A Lion's Tale OR A Tale of One City, Twice

I'm not speaking of London or Paris at all.  I'm talking about the differences I see in one City across the span of 35 years. Specifically, the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia.

I was a student living in Philadelphia from 1981 to 1985.  It was a glorious time to be there.  I lived directly across the street from the main police headquarters, so I felt safe enough and in the heart of the action. (Only one person was mugged, shot and almost died from my class!)

The local sports scene was pretty good at the time.  The Phillies were good (90 win season and NL East title) and had 5 future Hall of Famers on the field at the same time often (counting Pete Rose, daggummit...)  The Eagles had been to the Super Bowl in the preceding years and were still flying fairly high.  The Flyers were pretty good and still playing in the old Spectrum.  And the Philly 76ers were riding higher than all of them, with the best record in the league.  With Julius Erving, Moses Malone and a cast of position players unparalleled in Philly basketball history.

I went to see the Phillies game on Wednesday, May 25, sitting in my usual 700 level seat at the Vet, paying $2 for the ticket (don't listen to that $5 crap at my link!).  For some reason I can't remember, my brother was with me.  As we were leaving the game, a 6-1 defeat of Marty Bystrom, a little kid approached and asked if we wanted tickets to the next days game of the NBA Finals!  The Sixers had won game one and Moses Malone had promised a sweep of the LA Lakers with his famous Fo-Fo-Fo speech.  And the Sixers were nearly keeping his word so far.

The tickets were a big disappointment to my brother and I.  They were practically empty of script, and didn't even list the teams.  They were for "Game 2 of the NBA Finals", not even a date was included.  The price printed on the ticket was the exact price the kid was asking for!  I wish I could remember the exact price that we paid the kid.  Maybe it was $10 apiece?  I'm sure it wasn't more than $12, as I never had that much money on me. I was not able to verify this with my brother.  He only remembers that the tickets were "unusually reasonable" in price!  We figured we were being ripped off, but said "What the heck?"  The kid insisted it was all on the up and up!  We even had a little extra for a bag of squished, stale South Philly soft pretzels.

So there we were the next night filing into The Spectrum to see the Sixers slay Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and the Lakers, who had beat the Sixers twice before in the '80 and '82 Championships.

AND THEY LET US IN!  AND WE WERE IN ROW 6, RIGHT BEHIND THE BASKET!  The tickets were real.

We had the time of our lives watching Julius and the boys defeat their nemesis.  I taunted Magic Johnson all night, pointing out his leading the league that year in turnover-to-assist ratio!  I swear he even glared at me once.

As the teams headed to LA for the third and fourth games of the series, life got back to normal at school.  Kids today don't realize that college went well into June in those days.  Nowadays, schools often are done before May arrives.

So when the Sixers fulfilled Moses' prophesy to the promised land, we all headed into the streets of Philly to celebrate.  We naturally gravitated to South Street, where there was something for everyone.

Some recollections of that night:

• Everyone loved everyone, without exception.  There was no hatred to be found.  Period.
• It was the closest Philadelphia ever got to Martin Luther King's Dream.  It was the best day I ever had in considering race relations in this Country.  The rebounding prowess and superb defensive play of North Carolina's Bobby Jones made every African-American greet every White American (and every other combination imaginable) with high fives, broad smiles and genuine love.  I am not exagerating this in any way.  The same city that was spawning MOVE, was in complete harmony that night.  It felt good to be alive.
• A few people climbed light poles, screamed and celebrated. Then climbed down.
• Some people were noticeably drunk. And happy.
• There wasn't a single car overturned.  No light poles were toppled.  No signs were stolen.  No fires were lit.  Every policeman was just as happy as we were. I saw no arrests in all of Center City that night. No stores were looted. No hotel entrance canopies were collapsed.  No store windows were broken.
• I paid for 2 cheesesteaks and ate them from Jim's.  Always got 2 in those skinny days...  No one ate horse poop that night.