as seen on phillyBurbs.com
Peculiarly Philly
Although I was born in Philly in '67, I'm a child of the Burbs. My family moved to Bucks a few years later.
After 12 years of school in Council Rock and four at Temple, I moved to central Pa. to find work. I stood out like a deer on I-95.
What is it with these people, I often wondered. At times, we didn't seem to speak the same language.
Finally, I figured out they simply grew up with a different set of TV channels. As far as they were concerned, the Philly area is known only for cheesesteaks, Rocky, the Mummers, American Bandstand, the Fresh Prince, Boyz2Men and booing Santa Claus.
But nowhere else on the planet do people remember the day a TV weather man fell from the sky.
Or that their now governor-elect once bet a guy he couldn't reach the field in Veteran's Stadium with a snowball during an Eagles game when he was the city's D.A.
Who says you can't go home again.
Here are a few of the other things in my brain that can only be attributed to growing up here in the '70s and '80s:
- The city blowing up the neighborhood with a bomb and letting it burn, only to later hire the mayor's buddy to rebuild it. The contractor then ended up in jail.
- Wee Willie Weber
- Monster movie Saturdays with Dr. Shock
- Sending your picture to dear ol' Captain Noah.
- Bowling/Dialing for dollars.
- Larry Ferrari
- Zipperheads
- The fog Bowl
- Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams blowing the World Series and then getting death threats.
- Everybody who knows goes to Melrose
- Channel 48, after years of showing Dagwood and Bowery Boys movies, signing off.
- Going to the Franklin Institute as a kid to see the giant heart. Beats like a drum, smells like a lockerroom.
- Soft pretzels come in paperbags and are sold on the Boulevard.
- Krass Brothers - store of the stars.
- Deer hunting isn't a school holiday here.
- Parking tickets in other towns that cost as much as parking for an hour in Philly.
- Paying Inepta more than a buck to ride a train, subway or bus one-way.
- The Morning Zoo with John DeBella.
- The Eagle at John Wannamaker's.
- The Indian statue and robots in the Neshaminy Mall.
