It's Mardi Gras day in New Orleans!
The first picture is of me, my Dad and brother when I was one years old. It was Mardi Gras day and I was a rabbit. My big brother was Zorro.
The second one is my cousin Missy, my brother and me on Mardi Gras day. Missy is the clown, my brother is Spider Man and I am the jockey.
Today is Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. My hometown of New Orleans, which was devastated last September by hurricane Katrina has decided to go ahead with the celebration. I have mixed feelings about this decision. However, no-one consulted me on this, so I guess I don't really have a say in it (jk). What I do have are some fond memories of yearly family dress up times.
When I told a friend recently that I used to march as a majorette in Mardi Gras parades she asked me if I bared my chest. (Well those aren't exactly the words she used but I don't want to put the exact words on my blog.) I was a little shocked by the question, (I was 10, 11 and 12 at the time) but I realized that this is the perception that most people have of the celebration. And they may by right; I haven't been to Mardi Gras since the seventies. I imagine there were wild, drunken parties back then and I'm sure it's gotten worse.
I do know that my family and our neighbors enjoyed a family fun time of dressing up in costumes, yelling "throw me something Mister" to the floats and seeing how much "loot" we could collect. The "loot" consisted of plastic necklaces, trinkets and baubles; but the biggest prizes were the doubloons. Doubloons are gold silver and mulit-colored souvenir coins that commemorated the parade. I remember that even back then you would never reach down to pick up a doubloon that landed on the ground because someone might stomp on your hand. You had to be the first one to step on it and then carefully pick it up.
Later on when I began marching in the parades, I remember the challenge of marching for five or ten or twelve miles, carefully trying to avoid stepping in horse manure. I remember the thrill of doing our baton twirling routines with its kicks and swirls to the crowds in the bandstands. I have fond memories of Mardi Gras.
Today, I pray for a city at a crossroads. The events of the previous year challenge me to repentence and prayer for my hometown. I pray that the city recovers, not back to the way it was, but to righteousness. I can only imagine what it's been like to lose a home and all its memories.
I read an interesting article this morning on MSN about Mardi Gras traditions. Here it is if you're interested in reading more:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11525571
6 comments:
Okay, the first picture is lost in the ether. I'll have to fix it later!
For some reason it disappeared when I published it. I just reloaded it, so there it is! I was writing and loading during homeschool so it was hard to concentrate on it. I have others from when I was a majorette somewhere but they're packed away and I didn't have time to go searching. I got a new scanner so I'm having fun posting the old pictures.
Sweet pictures. I applaud the people of New Orleans for carrying on the tradition this awful time. I know it was controversial, and I'm not surprised you had mixed feelings about it, but listening to the coverage of the celebration just made me admire the determination of the people there. Long live New Orleans!
Great pics, Karie! I also like your third-grade picture with those glasses.
-Marilyn
Do you like the pictures? I have a whole story about the glasses in my third grade picture that I will put on the blog sometime.
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