The Mighty Twenty Three

One of the oldest  (before 1877) and longest urban bus routes, for many years the longest streetcar route in the world, is SEPTA's 23 bus, here in the Quaker City. Described as "SEPTA's rolling cash register", it winds from the wealthy reaches of Chestnut Hill, through historic Germantown, through the "Badlands", downtown and ends in deep South Philadelphia. Ridership changes from white to black to Asian to white en route.

Folks still work at getting it back to be a streetcar line, especially after seeing route 23 streetcars in robust daily service in San Francisco.
Among the landmarks it passes in North Philly is Fair Hill Cemetery, resting place for early Quakers, abolitionists and female rights advocates. According to some often verbose passengers that cannot comprehend the site signage or the several murals nearby, it is a) the oldest black cemetery or b) the oldest pet cemetery in a)Philadelphia or b) the United States. This may be due to the Quaker tradition of marking graves with very modest stones.

 

 

These days SEPTA's 23 and other busses have become more and more festooned with advertising that often covers the entire bus, making it look like a Heineken bottle or a large gin & tonic. They also have ads for personal injury lawyers (who sue one another to gain ad space on our public transit) on the back.

 

The 23 also passes two wonderful places, to me heavens on earth. First is the Reading terminal Market, which lends joy to conventioneers and jury members among many others. Its inside -

 

 





 Even better, just a few stops further south, is the Italian market, a mecca to some and a great place to get some python, buffalo tongue or a pig (that's a whole pig, as in pig roast). Someday maybe Connie and I can rent a place above one of these stores...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hipper Than Thou

Here in the City of Brotherly Love, we are getting way hipper than most folks think. Not only did we have a "Texting Lane" around city hall (this was an April Fool's joke on the part of Hizzoner Mayor Nutter). Now, to outdo all others, we have UNICYCLE Lanes, or at least one of them, to wit see below-

 

 

We are getting so hip that now the old old Koch'e Deli in West Phila is Zagat rated, for crying out loud.

 

Where will it end? 

About the Best Thing I Do

It is good to ask oneself what value one's activities have from time to time.
After retiring I decided to join my Connie as a reading coach for a program called Philadelphia Reads. She works downtown and every Thursday during the school year two classes of first graders come to her building from the Isaac Sheppard School, a 114 year old elementary public school in the poorest ZIP code in the city (or perhaps the country). Each week I get to help a kid learn to read. In a lot of cases, these coaches and their teachers are the only adults in the kids lives that think learning to read is important.
I never ask about parents because usually there is only one. Vacations are another bad topic, since they mostly never have any. They come in never really clean clothes, bright and cheerful and glad to see us. Then you learn that the oven at home has too many cockroaches so no hot food or, more importantly to them, cake. One child I coached was obviously dyslexic, but despite three tries by his teacher to get his mom to see a doc, he made no reading progress for the entire year.
This year, even this early into the school year, my kid is making good progress. At first he would not let go of his teacher's hand and worried (in Spanish) about people falling out of the neighboring office towers - he had never seen things so big. Now he is braver, speaks clearly, and holy moly, he reads better every week. So there may be hope for him, no matter how hard our legislators try to destroy his life chances.

Stalwart Beauty and Let's All Help the Rabbits

Rescued from a short life as junky desk décor, our little rose has bloomed four times, and this one is from a couple of days ago. As the beautiful color of the leaves fades into crappy stuff we need to get rid of, this joyous flower is a wonder in November.

And let's all be sure to note that here in the Land of Giants, our state legislature has decreed that November is Rabbit Breeders Month. We do not need schools, health care. roads, busses, pension funds or stuff like that. However we very much need more rabbits. Who knew it was hard to breed rabbits? Ah, Pennsyltucky, home of the myopic and the brave!