Quick stopover in Philadelphia. I’ve just got one day in town after a friend’s wedding — just time enough to see Constitutional stuff, eat some Tastycakes and help protect Benjamin Franklin’s gravestone.

Mr. & Mrs Loud request the honor …

This portion of the trip started off a little strange. We checked in at nearly midnight last night and the cavernous lobby of the hotel was nearly full of people ranging in age from 8 to 50, dressed up, lounging about, milling in bunches, pretty much shouting the whole time. Apparently there was a wedding and family was gathering from all over. I admit that I don’t understand extended family on this scale. Having never had any extended family event that featured more than 20 of us, I am obviously missing some context here. All the same, this just couldn’t have been a normal union of normal people. I decided that it had to be the long-awaited joining of the Loud family (family motto: “WHAT?!”) and the Huge family (current population: 13,000 with 17 more expected by Tuesday). How lovely it was that they could all attend! The Louds made sure that nothing ever happened in a conversational tone. The Huges guaranteed that all open areas weren’t open.

This may sound very ungenerous of me, but I grew a little uncharitable about the Loud, Huge affair when two of the elevators broke down and I had to take more than my quota of claustrophobic elevator rides listening to them regaling each other in booming voices with hilarious episodes from their hilarious existence. “I do like family,” I told myself with grim defensiveness. “My family.”

Just as well we had plans to go sightseeing anyway.

Getting Independent

Greg had asked me what I wanted to do in Philadelphia, and I had Web-searched around. We have already seen Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell on previous occasions, and taken in some other main attractions besides. The city is full of museums, as nearly all great cities are, and they’re probably all good. But the consensus of different Web-pages seemed to point to the Constitution Center, so that got the bulk of our tourist-y attention.

After all, Philadelphia has a unique claim to being the birthplace of America as a nation built on an idea and an experiment. To go there on a brief stay and not partake of some of that “We, the people” ambiance seemed like it would’ve been such a waste.

And it turned out to be an excellent choice. The Constitution Center is a sort of living museum. It exists just to promote the understanding of what the Constitution did mean and does mean. To start this, they’ve got a nicely done show that goes over the history and starts the main question going: what does it mean to live in a democratic republic? How does it work (assuming that it does work)? What are the problems and what’s the system for getting them solved?

And then to help you begin to answer those questions, or at least come up with others of your own, the show exits you out into a series of interactive exhibits. You can see gliding miniature portraits of hundreds of Americans throughout history and click on them to bring up their stories. You can see an alcove full of the books that influenced the founding fathers and touch the binders to hear excerpts. You can watch a film of people taking the oath of citizenship. You can listen to Ben Stein (the “anyone? anyone?” teacher from Ferris Bueller and also a Ronald Reagan speech writer) answer questions about the Constitution in a coffee shop setting.

And so on and so on. It was very moving and very educational, and how often do those go together? The best thing about having discovered this museum is that it makes the decision of what to do next time we’re in Philly much easier. I’m not thinking I’ll feel like I’ve really done the Constitution Center right until I’ve seen it three more times at least.

Whistling past the graveyard

There are lots of other things to do within easy walking distance. Independence Hall was looking stately and radiant in the late afternoon as we left. But I had a sort of idea that I wanted to see if I could get to Christ Church (founded in 1695 and still operating today) and the Christ Church Burial Ground. The Burial Ground was closest to us, but their next tour was almost an hour away, so we went on walkabout. I think I had it in mind to get to Christ Church five blocks away or so, or even Betsy Ross’ house on the way, but I realized that time would get away from us if we did, so we settled for just taking in the air, remarking to each other on how kindly the November weather was being to us and turning in at a serendipitous deli to grab a sandwich, birch beer and Butterscotch Krimpet. (One of the only things I miss from the East is Tastycakes. I’m not sure they’d be worth a trip just by themselves, but they certainly brighten things up once you’re here.)

We didn’t make it all the way to Christ Church, but with whetted appetites, we sauntered back to the colonial graveyard feeling fine.

“Please don’t take pennies from Franklin’s gravestone.”

The Christ Church Burial Ground has 1400 or so stones, the earliest of which date back to 1710, and serves as the final resting place for 3000 or so souls. The discrepancy in number owes partly to a large number buried in a mass grave, for reasons they don’t know, and also to the custom of burying members of the same family stacked on top of each other with one stone updated to reflect who had been interred. It seemed like a quaint and um, earthy way to do things (no pun intended), but economical and unromantic, both of which seemed to characterize colonial Americans’ ideas about how death should be handled. When you are having ongoing yellow fever epidemics (the last of which killed off nearly 20% of the population) you’ve little time for niceties.

Or embalming, for that matter. Quite a number of gravestones were slabs laid over the length of the grave and raised up on bricks which had spaces in them “so that the gases could escape” our tour guide Linda told us. Apparently, the colonists felt that Europeans had gotten far too frilly with their handling of life’s finality, and they weren’t interested in anything that prevented decomposition. Bodies were covered in shrouds, buried without a coffin and left to nature’s devices.

As we were strolling on our tour, a teenage boy got down on all fours so that he could peek into one of the holes in the brick. Linda sighed and told us that people do that all the time, apparently believing that they’ll really see something neat-o. Greg and Linda decided that it should be easy to devise a solar-powered motion detector that would activate a robotic hand to reach out and grab those people. I’d give a hefty sum to see that in action.

As far as silly behavior in the graveyard, though, the best was yet to come. The burial ground is just a small, quiet area punctuated by some venerable old trees. As the sun set behind the Philadelphia skyline, squirrels scrabbled about for acorns and sparrows hopped on the stone wall around it. You would have thought that it was easy enough to discern that this is a place for a little reflection and respect. But as we wound up the tour at Benjamin Franklin’s grave, we had to share the space with a strange father and son who seemed to want nothing more than to take photo after photo of the son posing next to Franklin’s grave.

That alone wasn’t tacky, just strange. Who am I to judge? Maybe the guy has just finished writing a 12-volume novel of Franklin’s favorite recipes or something. But to check on the 33rd picture on his father’s camera, the young man strode over the gravestone next to it. He just clomped right over it like it was a paving stone and then looked surprised and a little huffy when Linda told him not to do that. Honestly, how dumb can people be?

As if to answer that question, another young man reached through the iron gate and tried to take one of the pennies that had been thrown on the grave slab.

Now, I don’t know why people have strange impulses to do things like toss pennies on Franklin’s grave in the first place. It’s not something that seems like a good idea to me. Linda said that it’s a sort of Philadelphia tradition and she thought it might have something to do with Franklin’s canard that a penny saved is a penny earned. Personally, I just think it’s one of those things that people do without really knowing why. We toss pennies on things, into things, at things. We toss them in fountains and into museum exhibits we can’t reach — do we think we’re establishing some sort of ownership, or sending out a satellite? Who knows, but Franklin’s grave comes in for its share and had twenty-five cents worth of pennies, and even a dime from one big spender.

And this mope was reaching through the fence to try to get one, with the tour guide and two astonished Missourians looking on. When he couldn’t reach it, he even had the nerve to ask if we could give him one.

“Please don’t take pennies from Franklin’s grave,” Linda said, quite sensibly I thought.

“Oh,” he said, in sudden realization that we were the sort of weird people that frowned on petty larceny in the graveyard. “It’s for a scavenger hunt.”

“I know,” said Linda. Apparently the visiting convention of civil engineers had thought this up to keep the conventioneers in stitches. Not sure they’d really considered how that hilarious undertaking (no pun intended again) would be perceived, but oh well.. “So you’ve got three choices: You can skip it, you can lie, or you can put a penny on the grave and then take it off again.”

In the end, our scavenger hunter took the last option, even paying Ben the compliment of throwing additional change on top of the grave to show the depth of his respect for our founding fathers. People are very strange sometimes.

Well, that’s it for the day so far. Greg has grabbed a quick afternoon nap, so it must be time to wake him up so he can take me to the great Caribbean restaurant for a mojito. If we head out now, we might be able to stuff ourselves onto an elevator with the Huges and Louds on the way to their post-rehearsal square dance and horseshoe throw.

That would be dandy.