[Prov1322]

When my father's parents came to Philly from Sicily, with a few dollars in their pockets and speaking little English (after a brief stay in NY, following Ellis Island around 1920) my Grandfather and his two brothers settled in a North Philly neighborhood and opened a Barber Shop.

My (beloved) Grandfather and his older brother, Uncle Joe, decided to leave the shop to the younger brother, Uncle Tony, while they pursued jobs and life in the (at that time) "far-away suburb" of Mayfair/Frankford.

When I arrived on the scene in 1951, my parents bought on the same block with the result of three expressions of the family on the same block of row homes. It wasn't until the early 70's that they started locking the front door during the day. As a kid, it was unlocked until night.

Even in the early 60's when I went with the grandparents to visit Uncle Tony, the North Philly neighborhood had become a nightmare of mostly break-ins and thefts.

Now, the once beautiful Mayfair/Frankford neighborhood of my youth has become a nightmare of drugs, assaults and murders. A heroin stash house was busted a block away last year.

All sad beyond description.

ALL under the continuous watch of democrats ruling the city. Liberalism is a mental illness and it destroys everything that it infests.

One of my saddest Philly memories was in 1971 riding home on the Amtrak commuter train and seeing Connie Mack stadium in flames.

[Albion Wilde]

Wow.

I always tear up when I hear “Anatefka” from “Fiddler on the Roof.” Sounds like we both can identify.

At least Tevye’s family had the option of going to America. Now, there’s no place to go.

[Albion Wilde]

Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, recently published a book about the changes in Fishtown. He says it is a fictitious name, but the parallels are deep to the community of the same name not too far from Frankford:

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010