Reflection on summer events

Winning! I have completed my stay in rehab and have returned to Schuylkill County.

My first stop was the Eagles Club in Pottsville. My second stop was the Yuengling Dairy on Mahantongo Street where I indulged myself with a double scoop of Prothonocherry Ice Cream.

What did I miss while I was in rehab? For one thing, I was informed that a local tax collector was busted for allegedly having sticky fingers. This saddened me as I am a big supporter of the profession of local tax collector and recommend it to any school age child who has the wear-with-all and skills to open envelopes. Schuylkill County has at least sixty six other local tax collectors, all elected by the people and for the people, so one fallen angel won’t be missed but if there is a problem then I suggest a senior tax collector can be brought out of retirement to fill the void.

People don’t realize that it is a lot of work opening those envelopes and marking “paid” into the ledger.

Some naysayers have even argued that the position of an elected tax collector for each municipality should be abolished but I believe having a tax collector that lives in the neighborhood offers us all a sense of comfort and security. I bet you do too. I hate sending my Comcast, PPL and ATT bills to some anonymous person in some distant city. I would prefer a local Comcast, PPL and ATT bill collector in every municipality.... I take that back.... On second thought I would prefer a distant Comcast bill collector rather than some local blabbermouth telling everyone how many Spice Channel movies I pay for every month. So maybe just a local PPL and ATT bill collector. Scratch a local Comcast bill collector for now. The further away, the better.

What else did I miss while in rehab? Well, the big headline in the local paper announcing the closing of Minersville’s Frank and Burger Restaurant. This announcement is one of the biggest blows to the county economy since the closing of Argo Mills and the Schuylkill Haven Bounce-O-Rama ( note: the Argo Mills and Bounce-O-Rama did not close simultaneously) and this can have a far reaching impact on the county’s fragile economy as well as the flegling local wedding planning industry.

One local woman, standing on her front porch, expressed concern about how the closing will affect her, the neighbors, the other businesses in the borough and the general way of life in the community.

“It’s gonna hurt,” she said, “we are all struggling with the news…we are all crying and – you know, nervous. The County Commissioners had promised to send in grief counselors, but I have yet to see one. I plan to write a letter to our Congressman to see what he can do for us. This is worst than Katrina.”

I am showing my age when I confess that I am old enough to remember the time before “the big merger.” At one time there was a hot dog restaurant and then there was the hamburger restaurant. Hot dogs and hamburgers were not allowed to be sold at one restaurant simultaneously in Schuylkill County. Many youngsters don't realize this and take it for granted. Shame on them.

In time the two restaurants eventually merged, but not without a fight. Supporters of the merger argued that that it was a-bun-dantly unfair for an individual who wanted to both dine on a frankfurter and a hamburger to have to make two stops. They were frank and upfront with their complaints and the County Commissioners did not relish a fight and eventually approved the merger; stating that the Sherman Anti-trust law did not apply. Sharia or Murphy's Law did not apply either. Hot dogs and hamburgers could be sold on one menu in one restaurant at one time to one individual. And soon afterwards, spaghetti could be served with meatballs. It was a liberating feeling that we all shared. I remember the jubilant crowds filling up Sunbury Street, bigger than when the local softball team wins.

Now, with the demise of the Frank and Burger Restaurant, efforts are underway to make sure the people of Minersville are not without hot dogs and burgers. STS busses will have special runs between Coney Island in Yorkville and Minersville, where they will be met by special grief counselors hired through a summer work program.

The Maroon Cheerleaders

The Untold Story of the Pottsville Maroon Cheerleaders

Before the 1925 NFL championship season, the Pottsville Maroon cheerleader squad was composed of only unemployed coal miners. In fact it was not until 1920 that women won the right to cheerlead when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified.

"The right of citizens of the United States to cheerlead shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Seeing cheerleaders was rarely a reason to watch a football game prior to the Constitution being amended, unless one was interested in watching dusty laidoff coal miners jump up and down. In 1924 it was decided that the cheerleading squad needed a new image and a decision was made to drop the miners and select an all female squad from the local garment factories in the Pottsville-Minersville area. This shrewd decision was based on "Dr. John" Striegel’s idea that a change to the cheerleader image was necessary to boost attendance. Apparently goldfish swallowing and flag-pole sitting were catching on in the coal region, luring many football fans away from the games. Now that the Maroons were going to be part of the NFL, it would be embarrassing for the franchise team to have lower radio ratings than amateur gold fish swallowing and amateur flag pole sitting. Radio coverage on WPPA of both of these crazes was pushing football off of the airwaves. Something had to be done.

The Miss Pennsylvania factory was selected to totally redesign the cheerleader outfits. Gone would be the heavy boots, bib overalls, and miner’s helmets. At first babuskas, woolen overcoats and arctic boots were experimented with, but within two weeks a more modern, feminine flapper-type outfit was chosen –daring for the times. Apparently the mostly male audience desired to see a little more flesh and an exposed calf would have to do, to the outrage of many of the local clergy who gave sermons on the ruination of western civilization if the lower back of a woman’s leg was exposed on or off the playing field.

That spring hundreds of young women converged at Kings’ Plaza where the Maroons played their games to audition; all sharing a single dream of being selected. The preliminaries, semi-finals and finals of the auditioning process were all held in that parking lot and resulted in twelve young women being picked to head off to Cheerleading Training Camp high atop Sharp Mountain. The process of turning civilian garment workers into professional cheerleaders has been described as a form of conditioning in which the inductees are encouraged to submerge their individuality for the good of the squad and the results were obvious.

For six grueling weeks, these candidates were transformed from fragile whiny and annoying young girls to powerfully disciplined young women, rehearsing for ten hour days, six days a week. Their diet consisted of football staples such as nacho cheese sauce, funnel cake and soft pretzels and it showed.

Besides the physical endurance, the candidates attended classes on grooming and personal hygiene, and diction. The latter was most important as the cheerleaders had to perfect the Schuylkill County dialect. They studied under the tutelage of language professors and anthropologists every Saturday from one o’clock until three thirty, or as one would say “one o’clock ‘til tree turdy.” Time would be spent mastering such common words such as dis, dat, dem, dese, dose, dere, dat dere. Ain’t that right?

In 1925 the revamped cheerleader squad debuted to the loud roar of approval from those in attendance at the games as well as from the patrons of Radzievich’s supermarket and Palarmo’s Restaurant who happened to be there during game time.

These girls were hot!

With the help of the reinvented cheerleaders, the Maroons went on to win the NFL championship that year by distracting the opposing teams with their pom poms, human pyramids and exposed calf muscles.

The rest is history and the stuff that legends are made of.

Polka Club memories

I was at the Altamont Free Festival back in the late nineteen sixties. You know, the legendary celebration held in the south end of Frackville. How did I hear about it? Well, I was sitting at the counter at Phaon’s Diner waiting for my scrapple breakfast, listening to my Toshiba transistor radio which was tuned to the WPPA Sunday morning Polka show. It was difficult to hear polka music in my native west end of the county so I had to set the radio next to the window to get clearer reception. That is when I first heard that a free concert was planned to be held in Altamont with an intoxicating line-up of the county’s best bands. Later Yak Tam Billy Urban made the same announcement on WMBT, the station that played progressive polka music.

I knew it would a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I had to go to Altamont and be part of the county’s musical history. Just think about it, the Jordan Brothers, The Other Side, Lil’ Andy, Tony Karpee, The Schuylkill Haven Belvederes’ Drum & Bugle Corp, Big Barrel Emil Simodejka, Buddy Widel Trio, The Individuals, and so many others, all on one stage...and for free. The event would go down in Schuylkill County musical mythology.
It would be three days of peace and love in “The Mountain City.”
Before I tell you of the festival, I want you all to know that while my musical taste was based in “underground” Polka music, I was open-minded to listening to other forms of music. Underground polka music is the edgy polka music that did not have a mainstream following. Traditional polka music could be heard on the Lawrence Welk Show but I preferred the raw energy heard at the Bavarian Festival in Barnesville. The best polka music was not the sappy, upbeat, happy Myron Floren-variety, but rather the type of polka that reflected the dismal lifestyle of many of our county youths. This music circled itself around both aggression and crime (as found in the lyrics of “Who Stole the Keeshka?”) and misogyny ( “She’s Too Fat Polka”- utterly offensive to Rubenesque women). As an angry white boy, it was the music that spoke to me…it was both the music that annoyed anyone over thirty and was also the music to allow me to “get jiggy with the ladies.”
While polka music was unheard of in my native Pine Grove, misogynistic lyrics were not. In fact the west end “Hoe Down” music was notorious and the subject of a Grand Jury Probe on obscenity in the record industry. That will be a story for another day.
I was attracted to this new, high-energy polka music with its pulsating 2/4 beat, and I remained an underground polka aficionado for many, many years - a regular on the polka party club scene that flourished in the clandestine, boilo-fueled houses of northern Schuylkill county. I longed for those twelve hours of non-stop musical bliss. Minersville was a Mecca for polka clubbers like myself, where the all-night DJs would play the latest Jimmy Sturr, Frankie Yankovic, Stanky and Eddie Blazonczk albums for the revelers, remixing polka tracks in and out of each other. Some of these house DJs became celebrities in their own right; Jouz Cabachi, from WPPA, is one name that comes to mind. This legendary figure turned polka turntablism into an art form by beat mixing, matching and scratching, exploring the repetition and altering rythms of polkas, obereks, mazurkas and czardashes. Yes ear-shattering clarinets, accordians, alto saxes and trumpets all blending together! What a time to be alive! Stomping on people’s feet! Frantically pushing and shoving into the swirling crowd as if it was an out of control rugby game! Full-figured factory girls in their stretch pants seductively removing their babushkas and throwing them into the crowd; all the while the energy was fed by kielbassi and pierogies, washed down with boilo, Columbia beer and Kaier’s ale.
Whoop-I, Shupp-I!

Of course, we got criticism from our elders, as there were many injuries, mainly broken toes. Soon safety codes were enforced at the clubs due to the public outcry. The Bavarian Festival was shut down and many of the clandestine clubs turned themselves into respectable parking lots that began appearing in the area in the nineteen seventies.
I will have to tell you about the Altamont Festival some other time.

Our Lady of....where?.... Minersville?

I was out of town and I missed all of the excitement in Minersville. From what I understand the town now is ready to skyrocket into the big league. First there was Fatima, then there was Lourdes (or do I have it backwards? I just don’t know.). Now there will be Minersville. Will Minersville be ready for the challenge when tens of thousands of pilgrims visit the sleepy little community made famous by its two wedding halls, its federal prison, and being the home of Joseph Balsis, a legendary billiards champion. I doubt it.

Then I started to wonder. Why would Mary, the mother of Jesus, visit Minersville of all places? It is baffling to me. I remember the old Miracle Mart just outside of town in the Plaza; when that place closed so did the town’s connection with anything metaphysical - or so I thought. By the way, the only miracle I ever remember happening in that old department store was being able to squeeze through a narrow aisle filled with wide shoppers, all in polyester stretch pants, who were coming towards me with their shopping carts. I was there to buy a Doobie Brothers eight track at the time.

I do know that if I were in heaven right now and I could return to earth I certainly would pick a place like the resort of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic; I would also pick the month of January and not August to appear there. But I guess if I was going to appear in Minersville then I certainly would pick August and not January. Did you ever go to Minersville in January with the snow and slush all around? It’s enough to make you want to stop going to the Sunbury Street Frank ‘n Burger in the winter time (almost).
Some say that word may have got out in the celestial heavens that Minersville was to celebrate “Spirit Day” and perhaps it may have been misinterpreted as “Holy Spirit Day.” Did you ever hear some elderly person from Heckscherville talk real fast? Could you figure out what he or she was saying? You get the picture - a failure to communicate properly.

Others say that no one told her that Rokosz Hotel was closed. She thought Rokosz' was still having "Our Lady's Night" on Wednesdays. I certainly think someone is trying to pull my leg on that one. But do you remember Rokosz’ Hotel on Sunbury Street? I had great times there back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. If it reopened I would go back. I remember seeing “The Other Side” play there with Jimmy Kimmel singing a rockin’ “Expressway to Your Heart.” I saw them first at “The Globe” and then later at Rokosz’ and the Minersville Legion on Sunday nights. It was like heaven, man. That was when Minersville was at its artistic peak.

But why visit a garage on Lewis Street? I mean, if your mind is set on visiting Minersville, and there is no changing it, then why not visit a car dealership, say like Mickey Pritz’s Chrysler showroom, rather than a garage. That’s where I would have appeared, as if anyone would care. Maybe I would even take a test drive in a ’07 convertible Crossfire while waiting for crowds to gather. Or maybe head I would over to the Minersville football field and show coach Pat Mason the intricacies of throwing a real “Hail Mary” pass.

All of this has gotten me to write a book. The premise of my book is that Minersville is really “heaven,” (but no one has figured it out yet) and everyone living in Minersville, past or present, is a cherubim, seraphim or archangel. I mean everyone, including our county coroner and all the employees at Palarmo’s Restaurant.

Joe Balsis will definitely be an Archangel in my book, as he has a leading role. My book will have similarities with three films: the Bruce Willis hit movie, “The Sixth Sense”, the Jackie Gleason movie about a pool shark called, “The Hustler", and lastly the religious movie from the ‘40s, “The Song of Bernadette.” Two thumbs up from me on all of those films! Go over to West Coast video and check them all out. You won’t be disappointed with any of them. You can stop there on your way to the little garage in Minersville.