Preparing For Parades on Lundi Gras

Not only is Mardi Gras a legal holiday in Louisiana, but so is Lundi Gras, the Monday before, and kids are out of school and a lot of people off from work. Finding places to eat can be more difficult than usual, so I was thrilled to see that my favorite breakfast spot, the Who Dat Coffee Cafe in the Marigny neighborhood, was open with a full menu. Thus fueled for the day, my homeboy Darren from the TBC Brass Band and I headed uptown to check out the parade route along St. Charles Avenue, on a day that was gloomy and overcast, yet a balmy 73 degrees. This was my first Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and I soon learned some interesting facts. People will start showing up at 5 in the morning to stake their claim to neutral ground or sidewalk space along St. Charles Avenue, using either lawn furniture, or elaborate, decorated ladders that seem designed uniquely for the purpose. The latter had brightly-colored wooden boxes at the top, presumably for catching beads or doubloons thrown from floats during the parade. A few people had set up tents, and some people were already sitting in their chairs along the route, even though it was only around 11 AM, and the parades were still five hours away, their start times moved up an hour due to the threat of rain. I also learned about “bead trees”, small trees along the parade route covered with beads instead of blossoms. I actually wasn’t sure whether the trees “catch” the beads as they are tossed from floats, or whether people throw beads into them on purpose, but either way, they are beautiful. Almost no tree along St. Charles Avenue was completely devoid of beads, and homeowners along the route had used them to decorate their wrought-iron fencing. Most houses were thoroughly decorated for the holiday as well, suggesting that Mardi Gras has the same importance as Christmas in New Orleans. A few of the larger groups along the parade route had set off their locations with tents, and one of these had a rudimentary brass band of a sort playing on the neutral ground. Darren and I walked all the way to the corner of St. Charles and Napoleon, and then made our way back to a spot just outside the Krewe du Brewe coffee house, where we posted up for the start of the earlier parade, known as Proteus.