Do You Know How to Strut?

Aaaah the Mummers! Never heard of them you say? Only heard nasty rumors about drunken public cross-dressing? Then you have come to the right place. Not that I will dispute any of that -- just give a little context and a couple of heart-warming stories of a girlhood in Philadelphia.

The Mummers dress in elaborate costumes, wear full faces of make-up, long wigs, and manage to all be men. Every New Years Day (except when it rains...like this past one) swarms of Mummers make their way down Broad Street in Philly, organized into groups through social clubs. The first ones down are the "Clowns" and my GOD, they are terrible. They give the impression that they got together the night before, started drinking, ransacked a costume shop and never looked back. The groups then get progressively more sophisticated until you come to the String Bands and what my Grandmother called the "Fancies." The string band music is an acquired taste involving brass and banjos -- BUT this is when you get to the good stuff as far as I am concerned: this is when they start to really strut.

The Mummer's Strut is a kind of walking dance, a series of steps forward and then back all the while grooving with the shoulders. It is similar in some ways to the promenade I have seen funeral society bands do as part of their finale -- except these are mostly Polish and Italian white guys from Philadelphia and South Jersey. And yet -- some of them definitely have the moves.



Okay, not these guys...which brings me to the age-old tradition of the Mummer's Parade: Drinking.

I became aware of the drinking at the Mummer's Parade when I was very little. Sitting on the freezing sidewalk, drinking hot cocoa from my thermos, it was hard to miss that the guy next to me didn't smell like cocoa -- but a twelve hour buzz. I could also see that despite the weather, every guy looked EXTREMELY jolly and warm as toast -- or sweating like a pig as the case might be. I was also aware of the belief my Grandmother pushed forward until the day she died -- that none of the Mummer's actually drank during the parade. This was because she had some variation on a nephew who was a member of the world famous (okay -- only Philly and just north of Camden) Polish American String Band. She said she knew from him, in fact he had promised her, that they did not drink on the parade route. This would make my mother give a skeptical snort. No Polish blood on her side and only eye rolling for the Mummers.

When I introduced the Mummers to my West Coast-born husband I did so with pride. And for no other reason than they are FREAKS! Philly's own strange Freak Brigade. I take endless delight in a ritual that seems like one big dare amongst drunken men.