When You're Smiling

 We're not sure why they call them "Mummers" - those painted up, costumed up paraders who come out in Philadelphia around New Year's every year. Perhaps the name "mummer" comes from the ancient Greeks, who used to have Momus, the god of satire and mockery.

Or there's an Olde English word "mommer," which the Olde English used to talk about mimes wearing masks while frolicking around.

Whatever the derivation, the Mummers are a big thing in the City of Brotherly Love, strutting around playing a particular sort of music I happen to love - the music of the string band. It sounds like this - "Alabama Jubilee" by the Jos. A. Ferko String Band or "When You're Smiling" by the South Philadelphia String Band or the "Four Leaf Clover Medley" by the Quaker City String Band.

A string band is limited to these instruments: saxophones, banjos, accordions, violins, bass violins, and percussion instruments. And notice in the videos I linked, the people listening are happy, the bands are strutting and happy, and good times are in the air. You will not find the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra strutting their way through some lugubrious tunes like Danse Macabre in G Minor or the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. 

And these musicians come from all parts of Philly and hold all sorts of "real" jobs...so the guy playing the sax next to a banjo player might be the guy who delivers hoagie rolls to WaWa, or he might just be a medical doctor.

In fact, on New Year's Day at the Philadelphia Eagles game, a Mummer all dressed up and painted up in pink and blue swaggered in a parade to the stadium before the game, and was in the stands with his bandmates when a fan suffered a medical emergency, causing him to turn blue in the stands.

Fortunately for the fan in distress, that particular Mummer was Dr Vincent Basile, M.D. who has been on the ER staff at Einstein Medical Center for three years. 

"I didn't really expect this to happen when I was at the Eagles game in a Mummers suit on the first day of the year," the multi-talented physician joked.  

"He's like blue in the face," Dr. Basile said. "He's not moving. He's not really breathing. Thankfully I have some great training, so it kind of kicked in at that point to help out," he added.  

"I'm in full face paint, sunglasses, costume, the whole nine," Dr. Basile said. "I have to convince everyone that I'm a doctor when I get up there because it's a little hard to believe when I'm wearing that suit."

A nurse came from the crowd to back him up doing CPR, and the patient came to after three minutes of CPR ("Color started coming back into his face a little bit," Dr. Basile said. "He starts breathing and he wakes up a little but and he's dazed and confused.") and then the doctor and the nurse went back to their seats and watched the game, later learning that the patient was still recovering in the hospital.

I wish the patient many happy years of being able to tell his friends, "You're not gonna BELIEVE who helped me!"