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 I never saw such anger since the Shah of Iran was deposed or when the Maroons football championship title was revoked.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

Where have I been?

Where have I been?
I have been away for some time; unable to maintain the blog.
I apologize.

I was part of the Occupy Pottsville movement. I was camped out in Pocket Park.

The new city park on South Centre Street.

I was there for about two months.

Yes, that was me you probably gave the finger to, driving by on
your way to Maroons.

We would practice our chants until late in the evening.

That annoyed many of you.

Well, excuse me.

We are gone now.

No more chants.
We finally disbanded on Saturday night, the eve of the new year.
I can’t remember what our demands were but the city agreed to postpone
renaming Pocket Park.

That was one of the demands, I think.

We had lower expectations than our Occupy Wall Street compatriots.

We realized that we couldn’t
stop the billions given away to corporations as bail-outs by the government, we couldn’t
stop the tax perks and crony contracts given to multi-national businesses,

we couldn’t stop the military-industrial complex from continuing endless wars, and we couldn’t stop the give-aways to our elected officials, such as the defined benefit pensions with cost of living
increases even when the cost of living doesn’t increase.

No, our sights were lower…much lower.

We wanted subsidies for the local bars to have longer happy
hours.

Yes, that was one demand.

We wanted the Mayor to reinstate the dances that were held on the Norwegian Street
parking lot so that the 99% of us could once again dance freely with our backs to the wind.

That would require dance lessons to be given at various locations throughout the city,

not just at Catholic War Veterans Post.

We wanted skating boarding to be once again legalized in the downtown.

We wanted cartoon characters to once again grace Garfield Square at Christmas time so that our children, our step-children, our significant other's children and her step-children could experience an old fashioned Christmas.

Most of all, we wanted The Winter Carnival Queen to abducate her throne and be sent away to a nunnery.

We wanted her replaced with a newly created People's Winter Carnival Tribunal.

After we disbanded several of the protestors went to Garfield Square.

They would watch the beer bottle ascend.

Others went to the Hospital to await the arrival of the New Year baby.

Not me.

I went home.

I already knew the outcomes.

The bottle would rise and the baby would drop.

The baby would once again be born out of wedlock.

Nothing changes around.

Don't you agree?

It was a long two months and I needed a bath. a powerball ticket and a shot of boilo.

Not necessarily in that order.

Happy New Year.

the history of the Cressona Tunnel

The history of the Cressona Tunnel

West Haven, or as it is now known as the borough of Cressona*, is divided into two parts. East Cressona is the industrious section and home of the Aluminum plant, Schuylkill Products and Trail Gardens Center. West Cressona has the Dodge City Café. Both sides however need the other. To get from one side to the other was never easy. To correct this, the borough’s founding fathers had a tunnel constructed along Route 183. The tunnel now hosts approximately 120,000 vehicles every day. Mostly these vehicles consist of Walmart trucks as well as passenger cars filled with elderly people travelling to Bill’s Produce to purchase fresh fruit for their daily fiber intake as well as those of us who headed to the Dodge City Café for happy hour.

The tunnel became world famous when the producers of the video game Grand Theft Auto III used the entrance of the tunnel in the video game. Later the tunnel had a cameo appearance in the video game Donkey Kong. The tunnel also gained notoriety for being reversible on all major British holidays. On those days, such as Boxing Day, drivers will drive through the tunnel on the left side rather than the right. It is a spectacle to watch.

The tunnel was financed through a combination of revenue bonds, S& H Green stamps and soda bottle deposits. Ideas for the tunnel appeared as early as 1840, but soda bottles with a deposit hadn’t been invented yet, nor was glue and the S & H Green stamps would fall out of the books and onto the floor.

Since its construction in the early part of the 20^th century, the tunnel has faced several problems. First it was the management and control of the toll booths. The toll booths were necessary to recoup the construction and maintenance costs, retire the revenue bonds issued, and return the staggering amount of soda bottles that were left along the roadside waiting to be redeemed. However the toll booths caused serious traffic back-ups. Eventually both of the booths were pillaged and burned by irate travelers, especially by those irritable elderly travelers in search of reasonably fresh fruit to maintain regularity. Today, the toll booths are a part of history and anyone using the tunnel is now required to have an E-Z Pass device.

The most serious problem with the tunnel is that it was not built high enough and the enormous size of todays trucks transporting stuff for consumers to buy resulted in hundreds of trucks stuck within the tunnel. Three years ago one truck loaded with whoopee cushions remained lodged within the tunnel for seventy-two hours, creating a massive traffic jam as well as a whoopee cushion shortage within the county.

It was decided that warning signals needed to be erected. Proposal after proposal was given a try. The first proposal was to construct a large piñata in front of both sides of the tunnel. This was a failure as truckers deliberately hit the piñata and then stopped to pick up the candy that spilled out before getting the truck stuck in the tunnel. The second proposal was to hang a trucker in front of the tunnel. This lasted only one week due to the protests from various human rights organizations and other do-gooders. Finally the Cressona Borough officials, after listening to the scientists who espoused the theory that watching Sponge Bob slows a person down, decided to utilize the system that is in place now, despite the substantial copyright fees that must be paid with cash, S & H Green Stamps or unreturned soda bottles. No further disruption of the tunnel traffic has occurred since.

* from the word "cresson" meaning a moderately yellow-green color.

Bieber Day, September 18th

I was looking at the list of upcoming events occurring in Schuylkill County in September and I was intrigued by the Bieber Day Celebration in Pottsville. This year it will be on September 18^th as the event changes every year. The change is caused by a combination of the phase of the moon, the alignment of Jupiter and Uranus as well as the midget football schedule. This is according to the Pottsville Planetarium and the midget athletic department.

Why Bieber Day? Why Pottsville? What is the connection? No one is quite sure as there has never been a celebration of one particular individual in the county’s history. Not for John O’Hara, not for Tommy Dorsey, and not for Conrad Richter. A celebration to honor WPPA's radio legend, Wee Willie Whistle, although planned for October 1962 had been cancelled due to the Cuban Missile crisis as well as conflict with the midget football schedule.

This young Canadian pop star has never performed in the county seat. Not at the Sovereign Majestic Theatre, not at the Hippodrome, not at Goodfellas (which technically is not in the county seat but in an appendix to the county seat). Pottsvillians immediately took a shine to the young mop top singing sensation and they agreed to set aside one day in the month of September to honor him. On Bieber Day people from all walks of life will put aside their daily activities. Men will get up from their lazy boys, put out their cigarettes, and turn off their televisions sets. Women also get up from their lazy boys, put out their cigarettes, and turn of their television sets in the other rooms. They will gather together within the garden park that bears the youngster’s name, swaying back and forth to the strains of the Third Brigade Band’s melodic interpretations of his greatest hits. Hits that we all have come to know by heart and now part of the soundtrack of our lives.

Remember the feelings that you had when you first saw the scene in the film Casablanca when Victor Laslo began to sing “La Marseillaise” in defiance of the Germans? Remember how you felt when you watched that for the first time? Do you also remember the feelings that you had when you had your first hole in one at Heisler’s Miniature Golf Course? Now throw in the feelings that you had when your cell phone was in your pocket and it rang and it was set on vibrate? Well multiply all of those feelings by nine and one-half and then divide that by seven and then take the square root of that. This is the level of excitement you will have when you enter the park and participate in your first Bieber Day celebration. You will get a hint of the exhilaration awaiting you as you travel up Market Street after spending the earlier part of the day at Renninger’s Market with the rest of us. You will spot the mini-jams, guerilla dances, and Bieber hair pieces all over the place. This is nothing compared to the goings on within the park where each and every one of us is a player.

This year, Bieber Day is on September 18^th, - coincidentally the 41^st anniversary of the death of a great American guitarist, singer and songwriter- so a special bagpipe salute will occur at 6:50 which will feature lively but respectful renditions of Jimi Hendrix classics such as “Purple Haze” and “Are You Experienced.” This poignant performance should attract those of you old enough to remember Jimi Hendrix, John O’Hara, Tommy Dorsey, Conrad Richter as well as radio personality Wee Willie Whistle. It should also attract those of you who couldn’t care less about Justin Bieber.

At the time this blog is posted it was unclear whether the fire marshal would issue a waiver to allow the musician to spontaneously pour lighter fluid on his bagpipes, burn and smash them on the stage, and then throw the remnants into the audience as his grand finale. Those of us who deny that the bagpipes are really a musical instrument hope the waiver is granted. Pronto. That alone would be worth the price of admission.