Where ya' at Mardi Gras?

Where ya’ at Mardi Gras?

Isn’t it great to live in such an interesting part of the country? Of course that means folks in other states think we have a screw loose because they have little understanding of so many of our customs, our cultural traditions, our food, our language laced with terms such as gumbo, second line, fais do-do and king cake. I mean, they have no idea!

Once while we were living in Washington State my wife very nearly got us thrown out of a very nice party by calling me a “dumb coonass.” Nobody believed my explanation that coming from her it was just a term of endearment.

A few years ago a young lady of my acquaintance from Indiana New Orleans in the summer. She went into a shop in Metairie and bought a bunch of Mardi Gras beads. When she returned to her work she gave strings of beads to several of her co-workers who were embarrassed to take them because they knew that she had to bare her breasts to get the beads. visited

It’s crazy, but its fun if you see it in the right light. We’re different, we’re exciting, we’re fun. And when we lived in other parts of the country people would say to me “Where are you from talking funny like that?” I would say “ New Orleans” or “ Louisiana” and inevitably they would reply: “What’s that big party you folks have down there every year?” And I would answer “Carnival” or “Mardi Gras.” They would say “Boy, that’s one thing I want to see before I die. Tell me about Mardi Gras. What’s it really like?”

Of course I would just describe a few of the highlights. I never told anybody about my introduction to Mardi Gras when I was growing up in New Orleans when we would get up at 4 a.m. to accompany my father to his volunteer Elks Club assignment for the day of helping line up the more than 150 trucks that follow the Rex Parade. As a New Orleans business leader he accepted a leadership role for the Elks’ Krewe or Orleanians and did his part for one of the largest community celebrations in the world. Mardi Gras is all still run today almost entirely by community volunteers.

My parents rode floats nearly every year and were krewe members of Rex or Comus or the neighborhood Krewe of Carrolton or the Krewe of Mid City. They had fun, of course, but it was more of a civic duty than anything else. And nobody, but nobody could get my mother to take a drink of alcohol much less show off any part of her anatomy for a string of beads. They worked hard for their money and my parents spent a portion of what they earned each year to help make Mardi Gras successful for their favorite city and state.

Now Mardi Gras has sneaked up the river to half-Catholic/half-Mississippi Baptist Baton Rouge. It has been fun to watch the celebration grow and prosper over the past couple of decades. But I know the grey-haired guys who run the Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade now for more than 20 years. Trust me they are long over the thrill of parading through the streets and throwing beads to the crowd. The same can be said for all the folks featured in the story of Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge that is the cover article in this issue of South Baton Rouge Neighbors. It is fun to participate in Mardi Gras because it is a rapidly expanding, very worthwhile community-wide celebration.

Mardi Gras works well as a religious holiday coming as it does just before Lent and the annual observance by most Christians of the death of our Lord and Savior. Mardi Gras teaches us that having fun is a wonderful thing and that we are free to carry fun to excess. But the lesson is that there is a price to pay for carrying fun too far because the next morning we must go to church and be reminded that: “We come from dust and to dust we will return.” And, trust me many who celebrate Fat Tuesday too hard know exactly what it feels like to be dust on Ash Wednesday.

So as you celebrate Mardi Gras this year be it with a child or grandchild on your shoulders at a parade on Canal Street or Florida Boulevard; or with a Krewe of your 150 closest friends all dressed up in costume or tux; or riding on a float; or by arriving early and staying late to take care of all it takes to make things smooth, safe and successful – know that we have every right to be proud to be different and to have fun doing it – Vive La Difference! Vive Mardi Gras!