Italian Festival Hammonton 2012

  Ok, I forgot to post my photos for Hammonton's annual Our Lady of Mount Carmel's Feast on July 16, 2012.  So as the end of summer is looming, I won't be able to look forward to fall's events if I haven't blogged all of the 2012 summer season fun.  I got to see my cousins, again.  Cousin Helen walks at the end of the procession and she keeps up her tradition.  Everything is very much the same, the procession of saints, the car raffle, the Italian food stands, "I'm Italian T-shirts",  the beer garden, the gatherings at the Sons of Italy club and the dusty carnival.  This year I was sorry that I did not see any representation from the Mexicans. Last year they had a type of drill /dance team that honored "Our Lady of Guadalupe".  In a way, the Red, White and Blue Festival has surpassed this old tradition in Hammonton but the patriotic themed event can never replace this longest running Italian festival in the whole of the US.  One can view the newer replacement as a classier event but that's not what it is all about  and it may have something to do with a good number of Italian Catholics who have joined some non-traditional churches in the area.  Also in this town of second, third and fourth generations of Italians, there are getting to be fewer and fewer pure blooded Italians like me.  Like me, they may not have chosen to marry Italian.  I married German but he was of the Catholic faith.  Maybe these things are not important, but it does change the character of the town and this festival. 

    This is a parade that lasts for hours and I do not know how the priests do it with their garments and the high  temperatures of July.

Near the old cold-cut store:

This is wrong even if it is a John Deere:

 

Nun on the go: 

 

Above my mailman from Egg Harbor City. 

Below my cousin Helen:

Cousin Maryland, yes, I spelled it right:

    

I still call him cousin Butch: