Happy Mardi Gras

Today New Orleans is expecting the same rainy day forecast with scattered thunderstorms that we are in Arkansas. It will be a wet and wild Mardi Gras.
Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, is always the day before Ash Wednesday. Every year like Ash Wednesday and Easter, the date is different.
Easter Sunday is the Sunday following the Paschal full moon. Ash Wednesday is always 40 days before Easter. Mardi Gras is the day before Ash Wednesday.
The beginning of the Mardi Gras season is always the same, Jan. 6, the twelfth night after Christmas. Twelfth Night is better known as the Feast of Epiphany.
In New Orleans the Twelfth Night Revelers dress in costume, ride the St. Charles streetcar and throw doubloons and beads to crowds as the TNRs make their way toward their ball. This is considered the first parade of the Mardi Gras season.
Mardi Gras is a French tradition but many countries celebrate the last day before lent. The British Isles have Pancake Day. The Spanish have Martes de Carnival. Today is also known as Shrove Tuesday. Shrove is the past tense of shrive, absolution for one's sins by confession and penance.
The Point-du-Mardi-Gras where brother explorers Jean-Baptiste de Bienville LeMoyne and Pierre d'Iberville LeMoyne celebrated the first Mardi Gras in Louisiana is now under the Mississippi River adjacent to Plaquemines Parish. The first Mardi Gras in Louisiana was March 3, 1699.
When Mobile, Alabama became the territory capital in 1702 the town celebrated Mardi Gras, the capital moved to Biloxi in 1720 bringing Mardi Gras with it, finally the festivities spread to New Orleans in 1723 when it became capital. Mardi Gras found a long term home for the big celebration.
Mardi Gras colors are purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power. LSU picked purple and gold for its colors from Mardi Gras, that just left green for poor Tulane.
Along the bayous of Louisiana the Cajuns celebrate the Courir de Mardi Gras, the run of Fat Tuesday. The captain rides on horseback with his revelers to beg households for ingredients to make a communal gumbo. It is not unusual to see a reveler chasing a chicken or a pig with the homeowners permission. Everyone is invited to the square to feat on the gumbo.
This year the concentration of parades in New Orleans started on February 19 with the Krewe du Vieux parade in the Marigny triangle and the lower French Quarter. This rag tag parade krewe is on foot pushing shopping carts.
Before the culmination of the season today, there have been 55 parades in the metropolitan New Orleans area. The number includes a dog parade, Barkus. (One year Lee and I and our dog Wags marched in Barkus.)
The parades are in the French Quarter, Metairie, Uptown New Orleans, the West Bank, Mandeville, Chalmette, Covington, Slildell and Mid-City. The risque costumes preferred by television coverage are in the French Quarter. All other areas of the city are family-oriented.
It is not uncommon for generations of a family to stake out the same patch of neutral ground on parade routes year after year. The families park a pickup truck along the route and set up a barbeque grill and furniture in preparation for the big day.
A prized possession is a friend with bathroom facilities on Napoleon or St. Charles Avenues.
Mardi Gras day costumes are fun. They can run the gamut from simple to extraordinarily elaborate.
The King of Mardi Gras is Rex. Comus is the last ball of the season, it is Mardi Gras night. During the day Rex meets Zulu symbolic of bringing all the races together for the Mardi Gras celebration. At the Comus ball, Rex and Comus declare the end of the Mardi Gras season together.
Comus was founded in 1856. Rex is the oldest krewe still parading, it was started in 1872. The members of Rex are all men belonging to the Boston Club.
On Mardi Gras day King Rex's parade float stops in front of Gallier Hall on St. Charles Avenue to toast his queen and to receive the keys to the City of New Orleans. The identity of King Rex and his queen are kept secret until Mardi Gras day.
The past queens of Mardi Gras are honored with special flags flown in front of their homes during the Mardi Gras season. There are a few stately mansions on St. Charles Avenue with more than one flag soaring in the winter winds. Here, generations of women in the old families have had the honor of being Queen of Mardi Gras.
However the natives spend their day celebrating Mardi Gras, the next day they will be found in area churches repenting their sins and partaking of lunch at Galatoires in the French Quarter. No reservations here. Lunchers must stand on line and wait their turn for the traditional and very delicious white meal. No meat on Ash Wednesday, just fish with lots of creamy sauce to help settle the stomach.
Next year Mardi Gras will be February 21.