JACKSON — My wife Ginny is spontaneous. Me, not so much. So when she proposed a last-minute trip to Mardi Gras with the kids, my initial reaction was not a jolt of joy.
“We never go anywhere,” she complained. I offered her direct evidence to the contrary but she wasn’t listening. “My parents took me to New Orleans all the time.”
Indeed, growing up in Taylorsville, Miss., population 1,341, getting out of town was a prerequisite for many activities. With a grass airstrip in their backyard, a family trip to New Orleans was a perfect 45- minute flight in the Cessna 180.
“Besides,” Ginny told me. “I found a free room at the Monteleone.”
I tried arguing that using our credit card points was not free. The points were, in fact, a testament to consumer behavior that was the opposite of “free,” but she was having none of it. We were going to Mardi Gras.
Everybody knows that Mardi Gras is the one time you never want to go to New Orleans, unless you enjoy wandering aimlessly around Bourbon Street with drunk glazy-eyed tourists.
After talking to the hotel concierge who warned of three-hour traffic jams, Ginny planned to wake us all up at 5 a.m. to avoid the traffic. The very idea of waking our family up at 5 a.m. made me laugh. Sure enough, 5 a.m. came and went. We hit the road after lunch, cranking out my favorite Mardi Gras music, Wild Tchoupitoulas, the entire way.
The traffic wasn’t bad until a few blocks before the French Quarter. I brilliantly planned a detour, only to drive us straight into the Krewe of Tucks parade route. Disaster turned into providence when our only option was to turn into a parking garage. For $25, we were able to avoid the traffic jams and easily walk a few blocks to the Monteleone.
As long as we avoided Bourbon Street, the Quarter wasn’t all that bad. Jackson Square was pleasant. We had a great meal at a hot new restaurant called Doris Metropolitan, one block south of Jackson Square.
That night we tried to view the Endymion super Krewe — one of the biggest parades with gargantuan floats. On Canal Street, we got caught in a crowd that made me fearful of being crushed to death. For the first time, I realized how easy it is to find oneself in such a dangerous situation.
The next morning we had brunch at Arnaud’s — one of the finest things one can do in the world. Arnaud’s is where the old families of New Orleans brunch. Its classic creole cuisine and traditional clientele can only be matched by Galatoire’s at night.
After brunch, we hiked two miles to Jackson Avenue, the traditional Mardi Gras viewing spot of the Ryan clan. Jack Ryan is publisher of the McComb Enterprise-Journal. Born and raised in New Orleans, he never misses a Mardi Gras. He keeps a logbook noting the time and place of every new doubloon he acquires.
It was perfect weather, 68 degrees and clear. The Mid-City and Thoth parades had 70 or so floats. Without even trying, we collected so many beads our necks were getting sore. My daughter Ruth had a blast. We were back home in time for dinner. With all the sights and sounds, our brief 36-hour trip felt like a much longer vacation. It turned out to be a great weekend getaway.
You have to give credit to the people of New Orleans. Just when everybody else in the world is taking a break from the parties of the holiday season, they are just getting started. On many lists, New Orleans is rated the top festival in the world with 60 parades, 1,000 floats and 600 marching bands. It brings $135 million to the local economy. There are no corporate sponsors and the only government involvement is the police department issuance of parade permits.
Tens of millions are spent on beads and trinkets thrown from the floats. There is an effort to recycle the beads using charities that clean and resell them to krewes to use the next year.
During the weekend, my mind floated back to my 20s, a different time, a different space.
A college friend took a semester off and worked on the Mississippi Queen steamboat, making lots of local friends. They invited me down for Mardi Gras 1980.
The night before Fat Tuesday, we tracked down the famous Mardi Gras Indians — African-Americans, excluded from the traditional parades, who created their own special ritual of dressing up like Indians and parading through their inner-city neighborhood.
Our group traveled with them all night long from bar to bar as they beat drums and chanted songs that seemed to come straight from Africa. We danced all night long.
Come morning, we stumbled out of a honky tonk only to find the area cordoned off with hundreds of tourists snapping photos of the Mardi Gras Indians, us included. Ah, youth! So strange to be back as a dad.
Emmerich is editor and publisher of The Northside Sun in Jackson and president of Emmerich Newspapers.
