This morning, after a long and boring wait, I was finally allowed to visit Philadelphia's new bell. It's not that new of a bell, really. In 1976, on America's 200th birthday, Queen Elizabeth II visited and gave us a replica Liberty Bell. This is a bad gift for many reasons: Just because the Liberty Bell is cracked does not mean we need a new one, and also England is famously our ex. Why is our ex giving us breakup gifts? Weird!
Anyway, the bell from Queen Elizabeth is called the Bicentennial Bell. It's 10 tons, and has been hiding for a decade, ever since they tore down the building in which it was formerly housed. In April, they hung it back up in a little corner of the historic area called the Benjamin Rush Garden. We could not, however, visit it, because the parks service was very busy making the garden nice. Finally, today, on a disgusting, rainy, hot Philadelphia morning, they allowed a clamoring and impatient public to visit the bell.
As a Philadelphian, I have a right—nay, a duty—to ring this new bell. Did I think this would be encouraged? No. Did I think it would even be allowed? Also no. But it was my obligation to try. My colleagues supported this endeavor.
The new park is lovely. The garden the parks department has created around the bell is filled with plants and flowers. Even though rain was imminent this morning, people wandered in to look around.
But immediately, my hopes of quite literally ringing in the occasion were dashed. They have hung the bell so high off the ground! Ringing it would be impossible.
I am not very tall, but even the tall people were much, much shorter than the bell. I presume they did this to keep hooligans like me from trying to ring it, but it's still a little rude. Imagine if there was a rope there and you could tug on the rope and make it ring! That would be so fun! Sure, it would be loud, but joy is loud sometimes.
I was disappointed that the bell was up so high, but it did allow me to look inside, where I discovered that this bell is a FRAUD! Look inside! Do you see what I see?
There's no mechanism with which to ring this bell! "Clapper" is the name for the thingymabob that goes in the middle of a bell and makes sound. Look inside! No clapper!!
Bells, I have learned on the National Bell Festival website, have nine distinct parts. Most of these (crown, waist, lip, sound bow, lip, and mouth) are names for the shape of the bell body. What I saw has all of these! Bells are also supposed to have a "yoke," which is what the bell is hung from. In our case, the sick new arch is the yoke.
The last two parts of the thing I saw, the clapper and the canons, are missing. The canon is what allows the bell to swing from the structural support, and this thing (not a bell) seems very affixed. This thing cannot make sounds! It does not swing! It does not get hit with anything!
This is not a damn bell! It is, at most, an upside-down cup. It's a helmet hung from a beautiful arch. It is an enormous, silent lie.
We already have a bell that doesn't ring: the Liberty Bell! And as a symbol of the city, the bell that was grievously injured after going too hard is the only one we need.
