Ben Franklin once famously said that, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man ready to consume a full day of CMEpalooza” (look it up if you don’t believe me. It was in the August 6, 1768 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette).
And where, pray tell, did our Founding Father utter these prescient words so many years ago?
Philadelphia.
So it is with the spirit of our city’s favorite son (sorry Rocky Balboa) that we’ll gather this coming Monday evening to learn about the history of Philadelphia in the revolutionary era, the stories of how our earliest capital city helped shape our country, and yes, lots about Mr. Franklin. We’ll meet at 7 pm (get there a bit earlier please) in the lobby of the Lowes Philadelphia Hotel and walk a few blocks to the historic district for the start of a 1-hour(ish) free walking tour. The Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions has their Industry Summit going on next week, so this is technically built into the agenda, but you don’t have to be attending the meeting to come along. You can just show up (shh, I won’t tell anyone).
I’ve been volunteering as a tour guide in Philadelphia for the better part of two decades each summer, so this will be a good refresher for me in preparation for the 2023 season. I like to think I’m reasonably entertaining (true story: I met my wife on one of my tours many moons ago, so apparently somebody thought so) (note from Derek: no comment. Too easy.) and won’t bore you with a litany of names and dates. Plus, in true CMEpalooza style, there will be cash giveaways for smart people who know their Philadelphia and/or pop culture trivia. If you want to give yourself a leg up, here are a few topics you can brush up on:
- One of our earliest First Ladies met her husband in Philadelphia. She also really liked ice cream. Some of her favorite flavors were, let’s just say unusual. You might want to find out what they were.
- There were no Halls of Fame in the 1770s, but that didn’t stop one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from being posthumously enshrined as a sporting pioneer in one of them.
- Not every colony and/or state participated in the biggest events in early Philadelphia history. Might be worth looking into these.
- The First Family of American Theater is still an acting family. How is their most famous current thespian tied to her great-grandmother?
The weather looks fairly nice (bring a light jacket) so if nothing else, consider it a leisurely springtime stroll in the city.
CMEPALOOZA 
This sounds great but unfortunately I’m on a business trip on the west coast. Hope you’ll do this again and let the CMEPaloozer community know about it.
By the way, I think B Frank was an adopted son of Philadelphia. Boston lays claim to this intellectual giant — Rocky is resting easy.
While Ben most certainly was born in Boston, he spent most of his life in Philadelphia so I always think of his as one of our own. Certainly others may disagree.
Not sure I’ll do any other special CMEpalooza-related tours, but I’ll be out this summer as part of this group (website isn’t yet updated with 2023 dates): https://inht.org/twilight-tours/. My tours are the ones described as “The stories behind the role of Philadelphia and Philadelphian’s, as the United States of America was built” but all of the guides in this program are great. Plus, it’s free every night!