Benjamin Franklin Gets Globular: Drinking in No Uncertain Terms

No survey of Philly humor can ignore Ben Franklin. 
But where to start?

Let’s start with Ben’s 200-word list of synonyms for being drunk. 
We will only offer a sample.

Some words are still familiar:
boozy, addled, cock eyed, tipsy, stewed...

Many 18th century words and expression for inebriation are totally obscure today:
cherubimical, he cut his capers, he’s Prince Eugene, groatable, fox’d, got
the flanders, got Hornson, killed his dog, het his kettle, he’s half way to Concord,
been to Jericho and, got the gladders.

Then there some expressions that disappeared, but are clever enough to revive:
his head is full of bees, sees two moons, he’s juicy, he’s oiled, he’s in the
suds, raddled, as stiff as a ring-bolt, cherry merry and as dizzy as a goose.


Our favorite archaic words From Ben’s list are globular and knapt.
Let’s start using them.

“Look at Uncle Joe. He’s totally knapt. Last week he got globular on margaritas.”

Knowing Your Business: Philadelphia Institutions With Straightforward Names

Unlike our times, the 19th century was an era of plain talk. 

Sex workers were known as prostitutes. Senor citizens were simply old folks. And local institutions in Philadelphia pulled no punches in spelling out their purpose.

Here are a few examples: 

The Edwin Forrest Home for Decayed Actors

Pennsylvania Training School for the Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Children 

Inglis House for Incurables 

Northern Home for Friendless Children 

Ralston House for Widows and Single Women 

Franklin Reformatory Home for Inebriates 

The Bettering House of Employment 

Blockley Almshouse 

Union Home for Old Ladies 

Old Ladies Home of Philadelphia 

The House of Industry 

Saint Edmond’s Home for Crippled Children 

House of Saint Michael’s  

All Angels for Crippled Colored Children 

Guardians of the Poor

Philadelphia Auto Dealer Promises Car That Won't Use Gas

We previously wrote about the late advertising genius Les Waas, creator of the just-for-fun Procrastinators Club, who had many stories from a very long career.

Most of his ads and 600 jingles were created in his own fertile mind, but this time a client had his own “brilliant idea.”

“The client was University Ford in South Philly,” Waas recalled in an interview that made its way to Youtube. The idea was to sell a new car for $999 with “power options extra.” 

The power option was a motor.

“I thought it was funny,” says Waas who wrote the newspaper ad. He can’t remember the year, but the next day he says there was a line at the Ford dealer that stretched around the block.

Scores of customers waited to get their bargain auto. The first folks admitted to the showroom soon learned it was a cruel hoax and the word spread to the others in line.

When Ford heard about the trick, it pulled the franchise and the dealer was out of business.

Lost in Translation: Richie Ashburn Just Didn't Get It

Jerry Helzner is a lifelong baseball fan. Like most Phillies followers he has a special love for Richie Ashburn...

"I became a fan of Phillies centerfielder and speedster Richie Ashburn when I found out that we shared the same birthday".

Here is a story he told several times as a longtime Phillies broadcaster.

"Richie was chosen by the newly formed New York Mets in a draft that was part of big league expansion in 1962. He joined a ragtag group of players who had never been teammates before,"

"In one of the first games, Richie called for a pop-fly to shallow center field,"

'I got it. I got it,' he yelled,"

"But shortstop Elio Chacon, who didn’t speak English, crashed into him and the ball fell to the turf,"

"In the dugout, manager Casey Stengel told Richie to just yell 'Yo lo tengo, yo lo tengo' (I got it in Spanish) and Chacon will get out of the way,"

"So when the situation happened again, Richie yelled 'Yo lo tengo' and sure enough Chacon backed off."

"Just in time for 230-pound leftfielder Jim Hickman – who didn’t speak a word of Spanish -- to crash into Richie and send him sprawling to the turf"

No wonder Ashburn retired at the end of that year.

When South Philly Was A Real Jungle

Street crime, Mafia wars, house fires, crazy drivers on narrow streets, all can add a measure of danger for those living in South Philadelphia.

But in 1971 there was an element of unexpected danger that was strange and weird even by South Philly standards – snakes.

In the wee hours of Sept. 7. 1971, new mother Midgalia Santiago, 18, was fast asleep in her rowhouse apartment on 7th Street near Snyder Avenue when she was suddenly awakened by a sharp pain in her foot.

Santiago had just been bitten on the foot by a cobra!

She was rushed to a nearby hospital and the unharmed baby was rushed outside. The cops and an SPCA employee with a dog noose gingerly entered the apartment and captured the cobra.

The victim survived, primarily because the bite was not too deep.

A couple of days later, a seven-foot Burmese python was found in another house on the same block.

And why was a deadly cobra and a python slithering around old row houses?

The answer was a recently closed pet shop on the block that specialized in exotic animals and birds. The owner claimed his shop had been broken into twice recently and it was the bandits who let loose the snakes.

Pet store owner Harry Bock lived nearby with his wife, six children, 500 armadillos (packed in boxes for shipment), 16 snakes, a gila monster and one alligator.

On the third floor was Bock’s personal pet – a young mountain lion.

According to press reports, the city had no law against owning dangerous animals and snakes. All the city could do was hit Bock with $100 cruelty to animals fine related to the mountain lion and the tightly packed armadillos.

We think this was the first and last time a “cruelty to armadillos” charges were filed by the city of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia's Greasy Poles

The city applied grease to utility poles to discourage drunks and other macho types from trying to climb them during Eagles and Villanova victory celebrations.

The entire nation got a good laugh over Philly’s grease strategy, including late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmel showed a clip of someone during the Villanova festivities in Center City triumphantly perched on the top of a street sign. “They greased the poles and they still climb them,” said Kimmel. “If it was up to me, I’d put Crazy Glue on the poles.”

Penn Was the Place For Bowl Fights, Sophomore Creamations and Rowbottoms

What the hell’s wrong with University of Pennsylvania students nowadays?

Their noses are always buried in a book. 
Don’t they know how to have fun like in the old days?

Take November 15, 1938...
Now that’s when Penn students really had fun. It was a Rowbottom (we’ll explain later) sparked by “football frenzy.”

The fun lasted four hours. It took 300 cops to end the fun. Cars were overturned. Bonfires blazed. Gasoline was poured on the trolley tracks on Woodland Avenue and set on fire. Traffic was stopped. The cops and the firemen were pelted with eggs and water bags. Someone tried to steal a cop car.
Fourteen students were hauled off and charged with various crimes. Newspapers across the nation carried wire service stories about the fun at the University of Pennsylvania that year.

Or take the annual “Bowl Fight” pitting the freshmen class against sophomores. It was a beloved, university-approved 50-year tradition that ended in 1916.

OK, things got a little out-of- hand that year. One student died. Five needed hospital treatment and about 20 suffered minor injuries.

Another great tradition now gone was the Sophomore Cremation involving effigies of the worst, most uninspiring professors, set ablaze in a grand bonfire while the school band played a dirge.

Let us briefly try to describe the Bowl Fight, which started the year the Civil War ended – perhaps, by ex-soldiers who missed the battlefield...

The origins are obscure and the rules kept changing and it was unique to Penn. It involved a large wooden bowl held by the sophomores. The freshman class would try to break the bowl. The sophomores would try to grab a designated freshman – called the bowl-man – and stuff him into the bowl.

It sounds like a cross between rugby, wrestling, football and a tug-of- war. Punching was not allowed.

Eventually, there were two periods, referees and half-time rest. When the bowl got too difficult to break, the contest was decided by how many hands were on the bowl at the final whistle.

On the other hand, the Rowbottoms were spontaneous riots that grew until “the wonton destruction of private and public property” made the front pages of every Philly newspaper.

Poor Joseph Tinsman Rowbottom (class of 1913) was a good, sober student with rowdy hard-drinking friends. So, one warm spring night in 1910, in the wee hours, the drunks came into the yard of the Quadrangle dorm. The boozers started shouting at the top of their lungs, “Hey (or Yea) Rowbottom.”

Rowbottom, and every student in the dorm, was now awake. Windows flung open and students started throwing pitchers, wash basins and assorted junk at the drunks. Soon everyone started screaming “Rowbottom!”

Thus, a tradition was born on the Ivy League campus.
At first, the Rowbottom riots were only in the spring when young men get rambunctious. Then Rowbottoms broke out after big sporting events.

Some of the most destructive Rowbottoms came in the 1950s. The last Rowbottom we can document was in 1966 and was so feeble that the Daily News put it on Page 14. In less than a dozen paragraphs the story said Penn students blocked traffic briefly and threw eggs following a championship basketball game. The cops broke it up without calling in firemen or even one Riot Call.

A North Philly Tour Of Duty

They were the bravest of the brave.

They had seen combat in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. 

But they had never seen anything like Philadelphia’s “Badlands.”

About 120 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients held their annual meeting in Philly in September 1995.  There were many pleasant activities: banquets, Phillies games, visiting historic sites.

But because some were very involved in fighting the drug epidemic, an optional tour was offered of the drug-infested North Philly area known as “The Badlands.”

An Inquirer reporter went along. The headline on the story was: “Honor Heroes See a War Right Here”

Joe Jackson, who had risked his life in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, had visited drug areas elsewhere, said, “North Philly is the worst I’ve seen. I wouldn’t come up here by myself.”

“It looks like Vietnam after Tet,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady.

Perhaps the best quote came from Col. Lloyd “Scooter” Burke, who single-handed had charged and destroyed three enemy bunkers in Korea and later served in Vietnam. When asked how he would compare Vietnam to the Badlands, Burke said. “Well, there are no trees here.”

The old war heroes all wore hardhats on the tour. 

Walter Ehlers, a hero of D-Day and a man who single-handedly knocked out German machine gun nests said, “I’m ready to go back to the hotel and go to bed.”

Philadelphia Put-Downs by the Rich and Famous

Some on-target quotes about Philadelphia:

Garrison Keillor, a native of Lake Woe-Be- Gone said:
“Philadelphia has the worst food - as a result it has the best hospitals.”

According to rapper/inmate Meek Mill:
“I think everybody in Philadelphia has been shot at.”

Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky captured the love/hate feelings of many residents:
“Sometimes Philly seems to be a beautiful city filled with ugly people and awful habits.”

Comedian Joey Bishop was also a tap dancer early in his career:
“Everyone could tap dance in South Philly – because it was cold outside, it would keep you warm.”

Quaker Jokes: A Burglar In Good Standing

Not too many jokes about Quakers but here is one:
 
An elderly Quakers couple was asleep when a faint noise downstairs awoke the woman.

She, of course, shook her husband awake and whispered that there was an intruder in the house. The old boy grabbed his hunting rifle and headed for the stairs.

There on the stairs the Quaker came face-to-face with the burglar.

The old man took careful aim and said, “Friend, I mean thee no harm, but thou art standing where I am about to shoot.”

Well, It's Better Than 'The City that Bombed Itself'

A Fitting Slogan for Philly?
“Not As Bad As Philadelphians Say It Is”

Suppose you work for the ministry of tourism of Iceland and must create a catchy slogan to promote your nation. How about: “Come to Iceland and Freeze Your Ass Off.”

Or you have the same challenge for Brazil.
Here’s a good slogan: “You Will Love Brazil – If You Don’t Get Mugged.”
 
We doubt that such negative slogans would fly in either nation, but this is Philadelphia where a huge billboard on the Schuylkill Expressway once told those entering the city: “Philadelphia Is Not As Bad As Philadelphians Say It Is.”
 
The very large billboard went up in 1970 and was created and paid for by the city Chamber of Commerce. We can imagine tourists trying to make a U-turn on the Expressway after reading the message.

It did create a lot of talk – not only in Philly but in many out-of-town newspapers.

The slogan flowed from the creative mind of ad man Elliott Curson, who is currently still plugging away at his Rittenhouse Square ad agency. “Well it (the slogan) does keep coming up. It’s not forgotten,” he says.

Another slogan Curson once floated: “Philadelphia It’s Half-Way Between New York and Washington and It’s Waiting for You.”

Philadelphia had hit its nadir in the 1970s: bad sports teams, population loss, high crime, Blue laws, few good places to eat. So, the slogan might have been accurate, if not effective.

We’re not sure what the city slogan is these days.

But thank goodness a suggestion never caught on following the MOVE
disaster in 1985: “The City that Bombed Itself”

Practicing Popes and Peanut Butter

Jerry Helzner shares two memories – one from his student days at Central High and another from his short teaching career....

“I remember a comment from a history class at Central,” says Helzner. “The teacher was talking about how powerful the early popes had been, almost like dictators,"

“So a student raises his hand and asks: ‘So, if the Pope was so powerful then where were the cardinals?’,"

“And a kid in the back of the room yells out: ‘They were in spring training.’”


Helzner says his first teaching assignment was at Wanamaker Junior High in North Philly.
 
“I was teaching a class of 7th graders when I noticed a cute little kid, wearing a suit jacket and a bow tie, and he was munching on a packet of peanut butter crackers,"

“I said, 'Tyrone Sunkett, what are you doing back there?'. He calmly walked up to me, dug into his pants pocket, and pulled out a crinkled old piece of paper,"

“It was a note that read: ‘Please allow Tyrone to eat at this time. His Mother.’ 

 It looked like something he had been carrying around since second grade.

“So, I confiscated the note and was hard pressed to keep from laughing out loud.”

Philadelphians Mean Peace

How mean and ornery are Philadelphians?
 
So mean and tough that even the PACIFISTS are two-fisted brawlers.

Want proof?
A headline in the Philadelphia Record on May 31, 1934 read:
Policeman Felled by Young Pacifists In Mid-City Fight.
 
The story explained about “50 pacifists celebrating Youth Day Against War and Fascism were parading at 11th and Market and throwing circulars in violation of a city ordinance against littering.”
 
Patrolman John O’Donnell stepped in to stop the littering and was promptly socked in the jaw starting a melee that lasted 15 action-packed minutes and prompted a riot call which brought two police wagons and more cops to the scene.

“Even that wasn’t enough to quell the rioters,” said the news story. “Two more loads of reinforcements” were called into the battle.

It ended with 19 arrests and officer O’Donnell suffering cuts and a swollen jaw – proving that Philly pacifists are a separate breed.