Carnival

Carnival is the accurate, though old, name for the Mardi Gras season.  Contrary to popular use, the last day of the Mardi Gras season isn’t Mardi Gras Day, it’s Mardi Gras (which literally translates to Fat Tuesday).  And the holiday season which starts with the Krewe of Twelfth Night on January 6 and ends on Mardi Gras some time in February or March, is called Carnival. 

 

Also known as “the greatest free show on earth”, Carnival lasts several weeks.  For a few weekends before Mardi Gras, parades happen all over the greater New Orleans area, and then the last 2 weeks, there are night parades on the weeknights as well as the weekend.  The excitement grows til Mardi Gras, when the King of Carnival, Rex, parades.  And with the truck floats (which are exactly what they are called) following, parading goes on all day.

 

When I grew up, Mardi Gras was a day off from school for us and from work for my dad.  The whole city, including the U.S. Post Office, is closed for Mardi Gras.  My family always went downtown.  As children we expected to, and were expected to, put on costumes.  The costume parts were in the same box we used for Halloween, but the Mardi Gras costumes didn’t have scary themes.  The box, big and a sallow yellow, had held curtains.  I don’t remember too many of the costumes.  A Judy Jetson mask, and that my dad would sometimes take a wine cork and light the end with a cigarette lighter, then snuff it out, so that by rubbing it on our faces, we had a “beard”.

 

Mardi Gras was always a family affair.  In the early days we went downtown with my great aunt, affectionately called Nanny, and her husband.  She worked in a bank downtown and that was our place to use the restroom.  And in case you don’t know, while you are watching the parade, you are yelling for the float riders to “throw you somethin’”.  This is usually beads, but it can be other trinkets, like giant whistles, small (3”) footballs, and giant pairs of sunglasses.  (Many years later, a lady on a float threw me panties).

 

But back to the late 50’s.  While we got ready, my mom prepared the food.  We always used the same Jax beer cooler.  The cooler must have been sat upon or stepped on one year, because I remember the top was sort of crushed.  The main compartment was filled with ice; this is where beverages - soft drinks (Yankees say “soda”) and beer - went.  Above this was a tray where sandwiches were kept.  These were usually ham on white bread with mayonnaise, with maybe lettuce and tomato.  All the other food (mostly potato chips) was taken in Schwegmann’s bags.  All the food was cheap.

 

We would head downtown pretty early … maybe 8 o’clock.  We always went on St. Charles Avenue near Lee Circle.  This is the family area, and the drunken, vulgar craziness is many blocks away on Bourbon Street.  There was one ladder where my two little sisters took turns, with my dad “standing anchor”.  I don’t think we had the ladder while I was little.  We stayed until mid-afternoon, from Rex through most of the Elks trucks and maybe even into Crescent City trucks.  The last time I went to watch Mardi Gras, that seemed like a lot of hours.

 

I went with the family from early childhood until I was 15 or 16.  After that, I don’t remember.  I maybe didn’t care anymore (was worried going to Mardi Gras with the family wasn’t “cool”) and stayed home.

 

A particularly fun thing that happened some years is that, as we were driving home on the expressway, we would pass truck floats also on the way home, and we would “play mardi gras”, with the people in the floats throwing beads to us in our car.

 

The next day was Ash Wednesday.  Carnival was over.  It was time to go to church, get marked with ashes and give up something for Lent.  And wait for Easter, which was a long 40 days away.