POSTING #76

The Philadelphia Stories

In June, Pat and I took a 5-day " National Treasures" tour in Philadelphia offered by the Road Scholar organization,  formerly known as Elderhostel. (While marketed by Elderhostel, Inc as a Road Scholar program the tour was actually organized through the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks (shortened Philadelphia Landmarks Road Scholar).  It is an educational non-profit historic house museum organization and has been the Elderhostel Philadelphia provider since 1992.) 

We enjoyed the tour mightily.

We had tours to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the Constitution Center and a slew of churches and monuments, as well as  to historic homes and Philadelphia's wonderful new and old architecture.  We also had lectures on the history and culture of the city, and on the American founding fathers.

My favourite founding father has always been Benjamin Franklin, who contrary to popular culture didn't spend all his time flying kites in thunderstorms.

He was a one-man Silicon Valley of innovation, inventing a huge number and range of items including  bifocals, the Franklin stove, lightning rods, an odometer for his carriage, and a flexible catheter to remove his brother's kidney stones. In his spare time he was a brilliant diplomat for the US in France. He could also write---witness his fascinating Autobiography.

The tour confirmed my view that the stories told by tour guides are often as good as---or better than--- the sites being pointed out.

Experienced guides re-work their stories using feedback from tourists, cutting out extraneous detail and making sure that the punch line has oomph.

Now it is important,  of course, to realize that truth is an 'optional extra' in stories told by tour guides.

 Skilled guides subscribe to my Uncle Syd's dictum that it is important for a raconteur (Uncle Syd was one of the best) to " tell a good story and let the truth fall where it may".

In that spirit, I would like to share some of the stories we have been told by tour guides.

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The first story was told by a guide in Florence---not Philadelphia---some years ago.

As we stood admiring Michelangelo's David, the guide told a story about David's nose.

Apparently, the city council of Florence, which had commissioned the statue, appointed a committee to oversee and eventually approve the sculpture.

When Michelangelo was satisfied with the sculpture he asked the committee to look at it.

All the members of the committee were ecstatic about it except for one pompous, opinionated fellow.

He acknowledged that, overall, the sculpture was fine but he was concerned about the length of David's nose.

"Don't you think it is a bit too long?"

Hiding his annoyance, Michelangelo gathered up his hammer and chisel and headed for the ladder. Just before he started to climb the ladder he bent down---ostensibly to adjust his sandals---but actually to pick up some marble dust and chips.

He climbed the ladder and, hiding what he was doing with his body, began to pretend to chisel the nose, meanwhile letting the handful of dust and chips trickle to the ground.

Coming down,  he asked the official what he thought.

The man studied the nose for a time and then pronounced it perfect. He added that it was lucky that he had spotted the flaw.

Michelangelo told his friends what he had done and by nightfall the whole of Florence was laughing at the pompous official.

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Turning to Philadelphia, here is a story about Ben Franklin.

When he died, in 1790, some 20,000 Philadelphians, out of a total population of 28,000, attended his funeral,.

The French Government declared three days of national mourning.

Meanwhile, Congress tried to pass a motion proposing that all members wear black armbands out of respect for Franklin. The proposal was blocked, we were told, by some southern members because of Franklin's support for the abolition of slavery.

The guide rolled his eyes, as though to say, 'with Congress, the more things change, the more they stay the same'.

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In the old part of Philadelphia there are still some workers homes from the 1700s. They are narrow, threes-story brick buildings which originally had  only one room on each floor. They were called 'the Trinity houses'--- The Father on the ground floor, The Son on the second, and The Holy Ghost on the third.

There was a problem about living in these tall narrow homes. If you were on the second or third floor and someone knocked on the front door, you had to come down the steep stairs to see who it was (and then climb back up).

The indefatiquable and ever-creative Ben Franklin came to the rescue.

He invented a gadget using two or three mirrors attached to a rod that could be mounted high on the outside of the building, near a window. The occupant would adjust the angles of the mirrors so they would show who was at the door. The occupant could then  decide whether or not to go down the stairs.

According to the story, Franklin called the device The Busybody.   

The Busybodies are being marketed today by the Ben Franklin Busybody company.

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The workers' houses had fireplaces but no ovens. This meant that housewives had to take risen loaves of bread to a local bakery  to be baked, a service for which they had to pay.

For a half penny, the bakeries would put the loaf on the bottom shelf of the oven, in with the hardwood logs and live coals. Because the heat was uneven on that lower level, the crusts were usually misshapen and sometimes blackened by ash.

For a penny, the baker would put the loaves on the main level, the level on which he baked bread, rolls and pies for his shop.

The 'penny' loaves came out with crusts that were nicely rounded, even and golden brown.

According to our guide, that was the origin of the expression 'upper crust'.

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The visit to Philadelphia also shed some light on an issue that has troubled me for some time: the origin of the word, 'bootlegger'.

In preparation for a future article about some run-ins my policeman father had with bootleggers, I have been doing some research on the term.

There are conflicting  explanations.

For example, American settlers are supposed to have got around the prohibition on selling liquor to native people by sticking bottles of booze down their boots when they rode out to a reservation.

Or, longshoremen unloading cases of whiskey hid bottles in their boots when leaving the docks.

And on and on.

One of our lecturers on the tour had a different explanation.

I should begin by setting out her credentials.

She is a Quaker, a graduate of Harvard, was shot by the Klu Klux Klan while fighting in the 1960s for civil rights for African-Americans, and a professor of history. (As Pat and I discovered in a chat with her, she also knows an enormous amount about Canadian history---she can discuss the 19th century Fenian raids into Canada!--- and has visited and adores Niagara-on-the-Lake.)

Sounds trustworthy to me!

She claims that 'bootlegger' comes from colonial America when mail was carried between cities by couriers on horseback. Letter writers would pay the required fee at a 'post' office and the letter would go in a sealed sack of mail that was given to a courier.

If you knew the courier, he might shove your letter down his boot, and carry it for free to the destination.

Perhaps that explains the old custom of adding a drop or two of perfume to letters---it may have been needed to mask the smell of the boot!

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Death was common in 18th century Philadelphia---from diseases, accidents and crime.

Interestingly, death by fire was not common because William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, remembering London's Great Fire, insisted that houses in Philadelphia be built of brick and that there be large parks sprinkled throughout the city as refuges for  persons fleeing from a fire.

 People had an understandable fear of being declared dead, when they were just in a coma, and of being buried alive.

Lengthy---and noisy---wakes were designed in part to give the 'corpse' lots of time to come to.

But Philadelphians didn't think that was enough protection.

So, when a person was finally put in a grave, one end of a cord was placed in the coffin while the other end was tied to a bell in a nearby tree. If the 'deceased' came to, he or she could pull the cord.

And according to our guide, that's how we got the expression, "Saved by the bell".

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See you on July 11th for Posting #77 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.