my staycation: the city fountain

I took some photographs this summer during my Pottsville stay-cation. The one above is the world-famous fountain where legend has it, if you toss coins over your shoulder into its waters, you will return to Pottsville one day and the more coins you throw in the longer the stay. Yes, I am talking about the fountain at the corner of South Centre Street and Mahantongo Street. Not many coins in the fountain unfortunately. Mammy took this photograph. She could have gotten a little closer.

Yes, eye catching fountains are a must-have thing for any self-respecting city that wants to attract tourists and Pottsville has one of the best. Top notch. Jim Dandy. Awesome. What more can I say? Perhaps, “nifty.” This unnamed fountain was built in the 1970s with “Revenue Sharing” money that flooded into the area from Washington, D.C. Some say it is unnamed because no one wants to be associated with it, but that is just an urban legand. But it certainly is one piece of the “history of the 1970s” that when you see it, you’ll want to cry.

Yes, this artificially produced jet of water was bigger than I expected. From the postcards I had received over the years I thought it would be smaller. I stood there in awe. Yes, it did bring to my mind Versailles, the seat of the Sun King, Louis XIV, I have to admit that. The sumptuous use of water along Centre Avenue (note the French spelling of the word center) could not be otherwise.

At night I did get the opportunity to view the entertainment options that the fountain offers one's senses. At 9 PM every evening during the summer months the fountain offers a mesmerizing show of water, music and light, all interwoven to romance your senses. I promised Mammy we would return again next summer as we were so impressed. Try to imagine watching this fountain dancing to the rhythms of such 70s songs such as “Muskrat Love, “Kung Fu Fighting” and “Macho Man.” Unbelievable.Stupendous. Astounding. What more can I say. Wicked, perhaps, but that is it."

All of this is done for sheer entertainment, free of charge. It is an ambitiously choreographed complex water show set against the beautiful backdrop of the city’s closed public restrooms. Very clever indeed. There is no other municipal water fountain that offers the same scope, spectacle and emotional impact as this downtown city fountain.

There are some nay sayers, such as my brother-in-law who said, when first viewing the fountain, “Is that a leak in the building or was there a fire?” Municipal Jealousy! What more can I say. Perhaps,”cosmopolitan covetness.” Please ignore those architectural ignoramouses (ignoramice?).

How does one then summarize the Pottsville fountain to the novice? With the flux of tourists waiting to arrive at the soon-to-open Intermodal bus station, a summary is needed quickly….. It is a simple combination of a basin and a spout. It is this simplicity that draws the viewer inward. The water that feeds into the fountain comes from the Norwegian Creek, the mysterious natural underground spring that runs below the surface of the land we call home, and this natural spring only appears to the visible eye at the Ryon Insurance Company parking lot where hundreds flock because of the water’s supposed healing abilities. That is a topic for another blog.

This simple fountain, although less flashy than its sister fountains in Rome or Paris, makes a passerby totally relax, creating an atmosphere that is stress-free, and forget the loss of Pottsville’s past.

Schuylkill County History: Chapter Four

THE CIVIL WAR

When the Civil War broke out in (I think) the middle of the 19^th century. The North (our side) was caught off guard. Our troops were ill-suited for combat. I mean ill-suited literally, as the uniforms that were available tended to droop, making it difficult for the men to march long distances to such southern places as Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chattanooga or Dollywood.

Schuylkill County was noted, not only for its numerous "hose houses" which feature, to this day, beer bologna floating in a jar of some unknown liquid, but also for its many hosiery mills and garment factories.

When the South (the other side) seceded from the Union, these factories were just in their infancy. In fact, the most notable local garment factory, Phillips Van Heusen, was not yet even opened.

It was indeed a primitive time for the garment industry. There were no designer jeans, no big pecker tee shirts, no Iverson Jerseys, no spandex tights and no tube tops. It was not until after the Civil War that our garment industry took off in full force to bless us with those clothing items.

Yes, there actually was a time in which clothes were made here in the United States, strange as it may sound. And to top it off, Schuylkill County was the epi-center of this fledgling garment industry. Big pecker tee shirts were meticulously stitched by hand right here with patience, skill and a lot of love, probably by many of your mothers or grandmothers; not mass produced in some far-away third world sweatshop.

So when the cry came out for assistance in keeping the soldiers’ trousers from drooping, the women of Schuylkill County banded together to help these local volunteers. The Pottsville Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society created what was would come to be known as “The First Suspenders.” I believe that this effort was led by local native, Amanda Silliman. I am unsure as most of written history ignores contributions by women. That is why it is called His-tory. Through its efforts, local donations, consisting of wooden boxes, filled with suspenders, were sent to the soldiers at the front. No longer would our troops shuffle and meander along because of droopy trousers; now they were able to move at a fast pace. In fact these suspenders are credited for the success of Sherman’s March and also the recognition of race-walking as an Olympics event.

As we all know from grade school, suspenders were first invented in 1822 by Albert Thurston; soon the women of the area began to make thousands of them. They began their project after April 12, 1861, when the Governor of Pennsylvania received a tweet in these words:

OMG! The war is commenced :(

Twittering, in the 19th century, was limited to six words or less, and that is all the news that the Governor received for the next three days.

On April 15th President Abraham Lincoln, on Facebook, issued a proclamation to his entire network calling out the state militia and a request for volunteers. He wanted 75,000 troops. Schuylkill County, at the time had a population of about 90,000 and about 13,000 of the residents eventually volunteered as soldiers of the Union (our side).

Schuylkill County gave one of the largest percentages of volunteers. Yes, some signed up to get out of the house, and others joined because they were the President's Facebook buddies, but most volunteered due to a strong sense of patriotism and a love of country.

They loved this nation and did not want it broken into two. Soon about 500 Schuylkill County men passed through Baltimore on their way to the protect our Nation's Capitol. They marched right through, missing the Orioles game and passing up the Dolphin Show at the Aquarium. Lucky for them, as many Baltimorioles were sympathetic to the South and many more were upset over the Orioles being shut out by the Philadelphia Athletics. They began to hurl bricks and stones at our fast moving troops. One stone hit Pottsville resident, Nicholas Biddle on the head while he was playing his banjo. Our troops, however, were fast enough to get away from the crowd and those rebel-rousers were unable to keep up because of their own droopy trousers. Before long our men arrived in the Capitol and were welcomed by their Facebook friend, Abraham Lincoln. Nicholas Biddle, although the first to shed blood in the Civil War, would eventually fade into oblivion, dying penniless and forgotten. He was never able to cash in on his fifteen minutes of fame.

Read more about him though at this website: Nicholas Biddle.

*WARNING – SPOILER ALERT! The ending to the civil war will be revealed! STOP NOW if you don't know what happens next

The North would win the war and the Union would be preserved. Slavery would be abolished. The South would remain depressed and forgotten until 2010 when the New Orleans Saints won the Superbowl. Incidentally, droopy pants would make a comeback in the last decade of the twentieth century when suspenders went out of style. The last man to wear suspenders regularly was the little drummer boy of Company A, 96th Pennsylvania Infantry by the name of Larry King. He is the man of the last suspenders. And that is the rest of the story.