WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.480 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.480 --> 00:00:05.220 align:middle line:84% This is even more embarrassing poem 00:00:05.220 --> 00:00:07.850 align:middle line:84% because the first line makes me blush. 00:00:07.850 --> 00:00:10.080 align:middle line:84% It's kind of-- well, I have to back up. 00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:14.100 align:middle line:84% Last year Christmas, I went for the first time 00:00:14.100 --> 00:00:16.860 align:middle line:90% to meet my wife's family. 00:00:16.860 --> 00:00:22.470 align:middle line:84% And she lives in a place called Linwood, Pennsylvania. 00:00:22.470 --> 00:00:25.860 align:middle line:90% It's just south of Philadelphia. 00:00:25.860 --> 00:00:29.430 align:middle line:84% And we were joking and kidding around. 00:00:29.430 --> 00:00:31.650 align:middle line:90% She has a large Irish family. 00:00:31.650 --> 00:00:37.260 align:middle line:84% And someone said-- well, I must say that this place Linwood is 00:00:37.260 --> 00:00:41.190 align:middle line:84% close to Marcus Hook which is a huge oil refinery. 00:00:41.190 --> 00:00:43.740 align:middle line:84% And I blush to tell you this, but I'm only repeating 00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:44.790 align:middle line:90% what I heard, of course. 00:00:44.790 --> 00:00:46.350 align:middle line:90% So that's my out. 00:00:46.350 --> 00:00:52.050 align:middle line:84% Someone said, and repeat my first two lines-- 00:00:52.050 --> 00:00:53.970 align:middle line:84% "Kiss me where it smells, she said. 00:00:53.970 --> 00:00:57.270 align:middle line:90% So he took her to Marcus Hook." 00:00:57.270 --> 00:00:59.820 align:middle line:84% And of course, I had to get a poem out of there. 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:03.120 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:05.420 align:middle line:84% It's a wonderful blue-collar town. 00:01:05.420 --> 00:01:08.243 align:middle line:84% The Italians live on one side of the street, 00:01:08.243 --> 00:01:09.660 align:middle line:84% and you have the Polish over here, 00:01:09.660 --> 00:01:11.220 align:middle line:90% and the Blacks live over here. 00:01:11.220 --> 00:01:13.560 align:middle line:84% And in the middle, there's this great big refinery 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:17.490 align:middle line:90% tower that goes up 18 stories. 00:01:17.490 --> 00:01:19.260 align:middle line:90% And this flame shoots out of it. 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:20.880 align:middle line:90% And the most wonderful thing-- 00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:24.270 align:middle line:84% one of the high religious experience I had-- 00:01:24.270 --> 00:01:29.250 align:middle line:84% last New Year's Eve, everyone at New Year's ran into the streets 00:01:29.250 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:84% and were banging pots together and dancing in the streets. 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:35.905 align:middle line:84% And the person in charge of the tower-- 00:01:35.905 --> 00:01:36.780 align:middle line:90% this is not the poem. 00:01:36.780 --> 00:01:38.280 align:middle line:84% I'm just telling you about the poem. 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:39.330 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:39.330 --> 00:01:41.730 align:middle line:84% And the person in charge of the tower 00:01:41.730 --> 00:01:46.650 align:middle line:84% turned the dial and the flame shot 100 feet into the air 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:49.470 align:middle line:84% and lit up the town brighter than sunlight. 00:01:49.470 --> 00:01:50.940 align:middle line:90% And I thought, Wow! 00:01:50.940 --> 00:01:53.640 align:middle line:90% 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:55.773 align:middle line:90% What a great place to live. 00:01:55.773 --> 00:01:58.671 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:58.671 --> 00:02:00.610 align:middle line:90% 00:02:00.610 --> 00:02:05.830 align:middle line:84% Except that refinery, every 15 years or so, blows up. 00:02:05.830 --> 00:02:07.420 align:middle line:90% And that occurs in the poem too. 00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:10.810 align:middle line:84% Also, I went to the graveyard with my wife. 00:02:10.810 --> 00:02:14.440 align:middle line:84% We're looking over, you know, gravestones of family members. 00:02:14.440 --> 00:02:17.110 align:middle line:84% And the Italians have a custom apparently. 00:02:17.110 --> 00:02:19.450 align:middle line:84% They put little pictures in plastic 00:02:19.450 --> 00:02:21.760 align:middle line:90% of people who have died. 00:02:21.760 --> 00:02:23.590 align:middle line:90% That comes in the poem too. 00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:25.880 align:middle line:84% I tell you this so you won't be confused. 00:02:25.880 --> 00:02:29.530 align:middle line:84% But the best thing about Marcus Hook is a few years ago, 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:34.510 align:middle line:84% some woman had a statue of the blessed Virgin, which 00:02:34.510 --> 00:02:37.210 align:middle line:84% kept on bleeding all the time until there were droves 00:02:37.210 --> 00:02:39.850 align:middle line:84% of people arriving, and they had to call the state 00:02:39.850 --> 00:02:41.950 align:middle line:90% police so there wasn't a riot. 00:02:41.950 --> 00:02:44.500 align:middle line:84% And people filed in and paid obeisance 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:47.710 align:middle line:90% to the bleeding statue. 00:02:47.710 --> 00:02:50.080 align:middle line:84% It was the only time that Marcus Hook made it 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:53.380 align:middle line:90% into the National news. 00:02:53.380 --> 00:02:57.510 align:middle line:84% Later, of course, they found out [INAUDIBLE].. 00:02:57.510 --> 00:02:58.630 align:middle line:90% It wasn't real. 00:02:58.630 --> 00:03:02.050 align:middle line:84% But any rate, the poem is called "The Bleeding 00:03:02.050 --> 00:03:08.080 align:middle line:84% Virgin of Marcus Hook" I guess I have 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:09.520 align:middle line:90% to say the two lines again. 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:11.350 align:middle line:84% "Kiss me where it smells, she said. 00:03:11.350 --> 00:03:15.460 align:middle line:84% So he took her to Marcus Hook where the great liberal torches 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:18.550 align:middle line:84% burn above the neighborhoods and every few years, 00:03:18.550 --> 00:03:22.420 align:middle line:90% the refinery plants go boom. 00:03:22.420 --> 00:03:25.870 align:middle line:84% Then the volunteer firemen scramble for their last breaths 00:03:25.870 --> 00:03:30.670 align:middle line:84% while trying to hold up their world of collapsing wood. 00:03:30.670 --> 00:03:34.450 align:middle line:84% Here's the room where you knelt while the town evacuated, 00:03:34.450 --> 00:03:37.780 align:middle line:84% racing through the rosary as flames bloomed brighter 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:43.450 align:middle line:84% than they had, ever bloomed across the flowered wallpaper. 00:03:43.450 --> 00:03:46.120 align:middle line:84% So you see, despite disgust, every place 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:51.010 align:middle line:84% has its history worth burying away, worth coming to. 00:03:51.010 --> 00:03:54.910 align:middle line:84% On this cold day, you take me from grave to grave. 00:03:54.910 --> 00:03:57.970 align:middle line:84% I scuff away the leaves, and you point, embarrassed, 00:03:57.970 --> 00:03:59.260 align:middle line:90% to your relatives. 00:03:59.260 --> 00:04:02.890 align:middle line:84% The people with weird names you didn't know. 00:04:02.890 --> 00:04:05.530 align:middle line:84% Pictures of Italian men staring out ever 00:04:05.530 --> 00:04:09.400 align:middle line:90% sterner as our century ends. 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:11.590 align:middle line:84% We'll stop in Howie's for a hoagie 00:04:11.590 --> 00:04:15.370 align:middle line:84% before catching the train away from these thousands in prison 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:17.800 align:middle line:90% without knowing it. 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:20.740 align:middle line:84% Then point to the one clapboard house, 00:04:20.740 --> 00:04:23.830 align:middle line:84% the town's sole short lived fame. 00:04:23.830 --> 00:04:27.790 align:middle line:84% Inside, the pained virgin, bleeding from all her limbs. 00:04:27.790 --> 00:04:31.990 align:middle line:84% While outside, the grim state policemen directed traffic, 00:04:31.990 --> 00:04:34.960 align:middle line:84% beat one photographer with their nightsticks 00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:37.750 align:middle line:90% as got up in their Sunday best. 00:04:37.750 --> 00:04:41.170 align:middle line:84% The Black ladies oohed in line, trying 00:04:41.170 --> 00:04:44.549 align:middle line:84% to decide if they dared to go in." 00:04:44.549 --> 00:04:45.049 align:middle line:90%