Duffy opens 2018 with a bittersweet Mummers tear-jerker

Captain Jake Kudrick and the Duffy String Band

On New Year's Day, we welcomed in 2018 with the usual pomp and celebration here in the United States and around the world.

In my hometown of Philadelphia, PA welcoming in the New Year means one thing above all others. That would be the annual Mummers Parade.

For the uninitiated, the Mummers Parade is one of the greatest spectacles of color, music, dancing, and merriment that you could ever enjoy. The vast majority of it, and the most fun, takes place right out on the streets of Philadelphia.

Mumming, a form of colorful costumed performance, is a tradition that dates at least back to England in the 13th century. In both England and Ireland in the mid-1700's, costumed Mummer's plays were put on, and this custom spread to America when we were still just a colony.

The following is from an article for the old Riverfront Mummers written by John Francis Marion back in 2007:

"Local tradition has it that as early as the 1620s the Swedes and Finns in Tinicum - now a southwestern section of the city - celebrated the New Year by shooting off guns (they were often called "the shooters"), banging pots and pans, and making a clamor as they visited neighbors after Christmas."

By the 18th century, Mummery had come to Philadelphia in the form of street parties and parading around Christmas time. These would merge with other working class celebrations over the next century or so, becoming a celebration of the arrival of the new year.

By the 19th century, city leaders were looking to organize the rowdy New Year's Day street celebrations. The city pushed for the marchers to organize into groups, each with leaders who would be held responsible for the actions of their individual group.

The first official Mummer's Parade was held on January 1, 1901. Over the next few decades the costuming and musical presentations became much more elaborate and sophisticated. For the longest time it was racially and sexually segregated, but those traditions (prejudices?) were dropped decades ago.

The parade has grown into an annual signature New Year's Day celebration on the streets of downtown and South Philly. Part of the celebration, the Fancy Brigades, have even been moved indoors. This allows more intricate and artistic presentations, and also guarantees a show for tourists on January 1, just in case poor weather postpones the rest of the day-long parading.

Many who marched in the Mummer's Parade passed down the marching tradition to their children. Those traditions have many times resulted in generations of a particular family not only taking part in the parade, but also remaining as staples within a particular organization.

Into this backdrop stepped Jake Kudrick on New Year's Day. In many ways, Jake is a typical 6th grader. Family, friends, school, video games, TV, music - you know the lifestyle.

His family story is also one that is familiar to many Philly Mummer families. Jake's dad, Teddy Kudrick, was Captain of the Duffy String Band for the last 32 years. Before that, it was Teddy's dad, Henry Kunzig, who had captained Duffy for 26 years. Jake has been marching alongside his dad since his first parade, when he was just 11 months old.

On October 19, tragedy struck Duffy and the Kudrick clan when Teddy died suddenly of a massive heart attack at home in Nether Providence Township, Delaware County. He was just 52 years old. You can imagine the emotional devastation that this brought to young Jake and his family.

The Good Old Days

Do you know that weird sensation of connection to your roots that you often feel when you see an old family member, friend, lover, teammate, or co-worker for the first time in years, maybe even decades?

Depending on the circumstances of your meet, it sometimes doesn't hit you until later. But almost always we go through that exercise in mental nostalgia which carries us back to those younger days and the experiences that we shared with this individual.

The innocent memories of childhood. The fun times of high school or college. The struggles and amusement involved in our early work years. The thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat on sporting fields.

The life, death, and love of family. Sometimes that person is linked to another person, or a group of others, and our memories will branch off towards those folks.

Well these types of memories and feelings have been happening to me more and more lately thanks to the social networking website called Facebook. I have stumbled across more family members and old friends on the internet thanks to this popular behemoth than I could ever have imagined.

People who I worked with years ago. Those who I hung out with on the corners of South Philly as a youth. Some who I played ball with as an adult. And being a police officer for the past 19 years there are cops, both old and new acquaintances. Lots of cops. The site allows you to mentally catch-up with these people.

We share small biographies of what we've been up to, photos of our family members and friends, videos of some of our life experiences, music and other media that we enjoy, and conversations with one another and each other.

These meetings of late have also driven home another point to me as well. My own memories of what is classically referred to as 'the good old days' are truly long gone.

A Third Story on American Street?

I grew up in a traditional, small South Philly rowhouse in the 2300 block of south American Street. Our block was one of the few in our working-class rowhouse neighborhood that had houses on only one side of the street.

Our houses were situated on the east side of the block, between Wolf and Ritner Streets. On the west side was Our Lady of Mount Carmel church and school.

The neighborhood eventually became known to some as 'Whitman' and it led into the next neighborhood north known as 'Pennsport', but nobody from down there used those names. To us, and to those in the other South Philly neighborhoods, we were 'Second Streeters' (some call us "Two Street") the name owing to 2nd Street which ran through the neighborhood and was home to many of the Mummer's Parade clubs who maintained their headquarters facilities along the street.

For those neanderthals not familiar, the Mummers are the thousands who parade each year on New Year's Day through the streets of Philadelphia in what is a cultural phenomenon of our town. But that topic for another day.

Down on 2nd Street, the families were mostly white. Many were of Irish ancestry, with some Germans and Polish mixed in as well. South Philly is largely known for it's Italian community, but they were further west from us. There weren't too many Italians down on 2nd Street.

So back to the topic of this blog post: A third story on American Street. Our block was, and still is for the most part, a long block of two-story homes with peaked roofs in front. It is a kind of signature to the block and a couple of others around that area.

But some one has committed a travesty, and they have done it right in my old house! They put a third story on American Street (see picture), and man does it look out of place.