Fat Tuesday, What a name for a day. ?! . I never really new it as that.. I grew up thinking about Mardi Gras. My fathers family had deep ties to New Orleans.. My great grandfather settled there from somewhere in Eastern Europe. My grandfather was raised there until his family moved to Central America.. First to Nicaragua.. and then to Honduras, were my Dad and his brother, Bird, spent their early years. When my Dad’s family moved back to the US, they lived in Georgia until he graduated from High School.. Sometime after that the family moved back to New Orleans. That’s where my grandparent, uncle, great aunts and uncles all lived until they died. I still have my Aunt Brig. and a bunch of great cousins there.
I remember New Orleans being about a 5 hour flat and hot drive from Houston.. It wasn’t too bad in the winter.. I remember times when It might actually be in the 40’s or 50’s.. I also remember as we got closer to the city, the road went over swamps.. I remember great cajon food.. before cajon food was something you could find anywhere.. I can even remember folks speaking cajon and creole on the radio.. but that was back in the 60’s..
It was a strange, almost religious thing for us to go to Mardi Gras. .. I can’t even remember how many times we went.. it seemed like every few years.. but I suspect it was much less than that. My uncle Bird was really into it. He was part of a Krew.. a team of folks that put a float into the parade. I remember thinking how cool it was that here we were in the deep south watching a parade with white people. black people and even jewish people like us all dressing up and throwing stuff to the crowd. We’d sit there shouting “throw me something mister !” . then fight each other for what came our way. I liked the cheap plastic beads.. bu what we really treasured were the dabloons.., cheap plastic discs in a variety of shiny colors. Each had the mark of the Krew who through them. My uncle Bird had books an books of them.. some , I guess.. were rare.. He always showed us those with pride.
I also remember eating this weird cake.. King cake, they called it.. i had a plastic toy cooked into it somewhere. it was lucky if ou got the toy.. thinking back, it was lucky that you didn’t choke.. I remember going through the French Quarter with my folks.. We stop by and eat oysters and poboys at Mothers.. maybe get dark, bitter coffee with chikoree and bignets at Morning Call… I remmeber it snowing once in Jackson Square..on Mardi Gras.. Snow in New Orleans ?!?! My dad even took us into some of the strip clubs.. now that’s a real treat for a preteen kid !!
I guess the whole idea of Fat Tuesday is to get everythign out of your system before the sterner time of Lent.. I never really ‘got’ Lent. Given that Jews are raised to feel guilty all the time, I never quite understood the need to set aside a specific time for it.. . I always thought it particularly funny that New Orleans.. a city with real party in its blood ,made the show of celebrating before Lent…. which they seemed to party through anyway. Now that I think of it.. many places around the world have something like that.. Carnival, Fasching, Fettisdagen.. Gosh.. How come more places in the US don’t have soemthing like Mardi Gras ?!
Anway.. Happy Mardi Gras everyone.> As they say. laissez les bon temps roulez !
nite all , nite sam
-me
