NORTH WILDWOOD — A pair of golden slippers from this city will be making the march up Broad Street New Year’s Day, 2012.
Local resident Alex “Stew” Stewart has been marching in the Philadelphia Mummers Parade since the age of 10.
“I joined them in 1963,” said the 58-year-old retired Philadelphia police officer, noting that he started as a comic in Liberty Clowns.
Guitar lessons gave him the opportunity to join a string band, and his days as a New Year’s comic were numbered.
“I took lessons from a guy who played in the Guy Lombardo Band,” Stewart told the Herald. “Lessons were $2.”
In 1967 Stewart tried out for, and was accepted into, the South Philadelphia String Band.
“I passed the screening test,” he said. “I barely made it, but they were good guys. I can still distinctly remember that night.”
Stewart changed his musical focus from guitar to banjo. “I was playing an instrument,” he said, “and I started taking banjo lessons from Sam Hamilton.” Hamilton was the son of one founder of the South Philadelphia String Band.
As a fifteen-year-old, he made his first march up “the street” dressed as a hobo. That was 1968 and the band came in third.
A lot of time and tradition has passed since Stewart’s first march almost 50 years ago.
“It’s a lot different now than what it was years ago with the massive crowds,” he said. “We just don’t have the people any more.”
When asked what would make him want to make the long march up Broad Street, Stewart was adamant in his answer.
“It’s a Philadelphia tradition,” he replied. “We play a distinct kind of music.”
“I’m probably the second oldest one going up,” he said, noting that the oldest member making the march is the band’s previous music director.
In addition to entertaining, the parade has competitive. Winning bands will take home purses that range in the thousands of dollars.
Competition is keen between bands. “That day we’re all in it to win,” he said. “The next day, we all talk.”
Stewart shared that this year’s theme for his band is candy. The band will play music such as the Good and Plenty theme, the theme from Mr. Softee as well as “When You’re Smiling.”
“I’m going to be wearing an ice cream hat,” he said. “It’s an up-tempo theme, with a candy flavor.”
The time commitment to each year’s march is massive. The band meets every Tuesday night and as the magic day grows closer, practices grow more frequent.
“The commitment is off the charts,” he said. “You really have to love this to do it.”
Stewart served as captain of the string band from 1985 until 1989. With so much experience under his plumes, does he ever get nervous?
“I don’t get excited until I get to the judging area,” he said. With the judges sitting at City Hall, Stewart said his adrenaline starts pumping around Broad and Pine.
Mummery is a long-held family tradition and the Stewart family is no exception. Stewart, the father of a son and daughter, has made the march with his son.
Stewart’s son, an anesthesiologist, has served the band by pushing props up Broad Street.
“My son was working at Jefferson,” said Stewart. “And as we got close he took off his scrubs and put on his black to push props.”
Stewart’s wife of 38 years, Dee, has helped out with makeup and other necessities. Their daughter gave birth to Tripp, the next generation of Stewart Mummers.
“If I’m still around,” he said of his grandson, “I hope he’ll walk with me.”
