New Year Baby Contest Cancelled

 

     NEW YEAR BABY CONTEST CANCELLED AMIDST PANDEMIC

                               City in a tizzy

  

Pottsville City officials met late into the night at zoom meeting to discuss the fate of one of its most beloved events – the annual New Year Baby Contest.  For nearly 200 years the contest brought tears to the eyes of both mothers and reluctant fathers, who all vied for a chance to win prizes donated from downtown merchants.  Records indicate that in 1827 the chief burgess proclaimed that the town would reward fertility on the beginning of every calendar year with modest prizes awarded.  Miss Priscilla Boyer, the first recipient, received a quart of sauerkraut, lace-trimmed pantaloons, two candlesticks and dinner for two at the White Horse Tavern.  The father, a nameless itinerant peddler, would have received a brass spittoon but it was never claimed. The spittoon was eventually escheated to the state where it sits today in a corner.  

With the COVID-19 virus enveloping the nation, the weary Pottsville Surgeon General held a press conference on March 18^th from his booth at the old Eagles Club on South Second Street, still strewn with tattered St. Patrick’s Day decorations.  He crushed his cigarette and told the reporters that he was recommending social distancing - a practice that would obviously make conception much more difficult.  He also announced that people should follow his example and drink alone, releasing a catchy slogan, “If the virus makes you cough and groan, don’t fret and just drink alone”   before rambling into his theory on the curative effects of boilo.  When pressed on the cancellation of social events, he took a wait and see attitude on the future of the New Year Baby Contest and Senior Olympics. 

The cancellation of the 2021 New Year Baby Contest immediately sent shockwaves throughout the city.  At its peak in the 1970s hundreds would camp outside the Pottsville Hospital for several days and nights waiting for the winner to be announced and hoping to catch a glimpse of the baby; with many of the men curious as to who the baby looked like in a time before the discovery of dna testing.  The contest was also good for the local economy as the numerous downtown bookies worked overtime as thousands placed bets on whether the baby would be a girl or a boy ( a practice now outlawed), the height and weight of the child, color of the eyes, and the number of hairs on the baby’s head. 

The cancellation is especially difficult on many young girls who already are in the dark wondering if their school would reopen. And now this.

Hunkered Down: COVID-19 special edition

                                              Hunkered Down 

I’ve been shut out of the Historical Society for days now.  No, my membership did not lapse.  I’ve been shut out as a result of the virus attack.  You know, the COVID-19 virus.  The first thing I will do when it reopens is to suggest to the staff that they eliminate any references to geographic or ethnic adjectives on past pandemics.  You know, “Spanish” flu is an insulting term to those of Hispanic origin. Also, many get the name confused with Spanish fly.   Likewise using the term “German” measles caused sauerkraut sales to plummet at Renninger's Market.  MERS is insulting to those living in the Middle East and Lyme disease is insulting to those from Connecticut.  Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever places a stigma on anyone owning a John Denver record.  I own one, it’s called “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk on Christmas)."  Its playing right now as you read this.  Take a listen: THE BEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER WRITTEN.

Meanwhile, I am hunkered down in my fallout shelter that my family dug in the early 1960s.  I am trying to pass the time.  We stored away lots of food and vital supplies that have been untouched for years; for instance cases of Mount Carbon Bavarian beer, beer bologna and Mootz chocolates.  Did you know that every Mootz peanut roll has exactly 38 small pieces of peanut attached? Probably not.  However, I have lots of time on my hands now.  Also, you probably did not know that Necho Allen, the discoverer of anthracite coal, also created the recipe for coal candy.  I plan to take the tiny metal buckets that held its precious cargo to the recycling center once the coast is clear.  For now I use them as ash trays. Luckily I stored cartons of cigarettes away and I don't have to read the stupid Surgeon General Warnings on them.   

Looking around the shelter, I have quite a collection of county memorabilia.  Did you know that the first eye chart in the county used Pennsylvania Dutch colorful lettering, but which spelled out an off-color word?  I have one of those.  Its hanging on my fallout shelter wall.  I read it aloud now and Mammie gets a chuckle out of it.  We are a safe six feet distance from each other.  Coincidentally that is the same distance we’ve been keeping for the past twenty years. 

I have many old newspapers and magazines down here that I dusted off that relate to Schuylkill County.  Back in 1962, the headline of the Pottsville Republican was that the borough of Mount Carbon was considering merging with Roadside America.  Luckily, that never happened.  Roadside America is now gone but, thank God, we still are blessed with Mount Carbon. 

I dusted off an old mechanical science book on the first elevator installed in the Thompson Building.  Astonishingly, for years it only went up.  Another rare book I have down here is on the secret society known as “the Mollie Maguires.”  Most people don’t realize that the original name was going to be “the Mary Margaret Maguires,” but the 3M Company threatened a lawsuit. 

Mamie is reading an old newspaper from the early 1960’s with an in-depth investigative report on superior court Judge G. Harold Watkins.  She was surprised to learn that his favorite Disney character was really Donald Duck.  That blew my mind!  Sadly, the press doesn’t do investigative reporting anymore.  In the same issue there is an interesting  historical article on the 1898 Spelling Bee when it was raided by the Pottsville vice squad after the word petticoat was said aloud to a young female contestant. 

So much time on my hands, with this pandemic.  Luckily for the county this disease was called the coronavirus and not the yuenglingvirus. Then we would be up the creek without a paddle. I know and I pray that we will recover and Schuylkill County economically will get back on its knees where it was before the outbreak.

Now back to my old newspapers and magazines. I am reading that the biggest fear that county residents had years ago, was not about catching a virus, but rather getting accousted by Vulcans trying to sell them Winter Carnival Buttons.  

                                    My times have changed.