Why the Winter Carnival Queen Should Abdicate

Dear trout:

I am sympathetic to the Occupy Pottsville movement. However what gives with your demand that the Winter Carnival Queen abdicate her throne? I never saw such anger since the Shah of Iran was deposed or when the Maroons football championship title was revoked.

Royal Watcher

Dear Royal Watcher:

Neither the Winter Carnival Queen, nor the snowflake princesses, nor the snowdrop junior princesses represents county womenhood anymore. Sadly, the Queen has lost touch with reality. Why, you ask? First of all, if you follow the contest show me one obese contestant. I knew it. You can’t. Not one. Nada. Zippo.

What kind of message is this sending to the young plump girls who, right now, as you read this, are sitting on sofas, eating family-sized bags of barbecued Marsden potato chips and drinking liter bottles of mountain dew while watching Jersey Shore on TV and simultaneously chatting away on facebook and Myspace…telling the world what they like and dislike about Snookie? Don’t we owe them something for this multi=tasking?

Last summer at a Tuesday evening JFK Pool splash party, I stood up on a picnic table at the concession stand, trying my best to organize some of the heftiest middle-school girls to put down the family-sized bags of barbequed Marsden potato chips for at least an hour. I wanted them to rise up and overthrow the royal court. I gave a rally cry to storm the Winter Palace (which incidentally serves as the Catholic War Veterans Post during the off-winter month) but no one listened to me. In fact they were rather rude and told me to put down the bull horn and get off the table or they would smash the royal jewels and throw me over the fence.

Secondly, no contestant have been permitted to appear in the pageant wearing low-cut tank tops with short torn boxer shorts with the word “juicy” or “lager” on the backside with revealing, brightly colored thongs. Again, the Winter Carnival Committee is living in la-la land. They just don’t seem to get it anymore. They don’t seem to realize that many of our county’s shallow, materialistic young girls spend lots of money on these over-priced small pieces of threads, woven in third world countries which are passed off as “clothing” to the consumers who desire to express themselves.

Don’t we want to encourage self-expression and free them of the stifling dress codes hoisted upon them by the Carnival Committee. Again, what kind of message are the trying to send? I say that these clothes, which were good enough for my daughter to wear to her eighth grade prom, are good enough to be worn in Carnival competition. I recently wrote to Ms. Payne of the Carnival Committee and suggested that she get the DVD box set of Jersey Shore and then reconsider the dress code requirements.

I never got a response!

Thirdly, the talent competition is bor-ring… How many times must we listen to the Oscar Meyer theme song or watch Irish clog dancing? Aren't we all just sick of Irish clog dancing? Wouldn’t a pierogie eating contest be more exhilarating to watch? Wouldn’t it be more nostalgic; bringing back memories of the now defunct Pierogie Bowl held in the past every February? If that is unacceptable, then maybe a wings eating contest.

Fourthly, the question and answer sessions are bor---ring and time consuming. Since it is a Winter Carnival - not a Spring, Summer or Autumn Festival - the only question that should be asked of the young women should be weather-related.

My suggestion is that one short question, such as “How cold is it?” be asked to each and every contestant and the answer must be in one sentence only. For example: “How cold is it?” “It’s so cold that Mitt Romney changed his name to Mitten Romney,” “It’s so cold that I chipped my tooth on a frozen Marsden potato chip,” “It’s so cold that my torn boxer shorts are made out of flannel,” “It’s so cold that Bill Clinton thought that Hillary just walked into the room.” This would move the contest along at a rapid pace and it could finish well before its allotted eight hours. Much more interesting than listening to their aspirations and desires for peace and the elimination of hunger in the world. Speaking of hunger, I could use a Marsden potato chip right now.

None of my suggestions were acceptable to the Carnival Committee and that is why the Queen must abdicate her throne and the Winter Carnival governed by a people’s tribunal.

trout

Another bites the dust

Another historic building has been leveled in Pottsville, this one in the historic Minersville Street area, which had been renamed as Laurel Boulevard in an attempt to become more upscale and fashionable like Knob Hill or Rodeo Drive.
Yes, the building is gone, taken apart board by board. While Pottsville had undergone a feeding frenzy on historic buildings in the past several decades, this latest building to disappear has particularly stunned nearby residents. But at first I thought their concerns were unjustified.

I was told that it was not just a building made of wood and nails. No it was a social and architectural landmark within the city. It harkens one back to the forgotten era when Minersville Street was the social hub of the east coast; back to the gilded age when Pottsville was the center of the booming potato chip industry.
By the Civil War, the potato chip was king in the United States, and Pottsville was the heart of this prosperity. The Union Army needed potato chips and this area would supply them. Soon Victorian mansions sprang up and breweries were built. Potato chips make one thirsty and thereby created the need for beer. Plenty of beer.

Anthracite coal was dug and brought in by railroad to heat the chip ovens, while canal boats would float up the Schuylkill and unload their shipment of lard, salt and, of course potatoes, all to be taken up by mule team to the Potato Chip factory. On the return trip to bring the potato chips from the factory to the markets in far-away London, Paris and Rome, the workingmen would stop and enjoy the cultural delights that the city of Pottsville had to offer.
Did you know that in 1839 there were over 290,600 tons of potato chips that made their way down the canals to the ports in Philadelphia? Most of these were regular potato chips but at least 30,000 tons were of the bar-b-que variety.

Some historians believe that the leveled building (as seen in the photo at the top of this blog) was the long lost potato chip factory and it may have contained some potato chip fossils as well as other artifacts of the Minersville Street era, such as beer bottle caps.
“It was shocking that the building was knocked down without a field team of archeologists being permitted to sweep the floor first” said one self-proclaimed historian, a resident of Laurel Terrace Apartments across the street.

“It is a disgrace that the City permitted it to be torn down. There was so much history there. Young immigrant men were recruited and came from Europe to find employment in the local potato chip industry.”

Again, I thought that these people were wrong. I continued my investigation at the County Historical Society and researched the potato chip industry within the county. Lucky for me the Society had a special exhibit on fast foods eaten by early settlers. While most attention of the exhibit was devoted to the soft pretzel, I did find many learned treatises on potato chips. I sat in the reading room browsing through the dozens of books on the potato chip industry that made Pottsville an economic powerhouse in the 19th century. However I could find nothing on the old maps linking the leveled building to the potato chip industry or the entertainment industry on Minersville Street. The irate populace was misguided. The Marsden potato chip factory was located several blocks to the west. This building was also not a nightclub that World War II servicemen flocked to on weekend forloughs. Pearl Bailey never performed there.

But I was shocked to discover that the building leveled to the ground was indeed historic, but not because of the potato chip. No, it had been the inspiration for German author Herman Hesse when he wrote “Steppenwolf.” It was his so-called Magic Theatre. It was his theatre for madmen only. It was the theatre of the soul. Now it is gone forever.
Where is the Historical Architectural Review Board when we need it? If you come up with an answer, pass me the chips and another cold beer.