Mummers
PARADE OVERVIEW
A members of the Trilby String Band struts on Broad Street. (Bonnie
Weller/Inquirer)
Harvey Pollack has been the official Mummers statistician since the middle 1950s. Here are his thoughts on the New Year's Day tradition and suggestions for best parade viewing.
NEW THIS YEAR
The Pennsport String Band (left) gets ready for the big debut. Peter DiMatteo Jr. (right), of the Adelphia Fancy Club, works in the garage of his home in Wilmington.
A new group of Mummers comes along only once in a sequined blue moon. The last new string band to venture up the street debuted eight years ago. There hasn't been a new Fancy Division "mother club" since 1960. This year, there are two new outfits.
MAP
How to get there, where to see it all and how to get tickets to see the Fancy Brigade finale. (.pdf)
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84-year-old Mummer to call it quits
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He almost didn't have a chance to become a Mummers legend. Back in 1938, when James "Rip" McDonald was 15 and had just one parade under his belt, he and his fellow string band members played the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. He got home in the wee hours, still chugging milk from a bottle he had taken from a deliveryman. His mother met him at the door.
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Novice Mummer is put through the paces
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After 108 years, the Mummers are in trouble. Sure, attendance and participation at the annual New Year's Day parade are down. The real reason I say this, however, is because Mummers in one string band recently welcomed me - a 51-year-old non-Italian woman who has not touched her tenor saxophone since "Disco Duck" topped the charts - as one of their own.
MUMMERS HEADLINES
NEWS
Three years after the Nov. 20, 2006, discovery, the killings of Kim Raffo, Molly Jean Dilts, Barbara Breidor, and Tracy Ann Roberts remain unsolved. Some advocates say that because the victims were prostitutes, their deaths are being forgotten by society and officials.
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