretary of State Amleto Cicognani of the Vatican to carve out a new diocese in Pennsylvania and move a few chess pieces around the American political landscape like auxiliary bishop John Krol into Archbishop John Krol of Philadelphia.

All well and good, and I have written about John Krol being one of the foremost starters of the American Culture War about Birth Control and Abortion after Humanae Vitae, RC encyclical regarding Command State Economy control over the reproductive product of the female part of the male / female unit of the species aka Man.

I say all this to condense with what I have stated many times and in many ways over the years here on my blogs, about how Archbishop John Krol wanted to be the first American pope and how he relentlessly campaigned years after year and took trips to third world countries where First Pennsylvania Bank and the infamous John Bunting was loaning money to the third world for fees and bonuses and no longer making little mortgages and little to moderate to large size business loans in Philadelphia. The money was in the fees and bonuses and the State Department implied no doubt in private off the book meetings with Bunting that the U.S. Government would never let John or First Pennsylvania go under giving loans that would never, could never be repaid from countries the U.S. Government had once looked kindly upon in the hopes of thwarting the spread of godless and capitalist-less belief systems. 

Problem with Bunting was that he was not I-V league. A graduate of local Temple. He actually had commuted to college. No network of I-V buddies at State or Treasury to help a guy out when the real bills came due at his Philly bank, one of the oldest in the country btw. 

And I have written how Archbishop Krol was bankrolled on his trips to Asia, and Africa, and making substantial in those days contributions of like 50k to start RC hospitals and RC colleges and RC seminaries in these very poor, poor nations. And in the hopes of swaying some local Asian and or African Cardinal to vote for him as pope once Paul VI died. etc. 

That Krol was bankrolled by a Polish American Multimillionaire and businessman John Piszek, originally from Chicago and later Philadelphia who was a founder of Mrs. Paul's Frozen Seafood, a business started btw while on strike to make some off the books cash selling crab cakes at local bars in Philly on weekends. And the business took off but they named the business after his partner Mr. Paul because it was an Anglo sounding name and not Polish which was thought not to be a good PR name to sell frozen seafood with. Piszek with the millions rolling in starting in the 1950s after he bought out Mr. Paul, his partner, was forever bitter that his name, an immigrant name, was not good enough to make it big in American business. He compensated and began to give money away to all causes Polish, locally and abroad. Archbishop Krol and getting him as the first Polish American Pope to be elected and which is why I speculate that the Papal Nuncio saw some merit in giving Krol the first Archbishop's seat that became available and that usually got a red hat with it eventually, was a logical thing, and after much cash no doubt got funneled into Polish RC church projects and charities in Poland behind the Iron Curtain. etc.

And then with all the cash rolling into the Vatican for projects in Poland, they gave Amleto Cicognani a dispensation to become Cardinal, it not being allowed under the rules that sent the RC into a tailspin in the Reformation, because his brother was already a Cardinal. Brother, Nephew, what was the difference in giving power to your crony relatives. And Amleto becomes Secretary of State of the Vatican in 1961.

I have often wondered considering the almost miraculous, with no mortal help, in the rise of auxiliary Bishop John Krol to become a contender in the 1978 papal elections, if he had the dream on his own or if somebody had whispered in his ear the dream that he could one day become the first Polish American Pope with a little help from his friends like John Piszek and Amleto Cicognani. Wink. Nod.

Which makesme wonder, with cash coming into Poland from the west via the Vatican etc. how Karol Wojtyla also may have gotten the idea that he too could become the first Polish Polish Pope with a little help from his friends. While the Vatican made its members pray every Sunday after mass for the conversion of Russia to Christianity, the real big chuck of RC R/E the Vatican would like to start with in that conversion to the Russians from Communism back into Orthodox back into Roman Christians, that the Catholic prize of Poland was possible but maybe the money of Mrs. Paul's fish sticks was not enough and maybe other sources of funds would have to be found to create networks to revive and or sustain unions that would likely first be the force to make any real changes in a Worker's State like Poland. 

And I have to wonder if the former Papal Nuncio to the United States 1933-1959 had made any worthwhile secular contacts in Washington DC over the years like at the State Department and or the dare I say it - the CIA.

That between the puppet master Amleto Cicognani in the west and the east whispering temptation into the ears of gullible Polish clerics, that maybe the long term planning of the CIA was becoming a match for the old long term planning of the Czar's secret police aka the KGB.

Wojtyla was already a player with the KGB, he could play ball and not threaten the state and the state let him play dressed up cleric for some of the masses and proclaim a free state for all the workers and their perhaps private beliefs. Whatever. 

I have often wondered about Wojtyla's resume about being associated with the resistance during WWII and in occupied slave state Poland and his survival as a worker in a stone quarry etc. Anybody can put anything on a resume. Like flipping houses in Philly on the QT and anonymously is just as good as "Freedom Fighter" on the PR releases after the Polish American Cardinal relinquished his block of Pope Votes to the Polish Polish Cardinal in 1978 after the mysterious death of the last Italian Italian pope. And anybody can flip themselves while being played as a pawn in Global Political Chess - flip as in double agents and or triple agents of the KGB etc. - comrades and brothers in Christ?

And the collateral damage, messes to be cleaned up by the masses caused from players, past their prime and also dead, still hanging around from those 1960s - 1970s games of chess here forty and fifty years later. 

Whatever.

Shrug.  



* Culture War Billboard Philadelphia

Cowardly Racists Emerge From The Shadows of America -- Santorum: Obama exacerbated racism -- Officials to investigate alleged racial discrimination at pool of Philadelphia swim club

I quit FB because I had no real friends there, save for one or two. I no longer talk to the victimizing older brother who still has my mother's ashes in a closet there in Phoenix years after I offered to pay half of the cost of shipping her body to be in a grave with our father in Bucks County Pa - he my "brother" among former online "friends". 

The thing about FB is that I joined a few groups related to Philly centered on neighborhoods. One was of the greater area of Kensington and one on the narrower neighborhood of Harrowgate, an invented Railroad Burb of the 1880s within Philadelphia County which eventually became the factory town that I grew up in. I quit the  Kensington FB forum after someone made a nice comment on the poet Maya Angelou after her death, a poet of which I had no particular fondness in her writings, but the anonymous - they did have their full names on FB - but I did not know them except as "friend" of a "friend" response or hatred of a black female poet. (and I only recently bothered to read a Wikipedia bio of Maya to realize what a monumental life she had led even if I was not previously aware of it etc.) Well I shy away from conflict. That and later in life realizing that I have had a touch or more of A.D.D. all my life which in retrospect explains why I have not been more successful in my life of trial and error false start runs for the money. That many times for me and my memory, a word like "spatialize" would send me to a dictionary in fear of my unknown ADD to be discovered or looked down upon in comments by Ph'ds or worse I-V league trained lawyers in forums that I did not really belong in. Should know my place in life this late in life for "my kind".

Well I shied away from Kensington FB after the white jackals got their jollies off chewing up the bones of the person who thought it appropriate to say a simple RIP to a black poet on FB. I quit that "Forum". That over time, the FB crowd talk a lot of code and the "they ruined the old neighborhood" talk told me that a lot of people I grew up with and did not grow or accept others in their own right and or light of the divine within that the Quakers rhetoric be prone to in the Quaker subculture context of Philly.

PC Curtain in the Temple now Torn in half in America with the LEADER now in the WH.

Recently this Jerk Off Opus Dei Catholic X-senator Santorum of Pennsylvania shows up on the Jerk Off Fox Network wanting to show and share his dirty tighty whitey racists tracks, share them with his friends, like papal royalty like Countess Annie Leary like Newt Gingrich where it can be purchased as in bought and sold ambassadorships and hang out in the white teenage country club locker room to share w/ brotherhood members of the Dick memories of their conquests over c**ts and n****** and democrats - context... 

Rick Santorum did not live in Pennsylvania when he was senator from that Alabama North turf. He lived in Virginia where his children could attend daily mass at his Opus Dei suburb of purity. 

Of course my relatives went to Montgomery county in 1964, after the local Philly riots and I have not seen or spoken to them since, me be poor and not therefore not white enough for them I think. The incident mentioned below in Huntington Valley Pa., right over the Philly city line, where they live, happened before with the mixup on scheduling and the black kids upsetting the delusion of safety in the burbs in the 90s or the 00s - even pools needs cash flow even if it from the city budget of that distant place where inferior people live etc. 

This time, it blew up almost as a flashpoint of toxic flammable hate being ignited by Obama at this pool in July 2009 which I think in some bizarre way of Catholic College Education in America these days means what Santorum sadly genuinely believes what he is saying. Anointed white penised Christian males tell no lies? Obama did indeed exacerbate racism simply by being born and being himself and of course being POTUS. 

Sad how America in its best parts, the burbs do not know how to retire, leave the next generation to deal with the day to day stuff, live and let live like the rest of planet, and enjoy the multi-culturalism as it exists in big northern and west coast cities. Sad how some successful white men who are workaholics and lonely and cannot retire and relax end up like people like Anthony Bourdain who are talented with the gift of the gab and have skills and have never matured past adolescence into adulthood. Good luck with obscurity Rick. And your lonely old age when yours kids discover their freedom from your putrid chains. Whatever.


Santorum: Obama exacerbated racism

Santorum responded by saying that it was actually Obama who used the presidency to fan the flames of racism.

“Many people saw Barack Obama being just that, doing more to exacerbate racism,” Santorum said.

Asked exactly what Obama did to exacerbate racism, Santorum said that “every time someone of color was involved, he took the side, many times, against the police.”

"He did it over and over and over again,” Santorum added. “President Obama was to many people out there someone who could have come together, brought this country together.” 

Santorum has often shied away from criticizing Trump and instead chosen to focus on Obama.

Last month, he brushed off questions about false claims from Trump and said that Obama told more substantial lies.

Officials to investigate alleded racial discrimination at pool of Philadelphia swin club

"A couple of the children ran down saying, 'Miss Wright, Miss Wright, they're up there saying, "What are those black kids doing here?""' she said.

The gated club is on a leafy hillside in a village that straddles two townships with overwhelmingly white populations. It says it has a diverse, multiethnic membership.

Wright said she went to talk to a group of members and heard one woman say she would see to it that the group, made of up of children in kindergarten through seventh grade, did not return.

"Some of the members began pulling their children out of the pool and were standing around with their arms folded," Wright said. "Only three members left their children in the pool with us."

Several days later, the club refunded the camp's $1,950 without explanation, said Wright, who added that some parents are "weighing their options" on legal action.

The Pope Hangover in Philly

The Pope Hangover in Philly

On a local Philly forum I follow there had been a lot of anxiety of Philly in turmoil over a once in a generation happening centered around the local Archdiocese and it World Family Conference – selling the definition of marriage and staking out moral authority over it in the hopes of charging eternal royalties, added to the company coffers, not unlike the Disney people forever repackaging Mickey Mouse as something completely new and unique to each new generation etc.

The anxiety in many was that for all practical purposes, this private religious group, the Roman Catholics, had declared temporary eminent domain of a large portion of downtown Philadelphia for the purpose of a street fair and or religious ritual. The Franklin Parkway is the one beautiful planned section of downtown leading from the Second Empire city hall, larger than the U.S. Capitol building btw, cut on a diagonal to the northwest to any old plateau that once served as the city’s main reservoir and now has the ornate Greek style art museum built on top of that old hill. The hill of course is the reason for dozens of steps in front and immortalized in cinema by the movie Rocky.

The archdiocese no doubt wanted the Parkway with its many museums and classical style public buildings along its classical ala Paris style dimensions of a grand boulevard to tart up the centuries old rituals that fit in with the modern Vatican marketing program to present a pope in the rockstar, large ground, grand doobie concert settings for the marketing and sale of the product.

The locals with their houses and condos were trapped in a no drive zone that the invading archbishop from Denver had staked out to tart up his reputation and eternal campaign for the red hat.

Daily bulletins from the local authorities with varying levels of local, state and federal levels of authority made it very confusing how one would or could function in the middle of a commandeered concert site/zone.

I have seen literally dozens of the latest maps in recent weeks showing the latest no man’s land without a pass land surrounding these people’s homes and private live – “Private lives matter”. That and the threat of having your automobile temporarily confiscated and towed if parked in the wrong zone. That and a fee for a retrieval of your car from some improvised car impound lot anywhere in the city on the docks being shipped to Saudi Arabia care of the local mob.

Many simply wanted to escape if they could and go out of the city to avoid the tourist mess with the Pope Show. That with a secondary thought that your home might be robbed in your absence, that in an area protecting the Pope Show and not anybody’s local property per say.

One comment on the disaster of the mismanaged twisted mess of the local South-East Pennsylvania Transportation Authority S.E.P.T.A. during the Pope’s visit to the city.

According to my Septa conductor friend, he says the whole pope weekend was horrible.

To quote him: "tons of lack-of-communication, foul-ups, and bitching over who had to do what jobs... a real nuthouse of dumb Septa officials!"

And there was the question of who was going to pay for all the extra security associated with a public event with an international head of state present.  New York and Washington are used to these big state events with the Federal Government in DC and the United Nations in New York. Philly is just in so many ways since the opening of the Erie Canal – an east coast city with no discernible mission statement or purpose.

For many months of negotiations with the city, the corporation responsible for the World Family conference and its bills, the figure was something like 45 million dollars. Reading the forum over time, this figure kept floating in the air as the event approached.  One interesting thing was that the World Family conference had a grace period of six months following the event to reimburse the city for expenses of their temporary occupation of downtown Philly.

The final figure the RCs jewed the city down to was $12 million dollars now that it had become an international and partially state event and the state and federal government, via the FBI and Secret Service was picking up a hefty piece of the real costs of having Pope Francis give his marketing performance on the Parkway.

Nothing in the forum if the AD was going to reimburse the state of Pennsylvania or the Feds. I somehow doubt it. And since this private tax free religion club has no fiscal accountability I can only guess where the rest of the 45 million after the 12 million deduction for expense went, as it was supposedly already pledged by private and corporate donations to the event. (Let’s close another local parish says the out of town Archbishop from Denver via one of his infamous “blue ribbon commissions” handling this or that real estate detail in the AD’s portfolio.)

Because of all the shutting down of this public service train lines, bus lines, bridge access for security reasons etc. is why the final crowd of the Pope’s public mass was closer to half a million to six hundred thousand instead of the original estimated one million crowd.

Of course, it was the post 911 security blanket as to why Francis did not shine like a saint like John Paul II and his past performance in Philly. It was not that religion in this Millennial driven tech world is hard pressed to compete in the entertainment and spirituality market with the young and not so gullible.

All this haggling over money for a Pope Show goes back to 1979 when the fascist I-talian A-merican mayor Frank Rizzo, the former racist police overseer chief, who built a public platform over the Logan Circle Fountain on the Parkway at city expense for JPII’s mass, and was challenged in the courts for doing so – separation of church and state and all that – and eventually the Archdiocese was forced to reimburse the city something like $300,000 for wood and labor. 

The price of extra security from the city, state and Feds for that 1979 SuperStar event never got addressed etc.

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Orlieb's Beer - Philadelphia

http://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/forum/philadelphia-photos/3283-picture-day-37.html


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Indian Weathervane - WPA

Poster from Works Progress Administration. (1938)

Possibly modeled on Tammany Flag/Liberty Pole and Weathervane in Philly, beginning of "Old (New) York" Road.  A lost to history artifact and urban landmark. The starting point of stagecoaches to New York before railroads.

Indian pointing to New York and or Setting Sun? Depending on the wind.

Weathervane in image, from some matching historical descriptions, likely modeled on the Lenni-Lenape Indian Chief Tamanend weathervane now lost to history.

Tamanend signed Treaty of Peace with Quaker Governor William Penn of Pennsylvania.

Tamanend

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Saint Joan of Arc Church - Harrowgate - Philadelphia

photo: John Malloy

The man who baptized me or more accurately the man who was founder and pastor of my parish in Philly was a fanatic of sorts. He started out life as an Episcopalian, changed Christian registration to R.C. when in the seminary and went on to start a new R.C. parish. The parish was sort of in between a lot of other established parishes and the land in between those other churches began to be developed, houses built, and there was a need for a new church, school etc. in the first decades of the twentieth century in that part of Philly. 

Let me call this man Father Ed. He was of the old “God is to be feared” school of beliefs. He was an Old Testament kind of guy. 

He was dead by the time I reached first grade. I have heard stories about him. One from a home inspector who related the story about being an altar boy in my parish and being five minutes late for mass. Father Ed ranted into him at the end of service about how you can’t be late for God. The priest also made the boy serve everyday for a year at 6:00 a.m. mass as punishment. That priest made an impression on that guy but I don’t think that Father Ed made a friend.

Then, as it happens sometimes in life, a lady knocked on the door and said that she had been raised in our house and asked if she might get a quick nostalgic view inside. She then got into some stories about the neighborhood. The one story I remember most was about Father Ed. 

There was a Russian tailor in our neighborhood. He also did dry cleaning and his store was a block away from our house. We did business with the man. In the story of the visiting lady we finally understood why some of our neighbors took their dry cleaning three blocks away and not use the local guy. The Russian was also a Jew and a good tailor I might add. My parents, for working class, were flaming liberals. Being Jewish did not matter to them. That and my father liked to haggle. 

The lady went on to say that as a child, she and her friends used to taunt the man. Let me say anti-Semitism was rampant in America back then in the 1930's, at least in this neighborhood. Well Father Ed got wind of the fact that some of his parishioners and children were harassing the man and boycotting his business. Father Ed made it a point to visit the tailor and bring his dry cleaning four blocks from the rectory. In good weather, Father Ed sat on the store stoop and smoked a cigar together with the tailor as a means to make a statement of sorts to the neighborhood. Apparently Father Ed and the tailor became good friends as the result of this local anti-Semitism. - - Sabbath Tales

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Glass Wax Christmas - Harrowgate

My early memories of Christmas put it starting about two weeks before the holiday in the late 1950's.

The Department stores: Lit Brothers, Gimbels, Stawbridge and Clothier and the top end carriage trade store John Wanamaker all started things the day after Thanksgiving. Going to downtown Philadelphia was an outing for us kids and we came downtown using the elevated train, the Frankford El. The trip was more window shopping than buying.

The close to home activities would begin in earnest about two weeks before the holiday. No doubt Christmas budgeted items came out of the weekly paychecks closest to December 25th.

Recycled items such as a flat plastic sheet, nativity scene, for the upstairs bedroom window came out of the cedar chest along with foil covered paper-mache bells for two living room windows and a plastic Santa's head with an internal light went on the outside of the front door. Single candle sticks were in each window on the front of the row house and with a single blue bulb each.

The lighting of the window lights was a sacred nightly ritual.

One innovation or marketing gimmick I remember was the use of stencils on the windows with a glass cleaning product called Glass Wax. The product was to be spread on windows, let to dry, and then wiped clean with a dry cloth weeks later after Christmas. In this holiday use, you would sponge the opaque pink liquid onto Christmas type stencils of angels, Santa Claus, a snowman and a reindeer etc. It was all very primitive in terms of marketing but magic in terms of a hands-on participating childhood.

I don’t know when others bought real live Christmas trees but we bought ours as close to Christmas eve as a day or two and it sat in the yard until Christmas eve when the older kids got to stay up late and decorate it with blue glass balls and a single string of blue lights. The only thing not blue was a gold glass beaded garland that wrapped the tree from head to foot. That and metal, not plastic, silver icicle strands.

In any case the house smelled of a pine tree that had been cut only days before and traveled from upstate.

We did not have or want those new "Sputnik Trees", all artificial aluminum branches and serenaded with a rotating multi-colored light. That was the kind of tree that older people without children went in for.

Of course I had my doubts how Santa would get to every house in the world – I was already thinking globally. I accepted the facts as my parents relayed them. Santa may come in person but more than likely we would get a surrogate, a Santa’s helper and making deliveries out of an old Nash automobile (they had big interiors). That was how it all worked according to my parents in order to insure my ever growing questions about this whole scenario.

My most vivid memory was waking up at about five a.m., it still being dark, and looking down the stairs at the blue ornamented tree that was not there when I went to bed. The tree stood in the dark with a strange glow of street lights coming through open blinds and muted with a glow of light off a recent snow fall.

I remember the excitement of opening presents. Turkey dinner was not a big deal.

The big deal was the imagination and anticipation and the thoughts of magical myth that gripped a young child’s mind of five.

Wanamaker (Macy's) Christmas Show

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