Mummers

Ronald D. Drais, a hard-core Mummer who lost his legs to diabetes but who kept the strut in his pride and spirit to the end, died Friday of complications of the disease. He was 47 and lived in South Philadelphia. Struck by juvenile diabetes at the age of 14, Ron Drais spent most of his life swimming against the current to live the kind of routine life most people have just by waking up in the morning. He played music on the road for a while and worked at a restaurant as a cook.

As far as the Mummers are concerned, troops in the Persian Gulf have earned their stripes - and local support. About 15 clubs, along with local members of the Vietnam Veterans Association, marched in South Philadelphia yesterday, playing patriotic songs and waving banners and flags to show they're behind the troops.

The Mummers-less New Year's Day gave the marchers and clubs a few more days to prepare - tune up the banjos, fluff the feathers, that sort of thing. Among the clubs going through rituals were Avalon String Band on Second Street and Fralinger String Band on Third Street.

The 1994 Mummers Parade was as much of a hit with TV couch potatoes as it was for fans who took to the streets New Year's Day to cheer on the men and women of Philadelphia Mummery. Ratings this year over 1993 were up 5 percent. "The Mummers parade dominated the ratings for the vast majority of its 12- hour telecast, a tribute to Mummers and their dazzling performances," said George Strimel, executive producer for the Lenfest Group, parade producer. More than 1 million people viewed the parade at home, which translates to a 14.3 rating and a 28 percent share of the audience, according to Neil Harrison of the Weightman Group, which handles parade-related advertising for Lenfest.

Syracuse, N.Y., had the privilege of being entertained by the Durning String Band of Philadelphia during our annual St. Patrick's Day parade. As a person assigned to help the band while it was here, I must say that it certainly represents the City of Brotherly Love. After spending the entire day with the members, I am even more fanatical about the Mummers bands and plan to attend the New Year's Day parade and, I hope, the Show of Shows next year. Bonnie L. Arnold Baldwinsville, N.Y.

Will the New Year's Day parade be televised? Mum is the word. Mummer representatives met last night to try to cobble a last-minute package to offer local stations to get the New Year's Day parade on TV for the 46th year. No one would comment beforehand on the specific agenda or even on where the meeting, which had been scheduled to begin at 8:30, would take place. It was known that all four divisions - string band, fancy, fancy brigade and comic - would be represented.

Councilwoman Joan Specter said yesterday that she has rounded up support in City Council to return controversial photographs of Mummers in dark makeup to the current "Art in City Hall" exhibit. But Mayor Goode said that the photographs would have to hang on the fourth floor next to City Council chambers, not next to the mayor's second-floor office. Specter, a Republican, wrote to Goode yesterday to inform him that Council President Joseph Coleman, Councilman Lucien Blackwell and others had agreed to rehanging three photographs by James Conroy in the exhibit of Mummers costumes and related art. Mayor Goode had ordered the photographs out of the exhibit on Dec. 29, calling them "an insult to black people" after Council members objected to one photograph because they thought it looked as if the Mummers were in blackface, a practice outlawed in the parade since 1961.

REBUTTAL letters by so-called Mummers experts like Al Fuchs who chastise those of us who dare to "critique" the parade telecast and string band presentations are downright comical. I have been following string bands for 40 years and my father and uncle were both members of the winningest string band in parade history. I have witnessed the many intricate changes in music, costuming and drilling. I have listened intently as the sweet early music of the string bands transformed from mostly violins, banjos, guitars, mandolins and glockenspiels to the big-band sound of today complete with 40-plus saxophones.

How's this for a Christmas present? Eight days before their annual New Year's Day parade, some of the Mummers are back on television. It's the latest development in the on-again, off-again saga of the Mummers as they've tried to swing a last-minute deal to get the 1992 parade back on the box. As of last night, the String Bands and Comics were on TV. The Fancy Clubs and Fancy Brigades were not. The announcement was made yesterday that...

There's an edge of sadness this week among Philadelphia's traditional makers of mirth. String-band clubs this weekend will play their final rendition of "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You" as they close out their tradition of sponsoring their annual Show of Shows at the Civic Center. "I was in the first show, the 1938 Show of Shows, and I plan to pack in the final extravaganza," recalled Don Keir, a banjo player with the Polish-American String Band. "It was called the Milk Fund back then, a charity event to provide poor children with milk during the days of the Great Depression.

DROP-ped CouncilmanFrank Rizzo is hoping that Thursday's fill-in shift on Talk Radio 1210-AM, on which he will host 10 to midnight, leads to a regular job at the station. "My intention is to show my value and become a permanent part of the team," Rizzo, who formerly hosted talk shows on WWDB and WPEN-AM, told us yesterday. 1210-AM recently dumped Rush Limbaugh and says it's going to an all-local format. Out and about "Jersey Shore" star Deena Nicole Cortese caught Tuesday's Nickelback/Bush concert at the Wells Fargo Center with her boyfriend and her parents.

H IS STORY and her story could not have been more different. Damien Walto, a former city cop, told a jury Monday that he was defending himself from the woman he's accused of beating, Diane Janssen, during a gathering of friends the evening of July 17, 2010. Walto testified that Janssen had thrown a can of beer at the back of his head and smacked him, then tripped on her own feet when he pushed her away to avoid a second can. "All I did was push her to get her away from me to avoid getting hit again," testified Walto, 32, who is on trial for aggravated assault and related counts.

I WOULD LIKE to take this opportunity to thank you for continuing to cover the Philadelphia Mummers Parade. I, for one, however, am completely dismayed by the terrible TV camera footage (people walking in front of cameras, pictures of spectators' heads) while trying to view the presentations. I have been a fan of the Mummers since I could walk, because my father was in the parade. We would sit at home and sing and dance while he practiced his banjo tunes for the upcoming New Year's parade.

An 18-year-old man has been arrested and charged with being one of two assailants who beat and robbed a Haddon Township man at PATCO's Eighth and Market Street Station as bystanders watched, even recording the attack on a cellphone. A video of the incident early Monday was posted on a website, www.worldstarhiphop.com . Philadelphia police said today they have arrested Timothy Williams, of the 5200 block of Lebanon Avenue in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield section, and charged him with robbery, aggravated assault and related offenses, Police are still looking for the second suspect.

FOR THE SECOND consecutive year, temperatures in the 50s (thank you, global warming) helped draw large, appreciative and gloveless crowds to Broad Street for the Jenny Craig Mummers Parade. The actual sponsor was the SugarHouse Casino, which put up some money (a "thank you" to Philadelphians for a successful first year, said casino GM Wendy Hamilton). I call it Jenny Craig because the parade (under pressure from a cost-conscious city government) has slimmed down to six-plus hours since 2009 and successfully kept the "weight" off. Officially, according to parade director Leo Dignam, Sunday's parade ran six hours, 47 minutes, 12 seconds, "But who's counting?"

A video captured a melee after the 2012 Mummers Parade New Year's Day that ended with a mummer scuffling with a paradegoer and causing a metal barricade to crash down. The video was uploaded anonymously yesterday to YouTube from an Android-powered smart phone, and supplied no information other than was shown. The video shows a crowd of hundreds gathered at Second Street and Pierce Avenue in South Philadelphia as some type of disturbance begins to draw attention. A few mummers dressed in pink as wenches enter the fray and people start shoving each other.

Club Totals Club Points 1. Woodland . . . 94.4 2. Quaker City . . . 93.4 3. So. Philadelphia . . . 92.1 4. Ferko . . . 89.3 5. Fralinger . . . 86.750 6. Hegeman . . . 84.950 7. Avalon . . . 82.850 8. Aqua . . . 81.250 9. Greater Kensington . . . 78.400 10. Polish American . . . 76.100 11. Uptown . . . 75.100 12. Pennsport . . . 71.950 13. Durning ....

A tiny toddler named Sophia Salerno performed a Mummers Parade miracle Sunday when she bopped down Broad Street with barely the balance to keep from tipping over, but enough charm to unite two groups of people at odds in the year that just ended: The 1 percent and the 99 percent. It happened in the low winter sun of midday, when her parents marched down Broad and plunked the 16-month-old tyke at Sansom Street just shy of City Hall, which had been home to Occupy Wall Street protesters until a few weeks ago. On one sidewalk was the fabled Union League building with men in wool suits and women in fine threads and fur in cordoned-off bleachers, a portrait of gated affluence.

  Club Totals Club   Points 1. Woodland . . . 94.4 2. Quaker City . . . 93.4 3. So. Philadelphia . . . 92.1 4. Ferko . . . 89.3 5. Fralinger . . . 86.750 6. Hegeman . . . 84.950 7. Avalon . . . 82.850 8. Aqua . . . 81.250 9. Greater Kensington . . . 78.400 10. Polish American . . . 76.100 11. Uptown . . . 75.100 12. Pennsport . . . 71.950 ...

AS THE Quaker City String Band rehearsed the wooden soldier march of its latest routine on a chilly December evening, Jim Fox Jr. blended right into the horde of saxophonists playing through "Teddy Bears' Picnic" and "When Johnny Comes Marching Home. " But despite being one alto among many, Fox is responsible for an outsized portion of the cacophony being raised on the second floor of the venerable Mummers band's South Philly clubhouse. Probably half of the Quaker City saxophonists wouldn't be there on New Year's Day if it weren't for Fox. That's literally the case for two of them, Fox's college-age sons, who are carrying on the family tradition.