Friends and Followers:
The memorable and glad holiday of Thanksgiving was first officialized by the American government by the Administration of President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the very same year that confectioners Samuel L. Herring and Daniel S. Dengler widened their confectionery supply business to 110 Market Street. For the next 149 years and counting, families have, respectively, gathered by tablesides and into the doors of said candy store in festive mood with thankful hearts. Now as the proprietors of Shane confectionery, whose residence has been within the brickwork of 110 Market for 101 years, we hope to prolong these merry traditions, and to wish you and your family and friends a most Happy Thanksgiving.
And whether you stop into the doors of The Franklin Fountain at 116 Market or to Shane Confectionery, we have ample new goodies to bring delight to your countenance!
First, we would like to re-introduce to you the seasonally-arriving HOT MENU!!! Yes, yes, the time is nigh for luscious drinks of award-winning European Drinking Chocolate, made with Noel Chocolate from the City of Lights! We also have our beloved Hot Milkshakes, which draws in customers from every nook in the nation. Would you care for a Hot Caramel Pie Shake? A homemade slice of warmed apple pie is heated ‘til the filling sizzles, then slabs of Franklin Vanilla Bean Ice Cream are derived from our dipping cabinets and placed into a milk bath malt cup. From there the to-be shake is subjected to the whirr of a stainless steel spindle until it is mashed up into a smooth consistency. The heated pie is placed into the tasty vat, and hot caramel is drizzled atop it, dotted with puffs of house-prepared whipped cream. Do TRY! And have a go at our other Hot Menu items available for purchase while the air is crisp.
The Franklin Fountain will also be offering whole pies for sale. These baked goods are simply marvels, I tell you, the chefs of our kitchen work miracles to create these exquisite fruit pies and goodies. Order ahead for Thanksgiving along with Pints and Quarts of seasonal flavors (mind your P’s and Q’s!). Also, it is worth mentioning, that if you happen to be by Greensgrow Farm in Kensington, they will be carrying cartons of our Franklin Ice Cream.
As you have probably noticed from the barrage of political advertisements and the apoplexies of friends and neighbors with the mention of Presidential candidates and congressmen, the political season is upon us once more. Since we here at the Fountain dwell in a pocket of space-time displaced a century backwards from the “present” of our readership, we have focused the lot of our attention onto the historic 1912 Election. We will describe the political scenario as well as the stances and arguments of the four men who ran for the Presidency in that year in a special segment to be found after the conclusion of the standard section of this web-log entry on Nov. 7th. But, in the meanwhile, we would like to get the stars and stripes bunting off of the shelves and promote a few items of germane political stripe. First of all, we will have for offer “Political Pops”. These include clear toy candies made from antique molds featuring the likenesses of President William Howard Taft, who ran for re-election in 1912 on the Republican Ticket, and former President Theodore Roosevelt, who also ran for President in 1912 for a third, albeit non-consecutive term on the newly-found Progressive Party ticket. Taft candies will be colored “red” for the G.O.P. and Roosevelt’s likeness cast in “green” for the Progressive ticket. Select which figure you think is worthy of your esteem, vote, and nibble.
Also, beginning on October 30th until Election Day on November 6th, we will be offering, once more, our “Nutter Butter Pecan Ice Cream”, made with “Nutter-Butter” cookies, to honor our city’s mayor and routine Franklin Fountain customer, the honorable Mayor Michael Nutter. Over the years, Mayor Nutter has been a kind and dutiful patron of our store, and a good and loyal friend. He has also worked very hard to maintain the functionality of our city, and to see that it achieves the beauty of its potential. Why, he was there with the Berley Brothers to cut the ribbon at the Grand Opening of Shane Confectionery! He was with the Berley Brothers to officiate the re-opening of the Race Street Pier, and he will be with us in future times to either partake of our yummy desserts or to engage the citizenry to better our community. We salute you, good sir, and endorse your efforts.
There will be yet another promotional event in early November. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews, a historic Philadelphia-born candy first introduced in 1917 by Romanian Jewish immigrant David Goldenberg, will be stopping by the Fountain grounds with loads of their red-and-blue wrapped candy bars to distribute freely. Haven’t you ears? FREE CANDY! We will be offering these chewy treats, once supplied to soldiers of The Great War so that they may have nutriment of protein and sugar, to the assembled masses arrived to taste this gooey goodness.
We have received another preservation award! The Pioneer America Society has bestowed upon us an award for our hard work and elbow grease in restoring Shane Confectionery into the shape and aesthetic that it had been in 1911. Again, we couldn’t have done it without our staff, our contractors, our architect, our creative director, the Shane family, or anyone on the team who helped us with this laborious task.
There are two more mentionable milestones that have occurred in the recent past. The historical marker for the Aitken Bible outside of Shane Confectionery has been placed and officialized with much to-do and celebration. We even had a bible cake! As it is written… “these words, take to heart…” …and stomach!
Another feat that we are most proud of, and has been a year in the making, is the placement of the wrought-iron “Shane Confectionery” hanging sign on our building’s façade. This sign was designed by the creatively brilliant artist Emily Malina, and was crafted by a team of iron-workers. The seashell motif brings especial elegance to the block, and reminds us of our connection to the Delaware River, which was a source of trade, food, and travel for centuries gone. Once more, our kudos and gratefulness go out to those who made this a reality.
Do you happen to subscribe to the vegetarian ethos which discludes ovo-lacto consumption? Do you dine on meals akin to those found in the recipe-book No Animal Food published in 1910 and written by Rupert H. Wheldon? Is your diet very like that of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the London-educated lawyer from Hindustan who is working as a social reformer in South Africa? Well then, we have some very good news! We have a wide array of new items to accustom your ethical boundaries! We have traditional and seasonal Coconut Cream based flavors, Toppings and now vegan milks are available upon request, we have cashew milk for shakes (not too sweet, yet very smooth and flavor neutral) and coconut milk for Hot Cocoas and espresso drinks (it is said to be silky, sensuous, and delicious.) So please, vegetarian community of all degrees, patron our shop and try our new menu selections which are in abidance with your code of morals.
Well, that’s about all for now. Once more, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, and we request that you take a moment to pause about all the wonders in your life.
The Berley Brothers and Staff
One Final Pause: Please consider filling out our short and simple survey about our forthcoming publication to commemorate 10 years in business! We’d love to hear from you and gear our message to your discerning tastes! https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/25332F7
P.S.- Check back soon for our 1912 Election Coverage!
WE GIVE THANKS
Words of thanks begin in the heart
They begin as a kernel of light
the selfsame spark that brought forth All
and in which all is contained. Roots penetrate
through emotive soils, wet with blood and experience.
Through pulse and ventricles luminous fibrils root
drinking in the blots of pain hid in scarred-over fissures
Like lightning forks roots dig through
the dense sky of heart.
A sprout emerges
The root system networks and complicates
It finds drink in pockets of gleeful surprise,
subterranean lakes of maternal bonds,
wellsprings of valued friendships and garnered skills
The leaves of Thanks unfold, their vacuoles starry
Pillars of spiritual daylight shimmer and connect
The cosmos bleeds magnetism and love.
A bud opens and words form on the sayer’s lips:
We give thanks for the quilt of pastureland
blanketed over rumpled hills
thick with the stalks of oats, maize, and hay
stalks that are laid on anger planks
and are met with the scimitar blade
of the chaff knife.
We give thanks for the branching biographies
of our departed ancestors, whose hands first sparked
flintfire, who first chiselled wheels,
who first navigated seas from foam-splashed deckboards
with unsure hopes of survival
who first enunciated speech of instruction and of passion
who first sowed seeds and who first whittled spears
who first smelted bronze, iron, and steel
who first taught us to keep pedalling,
you won’t fall over, you’re doing great.
We give thanks for November colors.
The fire-truck reds of residual glucose in
down-fluttered maple leaves, the blond writhe
of dead grass, the pearlescent tone of ice floes
travelling down musically-lapping rivers
the comforting of pumpkin skins
bulging from the ends of vine stems
the heap and clump of hovering
cloud banks
colored like muskox wool
moving through the vast expanse of eyes’-upward-glance
like milk billows in tea.
We give thanks for November’s smells
the acidic reassurance of spice-steeped cider
the middair deltas of flowing scents
contributed from Slippery Elms, Black Oakes, Bigtooth Aspens, Shagbark Hickory
the rising aromas of hand-prepared chocolates cooling on marble
the holy odor of leaf piles
We give thanks for November’s sounds
the noise of rain on storefront windowglass
the secretive murmur of backyard brookwater
the lone goose call bounced off of placid pond mirrors
the diffused crackle of hearthfire
the exchange of political argument over cafe tables
We give thanks for the outfanned display of turkey feathers in dun outfit
and their crude simulation by dayschoolers
who slime their small and innocent hands with paint
and press their spanned imprint onto construction paper
for classroom assignments
happily they doodle little turkey faces
with crayon or marker
We give thanks for our family
that we may gather peaceably at a table
enjoying kitchen-made vittles
We give thanks for our friendships
delicate, precious, and as intricate as
the webbing of a spider’s web in chill air
We give thanks for what we have
We give thanks for what we have done well
We give thanks for who we have
We give thanks for who we are
We give thanks for what we have been given
We give thanks for the desire to give
We give thanks for the desire to nurture
We give thanks to the issuer of light
we give thanks for the issuance of love
We give thanks that we may love
We give thanks for our humanity
We give thanks for the scribbly pathway of every atom of us
in whose trace the calligraph of God’s name is inscribed
We give thanks for the newborn cry of every living being
in whose fear-drenched shriek the name of God is uttered
We give thanks to the eternal Source.
Thank You.